NorioDS
Hey, would you guys be interested in eBay ads instead of Google ads? I was just thinking that it would be a great way for us to check out good deals as they come out.
Thoughts?
cain
Yeah i think thats beter ? i would rather click on that kind of stuff instead of google crap ?
NorioDS
Thanks Francis ? I'll give it a go but then you guys need to start buying stuff ;D
NorioDS
I've split this off so we can chat a bit more about it without hijacking any threads ?
So, are we going for eBay UK, eBay US or eBay AUS?
I'm thinking AUS for the cheaper shipping.
cain
Any if fine by me. I dont know for sure, but im sure people dont click on the google ads anyways. So ebay cant do badly ?
Riaan
Hey Norio, good idea to use eBay instead of Google adds. It seems eBay all over the world is kind of interconnected anyway, in the sense that once you've registered as a buyer, you can visit all international eBay sites yet still have the same mailbox, account, saved favourites and ratings.
AlanRatcliffe
Damn, you split and moved the thread while I was busy posting, so my new post on this got left behind.
Here it is again:
Unfortunately, I don't see either. Firefox filters out most advertising from web pages I view. But just having Google on the site improves your search engine ranking.
There is currently a big boycott of E-Bay in the US due to the new pricing changes, which seriously affect the bottom line of the smaller sellers. They have also decided that they can keep the sellers money for 21 days if they decide it is a high risk transaction. They are down a half million listings in the last few days (although it may be worse: there is evidence they are artificially boosting the listing count), and many sellers are now flocking to other sites. Some feel this is the beginning of the end.
Oh well, there are also the Amazon.com stores, which in my experience are reliable.
NorioDS
Teehee, sorry boet ?
And I don't even know how to move it here. Oh well, at worst you can always copy and paste it into the above post but then this one of mine won't make any sense ?
NorioDS
OK, so the eBay ads are in. They're a little intrusive but if it makes a significant amount of money, I can afford to do some really cool things with the forum (all up for discussion later on) so please bear with me.
Questions:
1. How can I improve the ads so you'll like what you see?
2. I chose UK, would you prefer US or AUS? (ZA not ready yet)
3. Any positive suggestions to help improve?
NB: If you don't like them, don't tell me why you don't like them. Tell me how to make you like them more. This is the fastest/easiest/most powerful way to move forward.
NNB: I love democratic processes so you're ALL welcome to give me useful feedback!
NorioDS
Ok so the eBay ads haven't really worked out :/
Everyone ok with me experimenting with affiliate ads? I need to at least try and make some money with this forum to re-invest back into the community and upgrade the forum, etc.
Gray
Im guessing the e-Bay ads only make money if they sell something?
There's lots of space over the site why not make use of banners and links... etc or is the problem that we dont have enough companies to advertise?
Maybe you could keep the e-bay ads and incorporate ads from google and others, over other places on the site.
AlanRatcliffe
I'll keep coming back to something I said long ago - concentrate on getting the site as good as possible first. Build it to the point where you have 10K+ posts and at least a few hundred members. Then you can shop around for a few local distributors/retailers to buy banner space.
NorioDS
Hmmm, Alan I'm going to take your advice. I think you're very right.
Sorry for not doing so earlier! I'm going to remove the ads and grow this baby.
PS: Everyone please always remember to give me your feedback. I love it and I can't do this by myself.
Thanks ?
NorioDS
PS: I'm getting married in like 8 days so please bear with me. It might be a while before I get around to editing the site.
AlanRatcliffe
Great! Give me a shout if I can help in some way (with the site, not the marriage. Although, come to think of it...on the latter send pics and I'll consider ;D)
NorioDS
Send pics of what?! Dare I even ask?
I'd love some help with the site. Most important to the growth of the site, IMO, is good content and you're already providing a whackload of that, so I'm chuffed.
I'm a bit of a Drupal guru and just saw last night that there's a Drupal SMF module which would allow me to integrate this forum with Drupal. Very neat indeed as we can now start doing WAY more things than we could ever do with just SMF.
I would love to start a tabs section and other bits n pieces but I need to know from YOU lot what you want ?
Alan, you've been on a lot of guitar forums over the past few years, what do you find works well -- ie: what do people really enjoy, over and above the forum?
Reef
I think a Tabs section is a great idea.
If you were able to categorize Tabs and Lessons by skill level (novice, intermediate, pro? something like that maybe?) then it might be easier for guitarists of all skill levels to relate to, use/learn from and maintain content.
I tend to like things a tad over-orderly though so if I could have everything my way I would also categorize by musical genre and style (which maybe means some metalheads will show up and post loads of tabs which will attract other metalheads and before you know it you'll have 1million members ;D)
If it was a file structure it'd look sort of like this ..
TABS >>
FLAT/FINGERPICKING >> EASY/NOVICE
INTERMEDIATE
PRO/HARD
METAL >> EASY/NOVICE
INTERMEDIATE
PRO/HARD
HARD/SOFT/POPROCK >> EASY/NOVICE
INTERMEDIATE
PRO/HARD
etc etc etc
JoeyBones
I don't know how many of you use Guitar Pro but I have a crap load of songs. It would be great if we could host the files online and setup a page with a search facility.
AlanRatcliffe
You have to be careful with tabs these days - the record companies figured out there was a demand and their first step towards figuring out how they could make money out of it was their usual - sue and shut down the sites that had stuff for free.
