The list of speakers looks rather impressive, and don’t worry if you don’t recognize their names, just look at their titles and the companies they work for. If they don’t have experience in modern media, then who would?

Jacob Blackstock – CEO, Creative Director and Lead Designer, Bitstrips
Richard Bernstein – S.V.P. Managing Director, Arc Worldwide, A Leo Burnett Company
Lisa Charters – SVP Director Digital, Random House of Canada Limited
Colleen DeCourcy – Former Chief Digital Officer for TBWA Worldwide
Douglas Edwards – CEO, ES3
Sabrina Geremia – Head of Agency Relations, Google Canada
Gavin McGarry – President, Jumpwire Media
James Milward – Secret Location
Siobhan O’Flynn – PhD, Transmedia Consultant, Narrative Now
Steve Pratt – Director CBC Radio 3, CBC Radio 3
Chris Van Noy – Chief Strategist, Akamai
Pete Watson – Senior Business Development Manager: Consumer Partners, Research In Motion Limited (RIM) / BlackBerry

I’ve been invited to the event to cover it, and will be publishing posts on a variety of different blogs thanks to the friendships I’ve made over the years. I will hopefully give those unable to attend a good rundown of all that is happening. Check back here the night of the event, as well as the day after.

And if you are interested in attending, you don’t have much time left, so jump over to the Cross Media TO website, and purchase your tickets today!

If I get two competing offers for anything then the first e-mail that I get will be awarded the item. I will not make you compete for highest price or anything silly like that.

I want all of this stuff gone so that I can pay off some bills and make some major changes in my life, so I’d appreciate your support and patience while I go on a selling spree.

If you are looking for sites or domains, please check out my list. If you’d like to purchase anything, just e-mail me at dperalty@gmail.com.

My post today isn’t about my involvement with WordPress though. Instead it is about WordPress itself, and the unfortunate state of the WordPress community today. It isn’t the WordPress community of a few years ago. Things are a mess, and I feel like I need to stand up, one more time, and go over my thoughts on the current state of the WordPress project.

What Made WordPress Great

The things that made WordPress great included its community, the open source ideal, the low barrier for entry, its simplicity, and the excitement of something new. WordPress and its community, back around the time of version 1.5, was energetic. Many people felt like the decisions they were making were helping build a great product, one that would be used by millions of people. Even those that only contributed a theme could eventually find themselves famous within that community. A great example of this, in my mind, is Michael Heilemann.

Many of you might not know this, but the default theme for WordPress was designed, developed, and released by Michael. He spent a great deal of time on the theme, and was honoured to have it become a staple part of WordPress. Everyone thanked him, and nearly every community member, at that time, knew who he was, and where to find his blog Binary Bonsai. Then, as things continued to move forward, everyone forgot about his contribution, and as WordPress aged, people got bored of the default theme. Today, I would hazard a bet that less than five percent of those using WordPress know of Michael Heilemann, and so, it is of no surprise to me that his blog now runs on Habari rather than WordPress.

Automattic: Good and Bad

Back when WordPress was a young project, the idea of creating a corporation around it probably seemed ridiculous to many community members, especially since it was open source, but Automattic came to existence without asking the community if it was a smart idea, or even needed, and it became the controlling power behind WordPress and all related brands.

Then in January 2008, it received Venture Capital funding, and not just a few thousand, or a few hundred thousand, but instead twenty-nine point five million dollars (via GigaOm). Surely, they spread this money around to everyone that has contributed to WordPress, right? Nope, they used the funds to purchase web applications, hire staff, and build out WordPress.com.

Automattic as a company isn’t bad, evil or negative, but they have positioned themselves, especially one of their employees, as gatekeepers over WordPress, and as an open source, community project, I don’t feel that it is entirely right. All corporations, no matter how good their public relations, are focused on one thing: increasing profit.

Do you think that the poking and prodding that Automattic does regarding WordPress, WordPress.com, Akismet, BuddyPress, and the half a dozen other projects they manager, are solely for our benefit? I am not against a company making money, but I think far too many people have an idealized version of Automattic and its pursuits. I’ve found people treating the company as though it were Apple or Linux in such that they feel that the company or idea can do no wrong.

When was the last time that Automattic worked to bring a new project to the foreground, and I don’t mean one that they acquired? They are a business and should be treated as such by the community. I’d hate to see WordPress split in many directions like Linux is today, but we’ve all witnessed what happens in the Linux world when a company decides that their corporate version is the best. I mean, when was the last time anyone installed Red Hat Linux on their desktop? Oh right, the free version doesn’t really exist anymore, and Red Hat Enterprise Desktop is around $80 (Yes, I know about Fedora), and that’s just one of many examples of the commercialization of an open source project.

Think that WordPress will never go commercial, then take a look at WordPress.com. Domain mapping is $10 per year, custom CSS is $15 per year, no ads is $30 per year, and access to VideoPress video hosting is $60 per year, and that isn’t all of the potential upgrades you can purchase.

Matt Mullenweg: Smart Business Person

Matt Mullenweg is probably the smartest person I’ve ever met. His ability to manage his brand image is almost supernatural. Fighting against any ideal he comes up for the WordPress community seems to be like fighting mother nature herself. Matt has made himself the word of God when it comes to WordPress, and millions of people follow that blindly.

When WordCamps started, I wondered how long it would take before the Church of WordPress was created. Matt traveled the world like a holy crusader, talking to his flock about the good that was WordPress. He was their Messiah, and saved them from the horrible web publishing systems of the past.

He isn’t infallible though and has made mistakes. The issue today is that most of the major mistakes he has made either happened before mass adoption of WordPress (Pre-2.0) or have been relatively unknown as they’ve happened behind closed doors, or outcries have only existed on smaller blogs.

Say anything wrong about Matt Mullenweg, and the hordes of his followers would descend upon you taking you to task. Say anything negative about a choice he has made, and you’ll find millions defending that choice, even if they themselves don’t fully understand it.

Back in 2005, Matt added thousands of pages to WordPress.org for the express purpose of using its immensely high Google PageRank to earn money. (Source – Waxy.org)

One great question from that post that really struck me was:

First, do organizers of open-source projects need to disclose how they’re making money off the project? Matt isn’t disclosing anything about this activity to the community. I don’t think anyone would be upset about Matt trying to support Wordpress with outside sources of revenue, but as an open-source project, they should be held to a higher level of transparency. Without the users and developers all working for free, it wouldn’t exist.

Sure, he has apologized for this since then, and swept it under the rug. It has been a long time, but he continues to make project-threatening mistakes which could easily be managed through a small council of source code submitters looking over decisions that could effect the project, the brand, and its future.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve met Matt on a few occasions, and seen him speak. I think he’s a smart guy, and a savvy business person, but the “nice guy” persona that he puts out there doesn’t seem to be quite the same as the person behind the scenes, away from the microphone.

Drinking the WordPress Kool-Aid

So many people are fooled into believing that WordPress is the best blogging platform of our time, but to me, that is like saying Microsoft Windows is the best operating system of our time. While most fans of WordPress will probably fight me on the comparison, I think the similarities are too many to ignore. We have a company that works back room deals in order to get big players on board, makes a fair bit of money through its self-serving attitude, brands itself as something that it isn’t, and is run by a single voice that feels somewhat like a dictatorship. Just because it is everywhere, and there are lots of additions that make it more useful, that doesn’t make it the best.

Matt Mullenweg was great for the project back when it started. He helped it gets its footing, and took care of the project. He was able to quickly navigate the business world so that WordPress could grow into the massive project that it is today, but I think it is time for him to step back and allow those with the community focused ideal that he once held to take over so that he can focus on building his company, and maybe join back in on the community aspect that he seems to enjoy so much.

His single minded approach of what is good for the community is only going to be its downfall. He needs to let go and let the community vote for what it wants. If any portion, no matter how small, wants to purchase themes, plugins and whatever else, then Matt should have no bearing on their decision. His job should be to inform them of their options, market WordPress to the world and contribute code to the project.

Should that code usurp work that premium theme and plugin developers have created, then that’s within his right, but he shouldn’t have any bearing on those third party projects through manipulating the community to see the additions as a negative thing, removing them from the community focal points, downplaying their work, or directly fighting against them in back rooms.

The WordPress community, if it is going to survive, has to evolve, change and meet the needs of everyone, not just those that believe they have the right to vote on behalf of everyone, and especially not by those that want to uphold an ideal.

GPL: It’s the Law

One of the biggest issues in the community right now is GPL. It creates a divide that shouldn’t exist. The idea of GPL is to promote community, and I had hope that it was why Matt stuck to his guns when defending GPL, but unfortunately, GPL does not a community make. If the idea was to promote open source, and give back to the community, then why wouldn’t Automattic release the source code behind Akismet, or the code behind other online services they’ve acquired?

In December 2008, over 200 WordPress themes were pulled from the Theme Repository because they didn’t fit either GPL licensing, or the spirit of GPL licensing. The second half of that sentence is the giant power hammer that Matt Mullenweg and Automattic have over the community. Some themes that were pulled complied with GPL but the creators used the themes to promote non-GPL compliant themes on their own sites. The fact that the themes on the repository had no real bearing on Matt’s decision to have them removed because there was potential to lead people astray from his GPL ideal.

It is assumed that becoming GPL gets you in good graces with Automattic, and after they put up a page for Premium WordPress themes on their site, everyone applauded their decision. Matt had been against Premium themes for a long time, but quickly his tune changed as nearly every developer announced their GPL compliance.

Earlier this year, some Premium WordPress plugins started looking at how they could feel the love from the WordPress community, specifically Automattic, in hopes of having their own page on the illustrious community site, but while Matt changed his tune regarding themes, he was quick to stand fast against any paid plugins for WordPress. His worry that the extendability of his beloved software would become commercialized lead him to publicly state his dislike of such developments.

Plugin developers went on the offensive and made their new additions GPL compliant in hopes of pleasing Matt, but even their hard work to follow his rules left them feeling the cold shoulder.

It isn’t GPL that has become law in the world of WordPress, but instead the ideal of GPL. The “spirit” that things should be given away for free if they are a product, and businesses should be built around service. This “spirit” protects Automattic from having to give away any of their prized jewels, and allows them to charge as they see fit. It allows them to hide behind a shield as they work against companies that seek only to provide powerful additions to the WordPress community. Additions that require one hundred times the effort of earlier plugins, themes and extensions on the WordPress platform.

Conclusion

WordPress and its community has matured. The ideals of Matt Mullenweg and Automattic are becoming a limitation and a hindrance. While they are still great at spinning positive press, and continuing to appease the masses, they’ve lost the spirit of WordPress somewhere along the way, and it is my hope that someone out there will take blogging to the next level through true community building, and the ability to keep an open mind as things change.

WordPress is still a great piece of software, despite all of the flaws in leadership, community, and in the system itself. I have no doubt that it will continue to expand all the while lining the pockets of Automattic, and fulfilling the ideals of a young developer that can’t let go of his community project.

I quickly presented him with my new set of rules.

1. No more writing for other people.
2. Only start projects that I can see myself doing for 5 or more years
3. No more selling projects

Of course there are always exceptions to rules, but I think that following this set of ideals will help me become more passionate and successful online. I’ve always had issues with staying focused, and that was usually because I was chasing money instead of chasing passion or my dreams.

It is hard to be passionate for a long period of time, and even more so when you aren’t doing exactly what you want to be doing. I’ve had numerous people in the past tell me how cool it must be to work as a blogger full time, but they don’t give thought to the types of topics I have to cover in order to pay my wages. I’ve written about so many things I have no interest in, and worked very hard, only to end up at the end of a period of time with “nothing”.

What are your own “rules” for working, either online or offline?

• BargainVine.com
• BrandRant.com
• BrandShoppe.com
• CapitalSeed.com
• DomainStumbler.com
• GoThumbs.com
• HireVine.com
• LessonNetwork.com
• LinkedCareers.com
• LogoSpring.com
• MarketingBits.com
• MatchTask.com
• OptimumPPC.com
• PayPerClickEdge.com
• PictureNest.com
• RSStoMobile.com
• TaskMatch.com

I have to stop buying domains, but I really enjoy acquiring new names. They give me ideas, most of which I’ll never find time to utilize, but all are fun to consider.

I have always thought of myself as an idea person. I am good at coming up with ideas for solutions to problems, or to create new sites.

I don’t think of myself as a domainer, but I definitely own more than my fair share of domain names at this point.

Anyone else suffer this exciting, and potentially expensive “disease”?

AltSciFi.com – This used to be a science fiction blog, in the same vein as a previous one I had. I am a huge fan of science fiction, but I’ve never been able to maintain a blog for the topic, as I’d rather read posts written by others.

BloggingWeight.com – I’ve put on a fair bit of weight over the last four years. In part, I am sure, due to being stuck to a computer desk, my office only thirty-feet from my bed. I blogged on here about my efforts in loosing weight, as well as various other related things. I’ve thought constantly about relaunching this blog, as public scrutiny and accountibility made my weight loss easier.

CellSnoop.com – Maybe a cellular phone blog (like there aren’t enough of those in the world?)

CheatBase.com – Cheat code repository (again, super saturated, but something I am interested in)

CSSFuel.com – CSS/Design Gallery with blog. Many people don’t know this, but at one point in my career, I was responsible for running one of the first design galleries, CSSVault and the site did rather well with my choices.

FeedSEO.com – Maybe something about RSS feeds and the limited search engine optimization issues surrounding them, or a site about SEO, and how to feed it into your site? Not sure, just felt like a good purchase at the time.

HealthNewsFirst.com – Health site, with news from all over North America. With my wife becoming a nurse, these types of topics interest me more and more, especially from a technology standpoint.

PodCastSponsor.com – A service to bring podcasters and businesses together, to try to come up with sponsorship opportunities.

RootBeerHero.com – Yes, I am a Root Beer fanatic. I’ve already put a few posts on here. This is just one of those “fun” things.

SolarHype.com – I love the idea of solar technology, and wish the awareness regarding solar was higher. I don’t feel like there are many good blogs talking about solar technology exclusively. Usually, solar technology is just tacked onto other alternative energy sites.

TabletWatch.com – Tablet Computer blog, maybe Apple Tablet Rumours.

TheBlogJob.com – Blogging related jobs. I’ve attempted to do this before, using WordPress as a platform, but I gave up on it way too soon. I’d love to be the reason why people are able to get a job doing what I’ve loved for the last four years.

I have over twenty different ideas, and already have the domains to follow through on them. Here are just a handful of project ideas that I think have potential and that I’d enjoy doing. I’ll write about more of my ideas in a follow up post.

BuyWPThemes.com – Information on Premium Themes. I would create a gallery of the current theme options available in the premium WordPress theme marketplace, while also tracking changes, updates, news, and maybe even include a few interviews with the creators. I know more than a few of them well, and could put up some interesting details on what they have done, and continue to do. I could also use this as my own personal coupon database for Premium Themes, since I am always spending money on them.

The content would primarily come from the creators of the themes, with my own thoughts, ideas and dedicated posts to fill the gaps. I would also look for people willing to guest post, and pay for some contributions, as there are more thoughts regarding premium themes than just the ones that I have.

The potential for profit might not be very high, but that depends on how many premium WordPress theme affiliate companies I sign up for, and then how many themes I sell through it. Also, if premium theme authors found my site to be decent, some may even purchase advertising.

CelebReader.com – I think of this as being a PopURLS for Celebrity sites, focusing in on the niche, and showing off a handful of the most popular sites latest post titles, images from various sources, and video links from a few popular sources. It would mostly be automated and wouldn’t need much interaction from me besides setting it up, and constantly expanding and improving it.

With content growth next to nothing, since it will be close to a single page site, with no archive, Celebreader might not do well on search engines and whatnot, but could become highly viral if I pick the right blogs, images and videos to put in one place. I worry though that this niche is highly saturated, and those seeking this information will be savvy enough to use an RSS reader or have all of their own personal favourite sites bookmarked already. Growth might be slow, and as such, potential for profit through ad sales on the page would be low, especially in the short term.

LifeSnips.com – I used to own LifeSpy.com, a site I really enjoyed owning and managing. I am a sucker for lifestyle tips, tricks and answering questions. I’ve even already had a design done for this site by James McDonald, the designer that did this blog as well as Blogging Pro. I haven’t yet had the design coded, but it does look amazing.

Content would come from myself, quoted from other similar blogs, and from a stable of bloggers that I’d hire to keep it flowing fast. This niche is also very saturated, but I enjoy it, and I think that because of my passion, it could do very well.

With the expense of hiring bloggers, I feel that potential profit would be very low, but over the long term, the possibilities with this site look very promising.

OneBigCanada.com – Another PopURLs style site, but focusing solely on Canadian content and news. With sections for each province and territory, OneBigCanada.com would cover the country from coast to coast pointing out the popular blogs, services, and news publications available for each area. It would be part directory/index and part start-page for someone wanting to read all about everything going on in Canada. I might separate each area into its own page, with its own focus. I haven’t thought user interface out yet, but I think there is a strong need for Canadians to promote their own country more, and I hope that is what this site would do.

Competition would be fierce, but this is one project where I wouldn’t be looking for major growth, more as just a service for myself and those that find there is a need for such a thing.

TenTopBlogs.com – TenTopBlogs is really my own realization that certain sites list FAR too many blogs to be useful. I’ve focused in on Geek topics thus far, and the site is already built. It needs a design, logo, and branding, as well as some code refinement, and of course it needs all the categories filled out. TenTopBlogs is highly subjective to me, the person running it, but I think that with a proper submission form, I could add blogs that are highly requested, either filling out the TenTopBlogs list for that niche, or pushing out a blog that people don’t feel belongs.

Each section shows off the five latest posts from the ten top blogs in any given niche. I will probably stick to tech and geek topics as they are what I am most passionate about, and what I feel resonates the most with the tech savvy audience I hope to attract.

Direct ad sales to products and services, not blogs would be the source of revenue once traffic was high enough to appeal to advertisers. Profit would be low, but as this is another project I am passionate and personally invested in (custom coded by me), I think it has potential.

WebHostReality.com – This was a project I was originally going to do with someone else. It was to be a blog and site focusing in on the reality of hosting with various companies. Giving tips, tricks, ideas, coupons, and more regarding various services. I’ve re-launched it already to test out the Gravity Forms WordPress extension. I’ve used dozens of different hosting companies since joining the world wide web.

Content would come from submissions, my own writing, as well as some freelance writers. Potential for profit, if I can bust through the high level of saturation in the market, would be medium to high. The hardest part about running such a site is to not promote solely based on the potential income of the affiliate programs. Some of the biggest payouts are by some of the worst web hosts, and some of the best web hosts, do not have an affiliate program. I’d have to use user feedback to make sure various writings are held in check.

So that’s it for this post. Please let me know what you think of them, and while it might seem crazy to you, ideas come easily to me, it is filtering those ideas down to a point where I have only a few projects to work on so I am not overwhelmed that is hard for me. Also, I really enjoy launching new projects, but get frustrated with longer term maintenance of those projects (though I’ve been getting better about sticking with things over the long term).

Note: I don’t plan to build and maintain all of these, they are just ideas that I have domains for. Some have been started, some have not.

Now it is your turn, let me know what you think in the comments below.

Sea Winds of Sea Isle is a website that focuses on a very particular business in a very particular geo-locality. It’s not your ordinary website, and therefore requires a very unique approach with branding, online marketing and visitor conversion.

A good friend of mine, Ryan Caldwell, has recently been put in charge of their online marketing efforts. His main concern is that despite higher traffic then their competitors, the site seems to be lagging in conversions. He was looking for someone to bounce some thoughts and ideas off of, and contacted me to give him an in-depth overview of where the site stands, and what changes or ideas I would make.

After some great back and forth, here is what I have come up with.

History

The site, being only six months old,has the disadvantage of not being well-aged. The search engines place a lot of value in the age of a site. In fact, most websites start off with a major search handicap for the first 9-12 months of their existence. The young age is definitely an obstacle that requires extensive work in order to compete against other, older websites in the same real estate and online rental market. Don’t be fooled by the fact that this is a relatively small niche. Sometimes small niches in valuable local markets are the toughest nuts to crack and worth the most long term value.

As the web ages and the barrier for entry decreases, the number of people competing in any given market is going to grow with time. This is especially true in the real estate industry since most everyone now realizes that the web is the perfect tool for real estate agents to market their business.

Local Search and Citations

One of the reasons that small, regional niches can be tough online industries to compete in is that search engines like Google use different methodologies for determining geo-relevance. Rather than simply looking at the raw strength of a website, they look for what are called “citations” – references around the web which contain some or all of the following information

A – Business Name
B – Business Address
C – Business Phone
D – Business Website

By tracking “citations” search engines can then group websites together which belong to the same general geo-location. The most important sites for any location are going to be the ones with the most citations in the most relevant places.

So what are the most relevant places? Read on.

Directory Submissions

Ryan has done many great things relating to citations in promoting the site, and is already seeing very positive search rankings. He has submitted the site to a few high quality, editorially reviewed, paid directories like Yahoo, GoGuides, Skaffe, Business.com and JoeAnt. These directories, because they involve reviews, are known to be more authoritative and contain less spam. Because of this, they are more effective for search engine optimization and promotion and count as powerful regional citations.

Of course, there are still many other directories, many free options that could also have a positive effect, and while this project might not be accepted to the Open Directory Project, it never hurts to spend the time submitting.

You can find a number of hard working people willing to take the time to craft free directory submissions on a number of forums around the web for a fairly low cost. I would start with a smaller number of them focused on the niche, somewhere in the fifty to one hundred submission range, in order to both get the best result, and not cause any negative factors with regards to how search engines see your site. You’ll want to come up with as many custom descriptions, variations on titles if possible, and potential tags so that each submission is somewhat unique.

Content

Ryan has also helped make sure a number of content pages have been created related to the site, again increasing the number of geographical citations of the local business on the web. From a blog running WordPress with thirteen posts, to the various focused pages on the site that people expect like local information, contact information and related property information, the site isn’t really hurting for content. I have seen many single page sites do well in the search engines, and while that isn’t the rule, a massive amount of content isn’t always needed to rank well, especially for local search.

I would suggest more content on the site as there doesn’t seem to be enough marketing and sales page type material outside of the blog.

Images

The images are so small on the front page of the site, and there aren’t any larger images elsewhere. With a beach location, images can sell more than words. While this isn’t usually considered directly related to search results and rankings, larger images, given proper alt and title attributes can draw people in from Google Image search that might be looking to find a beach location to rent during the summer. Good images can increase traffic, and they have the secondary effect of helping sell a product such as real estate or rentals.

Keywords

Right now, Ryan says that they are most interested in generating leads via the “sea isle city rentals” search. Which, after a quick check, only gets 5,400 searches per month on average in Google. It also has a mid-level amount of advertising competition. If they were to focus on what might be considered a slightly less focused search of “sea isle rentals” they’d open themselves up to 8,100 average searches per month and have slightly less advertiser competition.

I can’t say yet which search would convert better, and if at all possible, the site should take time and work towards optimizing for both phrases. I also think that in the blog, and on the pages of the site, the key phrases could be peppered around here and there, increasing the likelihood of ranking for those phrases. It is currently rare to see “sea isle city rentals” on any of the main content pages of the site, and even on many of the blog posts.

Basic SEO Concerns

Ask anyone what they need to focus on when they talk about search engine optimization, and they will say the basics include header title, meta keywords, meta description, content headers, and lastly bolded text. On this site, the headers are done nicely, but the meta keywords and description are only on the home page. Also, while the content headers (the H1’s, H2’s, H3’s) are optimized nicely on some pages, they aren’t focused properly on all pages. The “Our Agents” page could be better served by being “Sea Winds of Sea Isle Real Estate Agents” as it would be much better for SEO and more descriptive. Never use “our”, “that”, “these” if you can avoid it, as they don’t properly describe anything to search engines.

Statistics

Currently, Sea Winds of Sea Isle is ranking amazingly for having been around only for six months. For their chosen phrase of “sea isle city rentals”, the site is ranked first in Microsoft’s Live.com, 43rd in Google, and 26th in Yahoo!.

For the “sea isle rentals” search, they currently rank 13th in Google, 8th in Yahoo!, and 2nd in Live.com. It looks as though with a little work, they could easily take a top three spot on all three major search engines for this phrase.

The site’s main page currently has a Google PageRank of 4, which is actually quite good for such a region-specific topic, especially when taking the site age into account. While this has no direct relation to search engine results, it is an indicator of a healthy site. The site’s Alexa ranking is surprisingly better than nearly all of its competitors.

Compete also has information on Sea Winds of Sea Isle, and shows that while traffic dropped substantially in December 2008, it is back on the rise in January as people prepare for their summer vacations. November was its highest tracked month on Compete with an estimated unique visitor count of 1,100, or one fifth the total average potential “sea isle city rentals” search visitors from Google.

Design

Ryan told me that the main issue with the site is conversion rate. And when it comes to conversion rate, nothing is more important than the layout and design of the site. This is where I think the site stands to improve the most and increase it’s overall conversions.

Colours – While the header image looks pretty decent, and the colours fit the message of the site, they have little variety, and don’t flow well together. Also it appears that links, other than the main navigation are missing any styling at all. This makes the site look at little unprofessional to me.

Typography – I am not a fan of using one font for an entire site. With the headers, navigation, and body text all the same font, it looks really basic, and not thought out. Headers could use a serif font, while body text reads better when it is sans-serif.

Overall Professionalism – Here is probably the biggest issue with the entire site, the overall design professionalism is lacking. Not only does the design change, depending on what page you are looking at, but it looks basic, reminding me of designs from years ago. Without a very professional facing design, I find it highly unlikely that potential customers will take the site as seriously as they should, and the design is, in my mind, limiting the number of potential sales.

Some issues include the navigation that moves from the sidebar on the home page to under the main header graphic on all other pages, the missing blog link on all pages other than the home page, the stylistically different home page versus the local information and our agents page. If you add the design of the blog to this, then you get something that is just nearly impossible to connect together visually, with even the header graphic not remaining entirely the same from page to page.

Validation – With the site only two simple errors away from completely validating, someone should take a quick minute and replace the “&” characters with the html code “& amp;”. This will make the site valid, which is never a bad thing. While this may not help search engine results, I believe it an important indicator of the quality and professionalism of a site.

Blog

Not having the blog be connected to each part of the site, and look similar is a mistake. Also, the blog is currently on a sub-domain, which some search engines consider a separate site. I think the blog would be better able to perform its function if it was tied into the site better, in both design, and URL structure [Ryan tells me that he wanted to run WordPress but the site is running on a Microsoft server and thus the subdomain was necessary to run WordPress on a separate server]. Also, I don’t think having it being a “blog” is a smart marketing move, as the average consumer still doesn’t identify with a blog. So links from the site, to the blog should be called something else. I’d prefer it be given a name that is keyword rich like “Sea Isle City Views”.

The blog should also be updated to the latest version of WordPress, and some form of SEO plugin should either be added, or the theme customized in such a way that it does better with regards to search engine optimization.

Also, this is another perfect place for images. And the blog could use some posts under the “link bait” or “resource bait” categories. Given that this is about real estate, a post on “the most beautiful properties on the shore” might be a great way to get people interested in the area, and could gain some back links from tourism, property rental, and vacation websites.

Calls to Action

When you see a great piece of marketing, they tell you what to do. With Sea Winds of Sea Isle, there are very few places where I feel compelled to complete an action. The text surrounding listings should give me many opportunities to contact an agent and work in sales text that sounds more active. Something along the lines of “rent your summer home today!” or “this property could be gone tomorrow, please click here to contact us now!”

The site design can also go a long way towards improving the calls to action: big, bold, colorful buttons work like a charm.

To see an example of a site, one of their competitors, with excellent calls to action throughout check out Sea Isle Realty at http://www.seaislerealty.com/

Sitemap

I thought when I clicked on sitemap in the footer, I was going to get a search engine approved sitemap, but instead, was transported to a page that listed the main pages on the site. This is a horrible way to do a sitemap as it doesn’t list the various blog posts, or other information, and since it isn’t the XML sitemap that is search engine approved, I have a feeling that this extra page is doing very little for the site. While it might be convenient for larger sites, I don’t think that a sitemap page such as this is required here, and the Sea Winds of Sea Isle site would be better served with a true XML sitemap that featured the various blog posts being created.

Overall Thoughts

While ranking well, this site has a long way to go. The biggest issue is conversions. The whole point of this site is to take interested people from finding the site, to buying a house or rental. The lack of professionalism in design, information organization, and cohesion might be turning off otherwise ready-to-buy customers. The site could use more content, but that is a secondary concern after the design, and is only needed to further work towards the goals of the site: ranking well for very focused searches that are likely to convert to sales. Calls to action, inspiration regarding the location, images to evoke an emotional response are all content oriented concerns that should be addressed.

One of the most frustrating parts of online marketing is when you have a good amount of focused traffic, but still get little to no conversions or sales. With some polishing of the design, some link-worthy content, and better integration of the blog into the core site, Sea Winds of Sea Isle should be able to draw in a larger percentage of qualified search visitors, and hopefully sell some more beautiful beach front properties.

Want an Assessment of Your Site?

If you would like a similar assessment on your own blog or website, please contact me today for a quote. Site Critiques start at only $99!

Building a Basic Blog

Building a Basic Blog – From Nothing to Profitable, is a twenty-one page e-book focusing on giving the broad strokes of what to consider when creating a blog. From hosting and domains to advertising and new sources. This book is aimed at those that are considering adding a blog to their business or marketing plan. If you have an idea, and don’t know how to proceed, Building a Basic Blog should help.

Social Media Promotion

Dedicated to promoting content, Social Media Promotion covers the various popular sites that people submit their content to, what type of users interact there, and what kind of traffic you can expect. It also makes sure to point out monetization strategies related to traffic coming from social media sites. This book comes in at nineteen pages and will help those that don’t understand Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and other great sites.

Sacred Secrets of Blog Monetization

My favourite of the three e-books, Sacred Secrets of Blog Monetization – The Often Missing Information is a twenty-four page e-book that covers everything I’ve learned about monetization on the web.

If you want to make money from your blog, this is the e-book to read. It covers information that I have never seen other people push out publicly, as well as my own inspirational stories of selling advertising. I feel like this e-book alone is worth joining Branding David Members.

What is Branding David Members?

I wanted to be able to work with people, consult for them on various things, but my hourly rates were just too high for the type of clients that needed help, and so rather than lower my rates to work furiously for a number of great clients, and still be without a home, I decided to create a forum where I could consult with people in a public manner, and share tips, tricks and information with a close knit group of people.

There is also information that would be quickly diluted by the masses if thousands or tens of thousands of bloggers took advantage of it, and so limiting the community was a way to keep every tip and idea created within the community as powerful and useful as possible.

Branding David Members is a private forum of no more than 50 active participants that costs only $25 per month or $250 per year. For those registering for a year in advance, you also get an hour of my consulting time, where I will help you with your blogs, websites, or online marketing strategies. You will want to register soon though as on July 2nd, 2009, the price will go up, and only those that get in before then will be able to continue at their grandfathered rate.

This also means that by signing up, you’ll be one of the few that will have access to these great e-books.

Free E-Book

As I said in the start of this post, one of these three e-books will be made available free from a variety of different blogs, and is free for you to give away to your own readers, and that is my second e-book, Social Media Promotion (right click and select save as…).

While I, personally, consider this the weakest of the three books, I also know that it will be the most useful to newer bloggers that are looking to improve their traffic and monetization strategies.

Notes: For those on Mac’s, please install Adobe Acrobat Reader or download the lower-quality version as Preview had issues with the original version compiled. The Social Media Promotion e-book is released under Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0

Kudos: A big thanks goes to Tom Leroux, Blue Rain Creative, and my friends and family.

I will be trying to publish one post per week day on various WordPress and blogging related topics in hopes of once again pushing forward my own brand while helping Splashpress Media achieve its goals with the site. Also, it is nice to get back to talking about one of my favourite subjects: WordPress blogging.

It also feels really nice to increase my archive on that site, as I have over one thousand posts within its pages, and I am looking forward to adding another thousand over the next few years.

If you are interested in WordPress, I hope you’ll check out Blogging Pro.