10 reasons why my sites suck - do yours?

It gets just a little intimidating when I read of publishers earning over $1000 a day for a single site, and other sites generating hundreds of thousands of visits per day.

Especially as I’m doing nowhere near either with any of my sites.

So what am I doing wrong?

Just a cursory examination of some similar sites in the same verticals, compared to mine, suggests a few key reasons:

1. Fun design

You land on a new site and you want it to look engaging. Lots of my competitor sites look bright and colourful, and mine look dull and boring.

Solution: I need to go to the drawing board on key sites and try and improve on design - to make them look bright, fun and inviting as well.

2. Engaging New Media

I publish news sites - I want to look like established news sites. But those sites are “old media” with mammoth budgets to boot. I can’t compete with them.

Whereas more successful news sites in similar verticals define themselves within the blogosphere and thus appeal to the extensive blogging crowd - instead of trying to define themselves outside of it.

Solution: I need to rework some sites at least to look like authoritative blogs, instead of trying to look like a tool of “the man”.

3. Truly unique content

I find myself playing catch up with so many other sites - they’ve got to the press releases first, leaving me chasing regurgitated news and information. The result is that they have the unique content and can leverage it for wider appeal.

Solution: Really push on getting those press releases in first. That means Google Alerts, PRweb keywords, and setting up combined RSS feeds based on keywords for my writers to source.

4. A Sense of Passion

The best sites can take bloggers and individuals with a real passion for their subject, and leverage that passion in terms of dedication, persistence, longevity, and communications appeal. Whereas I don’t.

Solution: Consider hiring in name bloggers in key areas, and dare to invest in them.

5. Engaging Social Media

Is it any coincidence some of the best competitors can be found regularly on social media sites such as Digg? On the one hand, maybe they’ve gamed their way to some extent while establishing themselves - but the use of social media icons coupled with great unique content means they can totally leverage social media.

Solution: I’ve got the icons - I just need to get involved myself, or else hire people to get involved for me.

6. Use of Video Media

I wrote about the coming of IPTV a couple of years back. I knew it was a market I had to get into. Yet even now I have yet to film anything, let alone upload it to the net. Partly it’s because of two home moves, but there’s no longer any excuse.

Solution: Get my f***ing finger out and dedicate a specific time each week to experiment with video and put something online - then develop it promotionally to complement my sites, and their readers.

7. Email Subscription

I have always always scoffed at email as a marketing tool - I’ve never trusted it, figured no one trusts it, and that Seth Godin’s permission marketing insight had long been killed by email spam.

So why do so many of the great sites still offer free email newsletters? Obviously, because it works to some degree. And a great way to keep in touch with your readers, and invite them back. And to tell their friends.

Solution: Figure out a solution to provide email newsletters where possible, and use them as a communications, not promotions, tool. Find special offers, etc, to add value.

8. Link Networking

Some of the really successful sites run as a network of sites, all covering different niches in the same generic vertical. And they all link together. It helps guide human traffic who may be interested, and help leverage the most powerful in the network to raise the lower performing sites for traffic.

Solution: Dare to link related sites together into a network. The worst that can happen is that the links are devalued at some point - links I’m not even using at present. Where’s the loss in trying?

9. Better Ads Strategy

I’m trying to find ways to apply Adsense in the most hassle-free method as possible. And yet they’ve got Adsense, banners, Adbrite, and similar. All together. And better integrated, with Adsense in the article body, not just at the foot or to the right.

Solution: Sign up to affiliate and banner programs, seek to better integrate Adsense, and otherwise better develop the potential earnings from different advertising revenue streams.

10. Branding

Branding isn’t simply a name - it’s being able to associate that name with a perception of quality. But having a catchy name helps differentiate yourself from the crowds. Engadget, Gizmodo, ShinyShiny - they’ve all done it. So why the f*** am I still running sites on simple keyword domain?

Solution: Dare to find brandable names, rebuild on them, and then redirect keyword domain traffic onto them - to build the brand from a stronger platform, before it’s too late or too complicated to change.