Plum7.com - top 3 on Google Search within a month!

We started 'plum7.com' as a family project during the 2008 Christmas break and beta launched on Jan. 22. We are slowly building traffic by word of mouth and basic search engine optimization. At this point, over 50% of our visits are coming from organic search results (meaning not paid traffic) and referrals from sites like StumbleUpon and Digg.

Today, two weeks after our beta launch, we discovered that we have already achieved the top 3 position at Google search for "top 10 pop songs" for the weekly top 10 music page (with official videos, funny parodies, lyrics, karaokes, and line dance videos), beating big names like Apple/iTune, Google/Youtube, Time.com, video.aol.com, and about 22,100,000 other web pages!

We have helped CadPointInc achieved the top organic search results at Google, Yahoo, and AOL in 2007 -- it remains on the top today, and it's great to know that we can still do it! Of course, our work have just begun, and there are still a lot of things we are planning to do (and we are having fun!). We'd like to do a checkpoint and share with you the tools we have used so far (they are mostly free):

• Content Management System (free): Joomla with php and mysql database with basic template.
• Analytics (free): Google Analytics for tracking and analysis
  
• Revenue (free registration): Google Ad Sense, Amazon Affiliate, and many travel affiliate programs from Commission Junction (We have only gotten a few dollars from Google so far, and we need to seriously consider either optimizing the affiliate conversion or drop those programs... any comments?)
• Search Engine Optimization - keywords: very basic stuff like put meaningful keywords in page URLs, page titles, page descriptions, keyword sections, title of links, and title of images
• Search Engine Optimization - search submission: submit new pages to Google, Yahoo, MSN, StumbleUpon, and Digg. (We have not even submitted to the big directories yet!)
  
• Word of mouth: Email to friends/family, put links in signatures (email and web forums)
• Hosting: Servage.net $6.45/month for hosting with 510GB and $14.95/year Domain registration (with free Privacy, better than Godaddy.com)
  

Even though this is a very new site with a few weeks of history, (and pagerank of zero), we think our weekly top 10 music page was able to get to top 3 organic search ranking because:

• It's a content/information rich page with official video, funny parodies, lyrics, karaoke, and line dance videos,
• It's a keyword rich page with meaningful keywords in page URL, title, description, images, links while not 'spamming' or stuff keywords with density that's too high.
• It's a timely page with weekly top 10.
  

Page performance:

• 27% Home Page
  
• 31% Music Section
• 19% Travel Section
• 18% Dance Section - this is a new section with almost no promtoion
  
• 5% Recipes - we will probably drop this section
  

Here is a distrubtion of current traffic sources:

1. 47% from direct link and email - presumably primarily friends and family, a large perceentage came from Yahoo Mail referral.
   
2. 34% from search engine referral - 95% from Google, with one or two from AOL, MSN, ASK, Kvasir, and Live. Surprising even though we religiously submit every new article to Google, MSN, and Yahoo, we have zero referral from Yahoo Search so far.
3. 18% from StumbleUpon, Digg, Facebook, and other forums/blog referrals.
   

Concentrated yet wide range of international visitors. The picture on the left is a Google Analytics map showing distribution of visitors in Janurary. So far, most visitors are from California, but it is very interesting to find out that we are already getting visitors from 31 US states, and from 28 other countries ranging from all continents (ok... except Antarctica!).

Ok, that's it so far. We'd like to know your thoughts, suggestions, and questions. Please go ahead and click on the comment and provide your feedback. Thanks!!

The 6 Worst Domain Names EVER! by the E-Commerce Diva Jamila White

These are pretty intelligent and legitimate sounding web sites, right?

• "Who Represents?", a database of agencies for the rich and famous
• Experts Exchange, a knowledge base where programmers can exchange advice and views
• Pen Island, a pen retailer
• Therapist Finder, a directory of counselors
• PowerGen Italia, a power utility company in Italy
• The Mole Station Native Nursery, an Australian plant nursery

Go to E-Commerce Diva Jamila White's site and check out what domain names they came up with!

Web 2.0 Expo 2008 SF - Key Take Aways

Some key take away's from the Web 2.0 from week of 4/21/08 in SF.

• I went to a Facebook Platform Eco session, they ask how much total money is in the FB eco system to a panel of 3 experts, one venture capitalist said over $300MM/year, one successful FB app develop company said less than $10MM, the third said somewhere in-between but closer to $10MM. Most people are primarily talking about ad revenue.

Buzz.

• Windows Live Mesh - finally Microsoft recognize the cloud. they made a very touching video, showing a mother capturing video of her boy diving into the pool, at the same time, the video shows up at dad's portable computer, grand parent's digital picture frame, and cousin's X-box. Basically all connected devices to the data.
  
• Enterprise Web 2.0 - there is a lot of interests in this area but nobody seems to know what it means and how to do it yet. Our company does have an unique niche and approach.
• Mobile (iPhone, Nokia, Tellme, etc) has lots of interest but as Andreessen pointed out, there are no defining standards/players at this time, and we need a monopoly like what Microsoft did to the PC.
• Location based services. Lots of maps and location based services showing interesting ideas (twitter to show where are friends, crime map showing where to buy drugs, geo-coded wiki pages, sensors) but no killer apps yet.

Mood.

• Generally upbeat, we are still at the 'early days' for Web 2.0 and lots to be done.
  
• Marc Andreessen was quoted to be "happy to get a round of funding before the upcoming nuclear winter".

DB Marketing focus - I was looking for the following two things in particular:

1. Viral.

• I was looking hard for platforms for viral that we can use as our next wave of adoption tactic, I did not really find anything. most of them are either email referrals (like some FB apps) or built in to the social network.
  
• Tipping point Myth. New research indicates that centralized ripple-like distribution depending on a few 'Influentials' are not reliable, these influentials are mostly hindsight biased and generally not repeatable for future. The more reliable approach is to use a distributed social network approach with lots of interconnections. (check out a picture of Twitter "Social Graph")
  

2. Targeting

• behavior targeting is the buzz (since most apps don't have profile, they only know what people do), I did not see anything concrete yet, but most people are looking at it from targeted ad perspectives, "people who like to throw sheep and vote this way tends to respond to this kind of ad."
  

eMarketing: Viral Marketing's Video Love Affair

Viral Marketing Tactics with "Great Results" according to US Marketers.




Frequency of referrals...



Price Estimates for Video Clips for Viral Marketing Campaigns:




Source: http://www.emarketer.com/Article.aspx?1004845&src=article2_newsltr