In Defense of websites

I have a small unfinished site with just a small forum that is slowly dying. Each and every day I have to remove names from the memberlist to prevent spamming or worse. The emails are endless, I once changed computers and forgot to add the email onto the new computer. I had over 20000, yes over twenty thousand emails. You have to learn to add to the filters every month or so. There are always people looking for back doors so you have to monitor this and block IP's for this and other reasons. It is an endless task.

I have some information on my small little site and the larger part of that took me a year or so at full time work i.e. 40 hours or more. I add to it all the time but it is hard to even notice there is a change.

Not too many years ago there were no internet knowledgebases but people managed to get it done somehow. I will admit it is nice that some companies take the time to develop and maintain things like this but I also think many of us are taking for granted that it is a "right" of ours or something that must be provided. What is worst is the idea that you should be able to go to company XYZ's site and go straight to the information you want at that moment. Research is a major aspect of development in any endeavor, if you get too lazy to research then........

What I would like to see:

1. Setup a website with infomation on many topics, do not pay anyone and it must have at least 1 gig of memory used on the domain.
2. Setup a forum, maintain it and provide answers to all questions.
3. Develop an e-store to sell something.
4. You alone must maintain the site and everything it does, moderators for forums are allowed.

Once you have done this for a year or so then think what it would be like for a company that sells and supports 1000's and 1000's of devices a year to 1000's and 1000's of people/companies all over the world.

My little site could easily be a full time job, the only reason it is not is because I am not smart enough to figure out how to get paid doing it. I just trudge along and do what I can when I can.

Tell the truth it would not be up and running now if it was not for Phil Melore, thank you very much Phil. I am not sure if I was suppose to keep this on the QT or not but recently I was ready to give the site up when renewal time came around primarily for financial reasons. Phil provided the funds for keeping the site going; so the site and I will be around for a while more. I have no idea why he did this (ain't asking either) but hope it is because the site has some worthwhile content.

All I can say is until you have attempted developing a website that requires high bandwidth due to traffic etc then you should not knock those that are, just appreciate the fact that they are making an effort.

BTW: Do not laugh at the 1 gig until you have done it.

Ron, I have been truly amazed at the amount of really useful information you have been able to assemble. It is one of the most useful general sources of information on the web for the electrical industry.

It is a shame that you have to do it all yourself. I guess most of us are too busy to get involved in a website. I hardly have time to scratch myself quite frankly.

BIG thank you to Phil for assisting you.

BIG thank you to you for taking the time and having the passion to do what you have done. You must be proud of the website.

Unfortunately, the only way you are going to get any decent funds is probably by advertising. Perhaps some of the manufacturers who visit here will have the get up and go to "kick the can" and assist you.

Do you have good entries in all the search engines? That is also most important.

I did not do this right.

The point was that most should stop complaining about AB, GE, Siemens or any support website until they have attempted to build and maintain one theirself.

Bandwidth can be a major factor in cost, as can be space, depending on situation.

Another aspect would be how many people do you hire to take care of web sites? At what point does hiring new webmasters does it exceed the value obtained by having the websites?

What is worst is the idea that you should be able to go to company XYZ's site and go straight to the information you want at that moment. Research is a major aspect of development in any endeavor, if you get too lazy to research then........

Click to expand...

Hasn't been too many years ago that I remember going to the library to find a company/product in their set of Thomas Registry books.

Ron, I also got your point, but I also wanted to thank you for the information you make available. Its a valuable resource. The only website I ever maintained was one for my daughter's girl scout troop, and even that one took a surprising amount of time.

So thank you very much.

Hi Ron,

I checked out your web site and I must say that I don't think that you have paid enough attention to SEO (search engine optimization).
By using http://www.iwebtool.com I found out that your PR is 3.
You should work on improving it. (Of course neither one of my web sites is doing any better for now but I am working on it, it takes a while, Google keeps the sandbox on for a long time).
Your Alexa rating ( http://www.alexa.com )suggests that you get about 20 to 30 unique visitors a day (am I right?).

I do understand how time consuming the web development is and I also understand that making money is difficult. However the more eyeballs you get the better your chances of making money.
Therefore, you need to study all you can about SEO and modify your site accordingly.

1. You need site map
2. You need link exchange
3. Proper keyword density
4. You need to identify the major key search words (from Yahoo - Overture tools)
5. Use mostly HTML and CSS, PHP / JavaScript and other programming languages cannot be read by any spider that crawls your web site.

I also suggest that you look at Content management system tools such as http://www.webgui.org this one is a leading CMS tool.

I looked at your source code and could not see meta name "description" and meta name "keyword" tags ?????
Even though keywords don't count as much as they used to, they still count for your SEO . Meta description is important because that is what the search engine lists when your web site comes up in the index.

Provide more content in HTML format. Make sure that each page is about 450 to 650 words in length, that is ideal for a search engine. Anything less than 400 words might not get indexed, too short.

Make use of H1, h2, h3 tags.

Your home page should have much more content. The key search words such as "Controls" "electrical" "maintenance" "PLC" etc etc should be featured in H1, H2 tags and should be at the top of the page. The main keywords should have proper density, about 3 to 8%.
Use the keyword density analysis tool on iwebtool.com.

What ever you do, don't hire an outside Company to help you establish links. Been there, done that. Waste of money.

Did you use one of those services that registers your web site
with thousands of search engines? Maybe that's the reason for so many junk e-mails. I have a similar problem but not as bad.

Anyways, I hope I could be of some help.

Great information Jiri

Technically, I have nothing to offer but information and it is free, for the most part I just have it as a reference site. I redid the main page and probably removed most of the site referencing that I should not have but overall it has not appeared to change the hits etc I get every day. I am not sure where you got the 20-30 people a day, I remove that many from the memberlist almost daily.

I know how to develop it, already done that, its 4 years old now. At one time you could not search electrical, electronic, plc, and more without it coming up somewhere in the list. There is alot I still do not know though, just recently figured out how to use the database to mass delete when necessary.

I had to obtain a larger space and greater bandwidth in 2003 because once bandwith is exceeded domain hosts will shut a site down. Looking at these figures my site maintains an average of visits, hits, etc each month.


I may have mis-stated the dying part, it is the forum that is dying but it had a good go and may again. As for the website I can and do get visitors, could probably develop it with far higher numbers if necessary.

Just an FYI: November unique visitors is so far 806, the average for the past year is over 10,000 per month.

With All That Said

I should not have attempted to use my site as an example, my inability to properly phrase statements has made it appear I was promoting or ? my site; which definitely was not the intent.

Recently there have been numerous posts pertaining to PLC companies and others website or support sites with much criticism involved.

The reason for this thread was to prompt the critics to develop their own site with forums etc and do the maintenance while also doing their job.

What many "assume" to be simple they may quickly learn is not so simple. Feel good they are making a concerted effort to maintain a website with the informaition you may require.

I just feel that some are criticizing when they are not aware of all the relevant information i.e. assume in it's other definition.

I got your point Ron. I have began playing with some websites and can see what you are talking about

Ron - I have to disagree with you. For an individual, running a web site can be a huge undertaking. Especially if you are doing so while keeping down a fulltime job. Kudos to those like yourself who do and thanks. But then I don’t think the resent posts have been geared to those like yourself, they have been geared to the PLC companies.

I think you are overlooking some things. I know that one of the big PLC companies had a net income of over $150 million, surely they have the money to support a quality website. I’m willing to bet that they even have the money to make that website free, but that’s another argument. These companies don’t have just one person administering their website, they are going to have a team or have it outsourced, so there should be plenty of time to put up a quality site. If you had chosen to study web programming and design, I’m sure you would find it as simple to create a website as you do creating a PLC program.

I think these PLC companies have the money, time, and expertise to create a quality website. I also believe that it is their obligation to do so. Having a quality website is no longer an added benefit, it’s a business requirement.

Dear Ron,

Remember days not so long ago when the ATM where introduced. Hey, they installed them for us. For our convenience. They where free. They sais that the ROI was on the manpower they would save, the papers they would no longer need.

Where they not bull****ting us.

Now a big part of there profits are from those same free ATM.

The man has again pulled a quick one on all of you who beleive.

They used to have a free 800 number. No more. Then they had a dummy take our questions and give us a "case number". Then there "maintanance" contract. Then restricted access to tech support. Now they will not even let there clients access there documentations????

How low should I bend forward. How low will you?


You site is a nice place but don't get into the Mother Theresa type of self pitty. If you don't get as much back from doing this that it costs you to do it then dont "stay the course", turn the switch Off.

suggestions

If you had chosen to study web programming and design, I’m sure you would find it as simple to create a website as you do creating a PLC program.

Click to expand...

Tark,
Even on the most basic level (HTML and CSS) web programming is probably a little more involved than PLC programming. If we start talking MySQL / PHP, ASP, session ID's, dynamically loaded pages, Ajax etc. etc. the web programming complexity far exceeds that of the PLC.
I used to be like you, underestimating how involved it is until I tasted it myself.

Ron,
I congratulate you on the number of unique visitors, it far exceeds my estimate, which incidentally was based on Alexa's ratings. Alexa however states that their ratings are inacurate for small size web sites.

You are asking how to make money on your web site and I would say to you that with 400+ visitors a day you should be able to do something.

Namely:

1. I have not seen any Google Ad sense advertizing on your web site? Why don't you sign up for it? It basically entails displaying Google sponsored links on your web site.

2. There are many Companies that will pay you for click through
leads. For example you could sign up with Amazon and sell Amazon
books and videos relating to PLC's. Many Companies have these programs. In a field you are in, B2B, it is not as common as it is in a B2C based businesses, however you should be able to find some Companies.

3. You can expand your web site to become a business directory related to electrical / industrial field in addition to what you are doing now.
Initially you enlist Companies for free but once you have gained
critical mass you can start charging for it.
There are numerous software packages on the market that do that.
This would also increase your eyeballs.

4. Start direct selling control and electrical products, books and videos.
This would require an e-commerce package ( at least a shopping cart) and ability to take credit cards.
You can get hooked up with manufacturer's at this web site
http://www.alibaba.com

Ron,

There are many web sites that produce some additional revenue by adding Google's Ad Sense...displaying of targeted ads on your web site that you receive a portion of the click through money generated. If you are looking to enhance your source of revenue, this is probably the easiest way to start.

If you want your web site to remain an unbiased source of information, then you may want to go the donation route. Something like this..."If you have found this web site useful and would like to assist in the funding...etc...

In some cases, the web site isn't a full time job, but a passion of the creator...whereby it is self funded. If you are able to do that, you are doing the community you cater to a tremendous service.

You might be able to do what Phil does to support this site, sell related materials. With your wealth of knowledge, you could do a newsletter or book, with the proceeds going to support the maintenance and time required to update the web site.

With regards to updates, use your home page as your announcement page and primary navigation tool. The majority of visitors will enter your web site through your home page. The search engines will index your entire web site, based on content, setup and url, whereby you will have visitors entering your site through pages other than your home page. Give them easy access to your home page from all other pages on your web site.

If you want your web site to attract a specific audience, create pages directed at that audience.

We focused on differentiation of our products - OEM PLC, Embedded PLC, etc...Targeting a specific type of customer, knowing we would have a better opportunity in attracting new customers based on a focused approach, then a broad approach. We also did specific comparisons...and focused on the word Free.

With regards to the hosting costs, shop around. If you would like the name of our web host, I can email it to you. Keep in mind there are many...You will want to look for the provider that best meets your needs and is within your budget.

If you believe the forum to be on its last legs, then you will have to decide if keeping it active is worth the time?

You also have a history to review, in that your web site has a track record. Take a look at your past results and do some research. Identify what you want your web site to be and if you are willing to continue, and thus allocating the time required.

If you wanted to talk further about it, feel free to give me a call at work.

Hope this helps.

God Bless,

Jiri Toman said:

Tark,
Even on the most basic level (HTML and CSS) web programming is probably a little more involved than PLC programming. If we start talking MySQL / PHP, ASP, session ID's, dynamically loaded pages, Ajax etc. etc. the web programming complexity far exceeds that of the PLC.
I used to be like you, underestimating how involved it is until I tasted it myself.

Click to expand...

I think Tark is referring to the fact that one who does web site programming for a living would do it much easier than us, who presumably do PLC programming for a living. His reference to PLC programming would have applied to a dentist performing a root canal, a surgeon yanking an appendix, or a plumber fixing a leak.