Progress Thread: ThoughtsVent

[AdamMaxum]

Here's a short background on the journey up to this point for thoughtsvent

- Came up with the idea to pursue thoughtsvent at the beginning of summer.
- Posted on guru and odesk to find programmers
- Conducted interviews, choose a firm, got to work
- Initial version of site launches early August
- Minimal advertising - 7k page views to date with less then $20 ad revenue

My partner posted a thread in august asking for advice on the website and opinions. We concluded that the site needs a minor redesign and added color

What we are currently doing
- Conducting interviews for an added feature + design changes
- Focusing on SEO/social media/advertising strategies

I'll keep this thread updated weekly with any progress we make with thoughtsvent.com.

If you have any questions or suggestions of your own, please feel free to ask/post them.

 

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[Kak]

I dont think ad words can pay for itself with adsense clicks.

That is a delima.

 

[AdamMaxum]

Kak - I don't know what you're referring to. If you mean the 7k page views and 20 in ad revenue...All the traffic was free. We haven't paid for any advertising yet. So we've made around $20 our first month which sucks, but it can only grow in our eyes.

Updates for 9.13.

- Traffic spike last night to the site resulted in a bunch of new posts. It helped us realize some problems that we will face when traffic increases in the future. As a result we will be implementing a feature that either a. limits user abilities to post rapidly. Place a time barrier between posts by same user or b. Before a user can post anything they will be confronted with a signup/signin box. This benefits us in a variety of ways.

- We are replacing the spam button on the right because we feel it is useless. Instead we will change this to a reply button so it's easier to leave comments. We found that users have problems finding or using the comments link, and they were instead posting to leave comments for other posts. We don't want that. The comments box will also be changed as part of the future redesign to make it more interactive.

- We settled on a programmer to add a new feature to the website, and he starts tonight/tomorrow. We feel like it is going to significantly improve the user experience, and add something new that no other website really utilizes. I'm excited, and will talk about it when it's complete.

- We bought a couple fiverr gigs promising to deliver over 15k visitors to our website. We'll see how that turns out.

- We are working on SEO currently, and putting together keywords and phrases. We've created a twitter account and in 3 days have almost 900 followers...you can follow us too here! Other social media is being put together. Also, we are including social media buttons as part of our new redesign coming soon. I will go into further detail on the complete redesign in a future post.

That's it for today. Don't forget to visit ThoughtsVent and leave your own comment. Thanks!

 

[AdamMaxum]

Updates for 9.20.11

- Currently we have a designer working with us to re-design the entire layout of thoughsvent. We're not exactly sure on what color scheme we are going to go with, and are entrenched in the process currently. Included with the design are mods to the buttons, functionality, logo, and other changes we found will be helpful and unique in creating an identity.

- The fiver gigs we purchased have had an increase in traffic like promised. We are hitting 1k visits a day currently. However, the traffic is not contributing to the website itself in terms of sign ups and posts being left. It has also drastically increased the bounce rate on analytics. We were expecting this to happen.

- The programmer we had planned to hire for a new feature has gone MIA. We will have to search for a replacement and repeat the process. Thankfully, he disappeared before we committed any time or money.

- We are thinking of re-focusing the website in a possible new direction. A pivot, if you will. Examination into what 'value' the website is creating or adding is also being looked into.

- The SEO search is underway. We are currently interviewing companies that can help thoughtsvent rank in search engines and increase overall exposure.

 

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[AdamMaxum]

Update 9.29.11

- So we have the design pretty much finalized for the most part. We are removing the "i can relate" and "wtf" from the posts because we think it gives off the wrong impression/image of the site. So those will be gone. You can view it below and let me know what you think.

We strategically placed the banners so that people are apt to click on them more often since it's how we are going to be making money (at least in the beginning). I will talk about functionality at a later date. We are adding some unique features that will vastly improve how users post and communicate.

- We are just about to hire an SEO firm to start generating traffic and search engine rankings. We are being quoted around 150-300 a month for the SEO work which seems reasonable. They all say it's going to take up to 6 months to start seeing real results. At least for the search engine ranks.

We realize that we are going to have to add content aside from the post boxes, such as an area on our site that has articles based on keywords. So we are starting work on that soon.

We are averaging anywhere between 70-100 visits a day now. It depends on a variety of circumstances. The Fiver gigs were bringing us over 1k visits a day, but the traffic was useless in terms of posting/sign ups.

Will update soon. The design is supposed to be done in a week, but i'm assuming that won't be the case. Again feel free to visit ThoughtsVent and leave your comments below on any thoughts you have or ideas that could improve the concept itself. Thanks!

 

[AdamMaxum]

update 10.8.11

So some interesting things have happened with ThoughtsVent..

-Designer lied to me about being able to accomplish everything that we wanted them to do. No surprise really. So I fired them, and paid them for the design you see above. They did all the html and css, and had started implementing it into the php code on the back end. So, we have another guy working on it for us now. If he can't do it, then we'll have to post another job, and find someone who can actually complete what needs to be done

- Google adsense account was shut down.. We are unsure why. They sent an email saying something along the lines of the click on ads were suspicious. We think it may be the fiver gigs I have mentioned that caused this. We have received over 6000 visits from one site alone, and it probably triggered a warning of some kind. We are in the process of appealing the decision. Unsure what will be the outcome. However, we are prepared to substitute adsense ads with other click ads. If anyone has any suggestions, let us know :smxB:

- We've decided on an SEO company for @250 a month. They have over 70+ positive reviews on guru and seem legit. That should be starting Monday. Let everyone know what results come from that.

- We also have a programmer we just hired as well. He is going to add audio, and video to the website. This is one of the new features I referred to in previous posts. What is going to happen is when people click the post button they will be confronted with a drop down that says text/audio/video. They select their option, and then can post accordingly. We thought it would be something unique, and fun to add. It takes away from the anonymous aspect, but were okay with that. We HOPE it should be working within a couple weeks.

- Also, we are adding a new sign up feature. After a visitor comes to the site 5 times, or takes more then 5 actions total, they will be required to sign up/sign in to proceed. A sign up box will pop on the screen, and they won't be able to access the site without signing up. An interesting way to get people to sign up, so we'll see if it has the desired effects, or increases abandonment.

That's it for now. Thanks for following along, and feel free to ask anything.

 

[fellipe]

isn't this the same as twitter?

 

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[hrishikesh]

I am concerned that you do not have a solid business model. If you don't receive massive traffic, your revenue is going to be really thin.

 

[911Carrera]

That's why your entire business should never rely on google adsense to monetize. Sell your own ads. Sell affiliate products thru CJ and amazon.

 

[AdamMaxum]

felippe - yes and no. Yes in that you can post things that are on your mind. No, because it's mostly anonymous. You wouldn't want to post things on Twitter that you are free to post on Thoughtsvent.

hrish - Yes, we are concerned about this as well.

911 - I agree 100%. We have found alternatives to google adsense. There will always be ways to sell advertising space. We decided on using bidvertiser for right now. They have almost all the same options as google adsense, and integrate in the same manner. I don't like affiliate banners as they require not only the click, but a purchase of some kind. Once traffic picks up, we will definitely look into selling space on our own.

update 10.29.11

- So..things have slowed down lately. We junked the design shown properly. We posted a project up on 99designs.com. For $600 I expected more design options to choose from. With that said, we just recently selected the design we like best. On Monday the design should begin being implemented. It would have been sooner, but India takes a week off for the new year i guess. So I'll update this again once the new design is in place. Take a look, and tell me what you think about the design we selected. It's not a final version, but very close to it. We'll probably tweak a little things to match our functionality requirements.

- Notice in the images below the audio and video posts. This is the added feature I spoke about before.

- As stated above, we found an alternative to adsense with Bidvertiser. As traffic grows, we'll look into other forms of advertising as well. Such as selling our own ads.

Check out the design we went with below, and let's hear your comments. Thanks.

 

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