[techmati]

One day I decided to make a site which was going to present my interests, which are technology/computers and also photography, but particularly photography of yachts. I did not think it would be a big deal but i was wrong. Actually it turned out that the majority of visitors wanted to check the yacht photographs and not my technology info. So i had misunderstood the market on that basis.

Everything was ok with the hosting package until I started to post my photographs on Carl's YachtForums.

i was talking with Carl about the large bandwidth that my site started to have since i started posting on YachtForums this month. He said that in the end it would double the bandwidth in comparison to February which was when i introduced some great photos to a competitors forums.

In the end it indeed almost doubled and i exceeded my bandwidth in July and had to upgrade to a more advanced package. We became well ahead of schedule after posting on Carl's forums. Carl joked "even talking about yachts is expensive..."

Anyway internet yachting has become very interesting to me. I just love the community and i like that the internet is becoming well ahead of the magazines with the latest information and photography from every port in the world. The network of yacht spotters in each port that is evolving is incredible. Soon no yacht will escape the spotters camera lens and the days of lost info and missing links are gone. Refits and name changes, newbuilds, they are all documented immediately by the internet spotters before they can be published by the monthly magazines and directories.

The manufacturers can see that this new media is a bandwagon that they have got to join. Everybody is browsing the net in their offices for up to date info about this industry. We have already seen even major owners and their friends, future owners and charterers browsing the forums and asking for information (so we have to be careful what we say ). Everybody wants the info that the forums provide.

Unfortunately I see minor contributions to the forum in comparison with the amount of people browsing the forum. If you can contribute photos and information then please do and you will make a name for yourself on the yachting internet. Join the yacht spotting community and help us have coverage in every major port.

Probably you are reading this and thinking Carl put me up to it but I am just interested to give something back to the forums. If you are in the industry and need promotion then please contact Carl for an ad or give him press releases or photographs and experience yourself the marketing power of the forums.

Check my bandwidth graph below and see in July what Yacht Forums brought to my site. That is 8400 megabytes monthly transfer on a 160 megabyte site. 3580 visits for July!

[AMG]

It is interesting to see how your "free advertising" at YachtForums increases the traffic at your own site. But to avoid "free spamming" we better say that there are still certain rules for publishing industry news;

http://www.yachtforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=2831

[YachtForums]

Following up on the above statement by Lars... this is why we DON'T allow commercial URL's in signatures and posts. We make exceptions on rare occasions to these rules. In the case of Techmati, he has made significant contributions to YachtForums and is a respected member that is NOT using YachtForums to promote his business. BUT, if he gets business from this... he's earned it!

[YachtForums]

Techmati,

If I understand your chart correctly, you've been posting links to your pictures on the *other* yachting forum in Feb, Mar, Apr, May and June... and you had a nice increase in traffic.

But when you joined YachtForums in July... you posted a few pictures and you DOUBLED your number of hits!!

Cool!

[techmati]

yes that is correct. It is interesting that the "other" yachting forum was on holiday in July so it is safe to say that the majority of hits came from YachtForums resulting in my site exceeding the bandwidth limit!

I do not want to encourage spamming in yacht forums, we do not want to have to sift through lots of spam. My site is not commercial it is just fun. I just wanted to inform others on what was brought home to me... how major YachtForums is.

[Motoryacht]

That's a pretty impressive chart!

Over the past few weeks I've been researching builders on the net. It seems like Yachtforums comes up at the top of a Google search every time. That explains all the traffic, but how did you get this site to the top results for so many searches?

I'm asking this because my IT guys are about to launch a new site and could use some help getting it propogated. Carl, are you for hire?

[techmati]

i can give a few general tips that i have used for commercial sites :

- if you are launching a new brand or site name, make sure that there are no or few hits in google already for that name. or otherwise make sure that your brand is a combination of words that doesnt get too many hits already.

- do not make a complete site in flash. the text is not spidered by google. additionally the long time to load and annoying navigation outweigh the aesthetic benefits of flash. it is also not easily edited by someone who knows only a bit of web design. by all means have some flash animations in the site to give the same effect.

- again regarding flash, do not have your contact details as flash, have them easily copy and pasteable so that someone referring your company can in no time copy and paste them into an email without editing.

- do have a pdf brochure on your site that potential clients can download and print easily or attach and email to other people. keep the size of the file convenient.

- if you use java menus they are also not spidered. in that case maintain a site map that is linked with a html link on your index page and have html links to alll the pages in the site on that site map page. This will ensure that all the pages that were previously linked via java menu are spidered properly.

- read all the content in the site. make sure that all the keywords are covered in the text. rewrite the text to use as many different keywords as possible. Have the title of the page having also keywords.

- content is king. not good enough to have a company site which just says what you do. have industry resources, get personnel to write papers (pdf papers are also spidered for keywords) links pages etc

general site navigation tips : think about the screen resolution of people that will be viewing your site, make it nicely viewable on different resolutions. make sure that the text size is not fixed and can expand if people set their browsers to make text larger

an ugly cheap looking site is probably worse for business than having no site at all. same goes for sites with poor navigation

get a good host, sites should be 24/7 and fast. but no point being fast and cheap using the services of a BIG host when the customer support is not great when things go wrong, especially when the company mail is hosted there also.

[Motoryacht]

Good info. I just printed this out and I'll pass it along. Thanks!

[YachtForums]

Originally Posted by Motoryacht

Carl, are you for hire?

I'd like to help, but I'm working 15/7 on the new YachtForums, in addition to designing a new 150' hull for one of our builders. And when that's done... I've got a deadline pending on a research report for Yamaha.

I had a life once. If anybody sees it, please return it.

[Kevin]

Originally Posted by YachtForums

I'd like to help, but I'm working 15/7 on the new YachtForums, in addition to designing a new 150' hull for one of our builders. And when that's done... I've got a deadline pending on a research report for Yamaha.

I had a life once. If anybody sees it, please return it.

Only 15 hours a day? That's a full 9 hours of waste Carl.

I had a life once too... I think it's backed up on a hard-drive somewhere.

[KCook]

Better the feast than the famine Carl (and are we OT yet? )

[YachtForums]

Sorry for the delay, just getting back...

I know long hours are a way of life for most of us. The projects I do on the side aren’t by choice. They’re strictly to feed a ferocious appetite… YachtForums! It’s probably time to explain a little more about this…

Some of you know I was the managing editor of a magazine (no names please). It takes a lot of people to put a magazine together, i.e., the publisher, editors, writers, graphics artists, IT staff, sales people, and a few clerical workers. Lots of hungry mouths to feed. In addition to these costs, you’ve got printing, distribution and mailing costs. It all adds up.

Believe it or not, you’ll encounter most of the same expenses when publishing an online magazine, with the exception of printing and mailing costs. Otherwise, there is no difference. You are performing the same level of work, although it’s a LOT more technically challenging.

I don’t have the luxury of a staff. Let me re-phrase. YachtForums doesn’t generate the revenue for a staff. So… I wear a bunch of hats, laugh at long hours and do a few projects on the side. But I’m doing this for a reason. I believe YachtForums has the potential to become a popular medium.

But pretty pictures and fancy words aren’t enough. With about a billion websites out there, it takes some hard work to get noticed. But… I had a plan. If I could bring people the latest news with extensive reviews, I thought I might find a few partners... and I did… YOU GUYS! The information, knowledge and experience you guys share… is what makes a site rock.

At least one magazine figured this out and now they use a forum as a tool to gather information that they publish in their magazine. Sadly, the magazine gets the credit for this AND they get the profits. Not a very good deal for the members of their forum.

So… we’re going to do something about that. After the launch of the new YachtForums, I’m unveiling a program that puts members FIRST.

More on this later.

[KCook]

Hello? Is this where we all pause for a pregnant silence?