How do you choose?

[Anna]

Ok, kind of a retoric question maybe but I want input from others anyway.

I have several ideas to NEW swediish toplists that I want to make and I feel passionately for all of them. But I realize that I cant have them all, I will spread myself too thin. So I have to prioritize. Do here are some questions for you guys to help me do that. Some are pretty basic, some are hoefully more advanced:
1) What is the best/easiest way to monetize a toplist? Cam it be a primary source of income or only secondary tool to generate more traffic? Mind you, I am NOT talking any larger sums (although it would be nice) - mainly to cover for the yearly cost for the domain....
2) How do I minimize the amount of maintainence and supervision needed without making the list vunerable for spam and hackers?
3) How do you make the choice between which ranking method to use in the end? I know that hitsIn are the best way to gain traffic, but for many of my users it just is not orgamic enough...
4) So in the end the $ 1 million question is: How do you KNOW that a specific nische might be large enough to become a successfull toplist?

 

[Mark]

1) affordable premium membership and smart adsense integration has always worked well for me in the past.

2)keeping spam out from the start is VERY important.
a) keep the "reviews" disabled, or use disqus or facebook comments as those seem to see less spam (for now anyway)
b) enable recaptcha + security question. In the near future VisioList will also maintain our own internal black list instead of relying on the current 3rd party blacklist, when that is launched report all spam submissions

3) IMO "hits in" is the only fair and fully organic method, there isnt exactley a lot of choices in this matter. Hits in allows small sites to rank high if they are smart about it, this is what makes that method the most common.

4) nearly any niche is big enough I think, the key is getting a couple of the more popular sites to join first then the rest will follow. I have built topsites for clients in very small niches (or so I thought), they grew nicely to a couple hundred members sending good traffic each day. Its never easy starting from scratch.

 

[Anna]

Thank you Mark!
1) Define "smart adsense inegration" for a someone who actually never used it.
3) I kind of stuck on this one. I hear what you are saying and I DO agree with what you are writing. But with my current list as an example, I' ll be damned if I could find a way to reach the users to make them understand how important it is from their side of it. When I used it was more of a "most computoers (=clicks in) won"..... I am thinking it has a lot to do how I do present the list from the start with. With this one I prioritized FINDING new blogs to read over getting more readers and hence maybe users do not see it as that...? *SHRUG* Thinking that next list I will present as primarily a tool to gain more readers. Then new users will understand better what is demanded from them to gain better stats?

 

[Mark]

smart adsense integration means putting ads where they will be clicked the most. Here is a nice page from google to help get you on the right track:
http://support.google.com/adsense/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1354747


when you give your members the link code, it would be a good idea to give them some tips on how to make the most of it. Things like: DONT put this button in your footer or anywhere else it will rarely be clicked". The more unique clicks you send, the more new traffic you will get back.

Another thing (and this might make a great plugin) is to notify members who are not sending many clicks, and give them a tutorial on how to better place the button to generate more clicks which leads to more new traffic for them. You might really need to explain just how a topsite list works to those who are unfamiliar with it to get things working optimally.

 

[Anna]

Thank you Mark!
That link is a keeper!
I ralising now that the "damage" on my first website most likely is in-repairable, since I invited members in under different pretences. In the beginning it was more a show-and-tell place more than a traffic generator. Have to ponder if there is some strategy to repair that and make sure that next list is described right!

 

[Mark]

hmm.. "show and tell" sounds like a really nice direction though... one of the early goals with VisioList was to encourage members to share content via feeds and widgets rather than the traditional topsite stuff like I am talking about with traffic etc. I wonder how we can bring more of a show and tell idea and make the members want to spread it.. I wanted to have various bits of information (like posts, photos, articles etc) "voted" for... while the overall site that contributes the most voted for "info bits" is the top ranked on the list. Kinda hard to explain but this has been a long running idea, but I'm still not 100% sure on exactly how it should work... but just thinking out loud, I think this show and tell direction is a good one to combine with the traditional topsite stuff movign forward

 

[Anna]

I see where you going! Most of my members are actually gained from a facebook grp Here is me thinking out loud: So, we want to show and tell our lists, right? Or the members to show and tell right? Basicly we want them to "Like" us, as they can any page on FB? Correct? To be able to share interesting tidbits from the list? So basicly we need a new ranking method: Likes/shared?! And a method to count how many times the list and specific members have been liked/shared during any given timeperiod. And also a way to give +1 for each time your site is shared. And when you read something AMAZING on a members blog you can recommend it to people on eg FB and that site get list-credits as well?! Is this what you had in mind? Whats the complication: To bone out HOW it should work or to GET it to work at all tech-wise?
I like this!

EDIT: OK I keep on thinking out loud! What is it you were after with your original idea? More interaction WITHIN the toplist? Or more interaction OUTSIDE the toplist (like sharE/like/recommend to facebook) If it was the first - have you ever considered implementing some social networking script? Or would that be too complex?

EDIT 2: I vaguely remember someone here on the community suggesting a ranking/reward system with trophies and whatnot. Since I for my life cant find that particular post I can not remember your respons to it (hope it was positive), but I have a spin off to that: I saw on the demo that individiual members do have a like button. But that is an one time only thing. Is it possible to add a recommend button or similar that can be used to promote a site multiple times? And connect it to some internal ranking system as well?
Now I am done. I think/hope....

 

[Mark]

yes your on the same page we want more return visits to the VisioList, we want tidbits content being added regularly by members, and we want members to encourage their visitors to click that vote button/widget on their page. This keeps plenty of traffic moving through the list.

So yes a like/shared ranking method would be in order, but we need to think carefully how this is implemented. We could just knock off the Google+/facebook/twitter idea... but I think we can do better somehow.

I think the goal has to be more interaction BOTH within the toplist and outside the toplist, I actually created a social networking mod for Aardvark topsites (though I never released it publicly) that was eventually to be released for VisioList. You can see a demo here: http://www.animelodge.com/index.php?a=stats&u=anime-movies (forgive the poor design )

Basically this particular topsite has some neat new features.... as you might notice there is no traffic stats being kept at all, rankings are sorted by "activity".. Activity earns the members "credits"

here is what you members of that list see in the user control panel, basically they can spend credits to enhance their listings...

Credits (109979)

Credits are awarded for:
- Making Contacts - (+100 credits)
- Comments (+100 credits)
- Clicks in from your website (+150 credits)
- Member Referrals (+50 credits)

Dont have much traffic yet? Want credits now to start promoting your site? no problem, you can also buy credits. The current cost is: $5 for 10000 credits.
Click Here To Buy Credits


What can you use credits for?


- Bigger Banner - Upgrade your 88x31 micro button to a full 468x60!

- Member Avatar - 50px image for your profile

- Embed Video - Make your stats page special by adding a video!

- Deep Links - Turn your stats page into an index of your web sites most important pages!

- Site Wide Advertising - Advertise on the rest of our pages and MAXIMIZE your exposure.



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When a few members are active it really makes the list active as it emails the users when someone has added them to their contacts list, posts a comment for them etc. Worked quite nice and would work better if an admin were actually working on making the list better (I really wasnt, just wanted a place to work on a social networking mod...)

but perhaps this is a direction worth coming back to and improving on? I can provide you with user/password if you want to see how this works..

 

[Basti]

Always loved that feature. +1 from me

 

[Anna]

THIS I really do like! I can really feel its versatility and use! I know of own experience how important it is for a social place to be active. Some places can survive better being static than others, say a toplist. But a forum for examples will twindle and die if you do not have any activity or just webmaster writing posts....
What I like about this is that it can be rewarding for all categories of people! If you are really active and conscious about getting more readers here is a goldmine for you to get the oportunity to advertise or be a goldmine. If you are more passive or less understanding around why hitsIn are better than pageviews you can still be rewarded, but less so than the really active one. I can also see a use for it with people that want to try out different features, but not sure if and how it will work. Why pay good money for something that you are not sure will pay off? And some just do not have the money. Then some activity can help them earn credits to try it out for free. I can also see a "join"-bonus for x credits for the new member to be able to try all features out once for a shorter period of time or a commendation for a longtime member. And the really hard core member can buy credits. Nice! Would love to have a sneak peak behind the curtains and yes a deffinitely a +1 from me to add this to VisioList!!!!!