There is a happy middle ground somewhere between "SEO douchebag" and "engineer scornful of effective marketing."
Why should Google pick your review for e.g. Scott Pilgrim over every other review on the Internet? Is it better written? Who will attest to that? Is it from a better brand than Rotten Tomatoes or a more trusted voice than Roger Ebert? Is it better designed? Does it have a voice or perspective that speaks to an audience which Rotten Tomatoes and Ebert tragically ignore? If it does, why aren't people mentioning so?
Go down the line for everything else you do: is this the best cat picture on the Internet? What attests to that? Is this the best Java framework tips on the Internet? What attests to that?
More broadly, is there a market niche for someone who is a bit of a Java programmer, a bit of a film critic, and a bit of a cat photographer, and will it support you against the competition from people who make it their mission in life to do funny cat photos?
Also, is it a good idea to get into these particular niches? LOLcats are are commodity business: any idiot can make them, many do. Reviews are a commodity business unless you are Roger Ebert: I can't name another reviewer in the entire world, and if you randomly pulled sentences from your review and the 15 other reviews of Scott Pilgrim that I read because I have far too much free time, I think it is highly unlikely that I will be able to identify your review. Or anyone else's, except Ebert.
Java programming tips are, potentially, not a commodity business. You could either go StackOverflow (community, comprehensiveness, etc are value adds) or you could go Subject Domain Expert For Japanese Entrance Examination File Formats in Java. But, at the other end of the scale, "opinions about the new Java release from someone who is not Knuth, Gosling, or Alan Turing back from the dead" is a commodity business.
Commodity businesses are bad places to be if you want quality to win out, because minute differentiations in quality are essentially unimportant in commodity businesses. There are many, many IP-based businesses where minute differentiations in quality mean 100x differences in returns. If you like quality, you probably want to be in one of those instead.
"If I wrote it, they will come" is not a marketing strategy.
Maybe folks have never done this exercise before, and it is instructive and won't step on anyone's toes, so let's go over the rankings for [Scott Pilgrim review] and guess why they rank
#1: Rotten Tomatoes. Megabrand in the movie review space, plenty of content, and they aggregate all the other reviews you could possibly want.
#2: http://www.ugo.com/movies/comic-con-2010-scott-pilgrim-revie... In a just world, this would be probably #1. They have a comic book design for the review. They have better images than most of the reviews, which just recycle the same publicity kit, and they integrate them better. They link to content readers will find quite compelling, such as "Every Video Game Reference in the Scott Pilgrim Comics." A random newspaper reviewer in Kansas isn't chasing that stuff down.
#3: 1UP review of the video game. Three words: "query deserves diversity", which is Google's way of saying "Hey, maybe they actually didn't want a review of Scott Pilgrim the movie. That query was ambiguous. Maybe they meant the videogame instead. In that case, we should surface a few results on the front page so they don't get frustrated." It isn't a particularly compelling review, but it is a less competitive niche and a noted brand.
#4: Internal Google callout for Google News results. This is their sop to a dying industry which has worse problems than you ever will, for similar reasons which are exacerbated by their cost structure. The current best ranked review from Google News is from the University of Dayton's school newspaper. It is as good as one would expect.
#5: Wiki. More pagerank than God. Very, very internally optimized. Content is a poorly written but comprehensive plot summary.
#6 ~ #10: ... you get the idea.
Now, I'm not going to mention your site if you don't want to mention it, but I read your review. Do you have a sense of where a blind oracle with perfect knowledge of content quality would put it in these results? I have an opinion. Be that as it may, can you economically make your review look more like the #2 guys here? If not, why are you competing with them?
After almost 5 years of doing this and thinking the tide would change "any day now" for the better, I can see now that it will never change... sans bits of income here and there, I will never support my family doing this or create the working environment I've always gunned for, for a few dedicated authors.
That pretty much blows.
Your replies couldn't be more detailed or to the point... or right. I appreciate that... and I might add that you really have a way with words, I agree with the other replies saying you should write this stuff up if you don't already... or give advice to startups or something.
I don't have the time/resources to compete with UGO, Tomatoes or 1UP. And no, I have no idea what it would really take to differentiate myself enough to offer that unique pizzaz to cause someone to bookmark and always come back for their movie reviews (or toilet reviews... or whatever the heck I review that day).
You described it pretty succinctly and to answer the nail in the coffin: "Why are you competing with them?", I was never trying to... I was trying to do something I loved and turn it into a profession.
You know, that crap about "do what you love and the money will follow?" -- but now that I look through your points I realize that I have to face the fact that I am competing with these guys... in as much as I'm trying to make money from this, so I have to get my racing jersey and stand at the starting blocks.
I'm gonna read through the rest of the replies now. For what it's worth your words have helped a random dude on the internet take some time to think about what the hell he wants out of all this.
You can still make money publishing on the Internet. I despair of it for generic commodity content at non spam scales, but half of my SEO buddies are essentially niche publishers. (I probably can't name specific niches, but let's say "Christmas cookies" or "green DIY household projects" or "classic bicycle parts" for rough example of the scale.)
My business is niche publishing if you squint at it: I compete directly with Scholastic Publishing on one very narrow product category, bury them at it, and monetize with ads for a related niche software product.
It is tagged and categorized fairly richly (via WordPress) and then Guides, Movie and Video Game reviews all called out onto separate pages. Once you are there it is pretty easy to find something you want, but visiting the site every day or reading it's feed does absolutely give you a mish-mash of just about every topic on the planet... it covers my interests, which are all over the map.
Back in the early days it was almost exclusively about tech, HDTV and video games because that is what I was focused on for the first year in my personal life... since then it has widened up quite a bit.
There is even a guide on how to lay laminate wood floors in there because I spent a few weeks doing that with my wife... why wouldn't I want to write that up? It was a lot of work.
It really rubs me the wrong way to think I'm actually being punished by doing that... that had I left those 1-off topics out, I'd have a successful tech site... but as soon as I add that extra content, well then it drags the whole effort down.
Logically, I get it... it makes sense. Another replier pointed out that it kills the grep-ed-ness of the site, not knowing what you are going to get. Makes sense... but there is still this part of my brain that is like "why? why would that HURT it?"
I'm trying to jam my "passion" and my "profession" into the same box and make it all fit, and it's not fitting... and that makes me want to smash the whole box and set it on fire.
Perhaps if you're willing to let other folks look in the box and see what they have, you'll not only get a honest assessment but also some advice on what it holds for you?
I don't think I'm that person. But many folks here are.
I wish I could upvote your indvidual descriptions.
> #5: Wiki. More pagerank than God.
This one would have got most Karma. Wikipedia is an excellent example of self-generating pagerank. More people link to it because anybody can edit it, hence would be "fair" and "comprehensive". And just because a particular Wiki article gets popular, it starts getting more attention (by experts) and hence becomes fair, comprehensive and detailed. The cycle repeats.
Patrick, you truly are a boon to this community. Good combination of sense/compassion (my reply to this would have been lacking on the compassion front).
The bummer of the SEO world (which I can't decide how Google will solve) is that the "more pagerank than God" sites can churn out mediocrity and immediately rank higher than higher quality stuff. Mashable is more linkworthy just because it's Mashable. They toss out a Scott Pilgrim review and it gets hundreds/thousands of retweets, likes, and links... More than anyone else on the topic. They get the links, not because it's the best review, but because of the SEO foundation they've built and the link-engine they have in place.
SERP placement seems to be self-sustaining-- to assail a trusted site's position, it seems like you need content that is way more than merely better.
Patrick, if your "day job" as a bootstrapped ISV doesn't pan out (not hardly I bet) I think you have a backup career in the wings of doing startup/internet advice blogging. You rock, man. Thank you for all the great comments here on HN.
It is unlikely I will ever blog professionally. Writing feels like work, and promotion like stressful work that I suck at. The pay for blogging is horrendous, and every reason I gave him that is a problem for his business is a problem for me. There are a couple of thousand or tens of thousands of people in the startup space, there are a huge number of bloggers publishing at a prodigious rate, and my odds of being Best In The World for it are pretty low. I mean, we have different beats, but competing against the likes of pg or 37signals on a daily basis does not strike me as a desirable positioning.
Consulting makes a much better choice as a backup career. Clients have huge budgets for provable ROI. (I do most of my work for Italian restaurants, in the metaphorical sense, rather than folks buying bulk ramen.) Enough people trust me these days to fill a pipeline to where I like it. It even might scale if I wanted it to. Thomas can explain that better than I can.
Less stress, less work, better pay, and if I want to continue blogging I can write off the hosting as lead generation on my taxes and get $3 back. What is not to like. Well, working several hours in a row for other people on their schedules, which is why I do software. Still, it makes a good Plan B.
ah! wallflower that is it... I couldn't put my finger on it, but that is what Pat does. Breaking complex topics down into a bunch of edible nuggets with examples and clarifying content.
That is an art.
I am actually good at doing the opposite... I can add fluff and content to complicate a simple topic to the point of tears.
It isn't so much an art and I have not yet figured out how to monetize it. I should probably be a senator ;)
Why should Google pick your review for e.g. Scott Pilgrim over every other review on the Internet? Is it better written? Who will attest to that? Is it from a better brand than Rotten Tomatoes or a more trusted voice than Roger Ebert? Is it better designed? Does it have a voice or perspective that speaks to an audience which Rotten Tomatoes and Ebert tragically ignore? If it does, why aren't people mentioning so?
Go down the line for everything else you do: is this the best cat picture on the Internet? What attests to that? Is this the best Java framework tips on the Internet? What attests to that?
More broadly, is there a market niche for someone who is a bit of a Java programmer, a bit of a film critic, and a bit of a cat photographer, and will it support you against the competition from people who make it their mission in life to do funny cat photos?
Also, is it a good idea to get into these particular niches? LOLcats are are commodity business: any idiot can make them, many do. Reviews are a commodity business unless you are Roger Ebert: I can't name another reviewer in the entire world, and if you randomly pulled sentences from your review and the 15 other reviews of Scott Pilgrim that I read because I have far too much free time, I think it is highly unlikely that I will be able to identify your review. Or anyone else's, except Ebert.
Java programming tips are, potentially, not a commodity business. You could either go StackOverflow (community, comprehensiveness, etc are value adds) or you could go Subject Domain Expert For Japanese Entrance Examination File Formats in Java. But, at the other end of the scale, "opinions about the new Java release from someone who is not Knuth, Gosling, or Alan Turing back from the dead" is a commodity business.
Commodity businesses are bad places to be if you want quality to win out, because minute differentiations in quality are essentially unimportant in commodity businesses. There are many, many IP-based businesses where minute differentiations in quality mean 100x differences in returns. If you like quality, you probably want to be in one of those instead.
"If I wrote it, they will come" is not a marketing strategy.