Conference Report - Building a Website

And now for my final report on the Fall Conference I attended in 2010...

Don't you just love a good website?  They're good looking; they're fun to visit; and they get lots of hits.  That's what I want!

In the third and final workshop that I attended, Ashley Thomas Memory shared very useful pointers.  She demonstrated her own website: World of Crepes.  If you'd like to see all her suggestions, check out a version of her presentation in her blog.

She explains the concept of Demand vs. Supply as it pertains to websites.  For any particular topic:

Demand = how many times someone searches that topic
Supply = the number of websites on that topic

If you want to have a lot of hits on your website, all you have to do is pick a topic where there is high Demand (everyone's searching for it) and low Supply (only a few websites available).  This makes sense.  A good goal (she says) is to shoot for a Demand of over 2,000 global monthly searches, and less than 200,000 competing websites.

To determine Supply, all you do is Google the topic.  How many results do you get?  Google will tell you under the search bar.

Determining Demand is a little tougher.  Ashley mentioned that you can buy a commercial product to gather that kind of info.  There are also some free tools, like this one provided by Google AdWords.

Then Demand divided by Supply should give a good sense of how many hits you're going to get.

Let's look at some of my older post stats, and see how well this theory works.

#1) My most successful post is "The Scam - Part 1," which has so far enjoyed a whopping 163 hits (average = 40 a month).  People are finding this entry through the number I mention: 714-551-9581.

Supply (look up "714-551-9581" on Google) = 2,530 results.  Note that my blog appears at about #8 on the list.
Demand (go to the AdWords tool, and type in "714-551-9581") = 73 Global Monthly Searches.

Demand divided by Supply = .02885.  This corresponds to my 40 a month.  (Looks like I multiply by 1400.)

In English: there is very little competition on the topic "714-551-9581".  There also aren't very many searchers.  Out of 73 searchers, about half are finding my blog.

#2) One of my least successful posts is "Review - TRON: Legacy."  I'll try "Review TRON Legacy" and see what comes up.

Supply = 11,300,000 results.  (My blog entry is not in the top 10.  BTW, did you see that the Tron Guy loved the movie?)
Demand = 27,100 global monthly searches.

The formula gives me: 27,100 divided by 11,300,000 times 1,400 = about 3 hits a month.  That sounds about right.  Note that Supply is very high.  There's no way I'm going to attract people with this one blog post alone.

Let's do one more:

#3) "Fun at Tab Williams."  We'll search on "Tab Williams Senior."

Supply = 7,550,000.
Demand = 5,400 (had to go with "Tab Williams" without "Senior").

The formula: 5,400 / 7,550,000 * 1,400 = 1 hit per month.  Wow--a little low.  I'm actually getting around 5 a month.

Well, I'm going to do some more playing around.  If I find a good topic where I'm an expert, and where Demand is high, and Supply is low - then I will have my popular blog post.  I'll let you know what I come up with, and we'll see if this approach actually helps me write a viral post.

Happy website writing to you!
Mel