Starting An ISV? No Domain Knowledge? Go To Incubator, do not pass Go, do not collect a Registration…

by Scott Kane on September 11, 2008 in Download Sites Are Spam, General ISV Issues, Starting an mISV

OK. I hear you saying “Crikey, he’s not on about this domain knowledge stuff again is he? Strewth, mate, stone the bloody crows!!”

Well. Actually no. Kind of, but not exactly. I am but I’m not. I could be but I’m not really…

At least in the sense that I have here previously. Instead what this article attempts to address is a link between “download sites” and “domain knowledge” and how they have utterly nothing to do with each other and why you should care.

Now that I’ve totally confused you – let me follow it up with:

It’s not hard to influence search engine rankings for your business/product with a sprinkling of common sense and some good old fashioned hard work and never use a PAD file or a download site again.

Better than that – that influence is done using your own information, your own controls and your own time and it does not involve any stupid (or clever for that matter) – pick your colour hat - “SEO’ techniques at all.

It’s simply common sense and most of the search engines (including Google) welcome it. It’s pretty powerful and people without any experience can apply it providing they follow some basic common sense – and - are consistent and diligent and use a plan….

Oh. A Couple of more things:

You’ll need to either have solid domain knowledge about your product or at least know (or at least try to find and learn about) how to access information that will enhance that knowledge.

You’ll need to stop saying you ‘can’t write” and understand and accept that practice will improve what you do over time – as in all things – and hence how and what you write.

There is no “can’t” if you are bootstrapping. Instead you compromise, learn and adapt.

You need to consider that people reading your content are not going to be critics considering it for the next Pulitzer prize or expect you to provide a thesis.

Blogs, for example, are best served raw. Warts and all – and people actually seem to prefer it, even if they disagree with your contention – because it’s coming from the heart. Your heart.

The psychology for this, as far as I can tell, lies somewhere with the popularity of TV soap operas and reality shows. If they can relate to you then you have a leg up on the competition and for them to relate you’re better off sounding like an average person writing than, say, a professional journalist.

If you can write like a journo then more power to you – but it’s not essential.

If you’re a regular reader of this blog you’ll know that I pretty much equate download sites on the level of somewhere between slugs crawling around in the dirt – or gentiles feasting on exposed flesh.

I don’t think they do us any favors.

I don’t think we need them.

I’d love to see them shrivel up and kick the bucket.

There are exceptions like the CNet sites, Tucows and a handful of others – but the rest are total Google spam.

Yet ISV’s and more particularly mISV’s cling to them in desperation and honestly believe they’ll help them in their quest for, well, whatever your personal quest is for your product and business…

Most mISV’s and a good many ISV’s are very much like the kittenpreneur above. They think this is the key to the kingdom. Total Google domination that will out click their competitors. They tend to forget their competitors are probably using PAD files with similar descriptions listed on the same download sites. From page 1 to page infinity of just about every search engine.

I firmly believe there is a better way. But as a statement that’s not going to cut it, right?

OK. An act of faith to a limited extent is needed here.

I’m going to use this blog as a limited example. It’s early days for this blog. I’m not Bob Walsh or Seth or Joel. I don’t get anywhere near their level of traffic – though it’s growing. So I’m not going to actually state what keywords I’ve used to work my way up onto page one (and higher) for certain ISV and mISV related terms that older more established blogs dominate.

But I will explain the reason – the real reason – for why I started the blog and what it proved to me. Something I will be taking away to use on my business product website’s. Having said that – the blog has grown beyond the experiment and it has many more purposes now, including the fact I like to write, people seem to get some value out if it, even if it’s just disagreement, and it’s a hell of a lot of fun!

I started this blog – and admit I came late to this game – as an experiment only a few months ago in March 2008, to see if content really could influence the search engine results we see. The blog uses no Adwords, it doesn’t do anything else except consistently discuss issues related to my own mISV business in the making and general ISV issues or subjects of interest.

It uses various tools to enhance those keywords, the very ones we’ve been using for years like meta tags etc. Because it’s possible to automate this in tools such as WordPress the task is made a lot easier to be sure.

But… It’s the content that is critical. The content is relevant to the keywords and it’s paying off in terms of results when it comes to the subject of starting an ISV or mISV.

If you look at the articles I post here they pretty much all have something in common. The most obvious might not actually be obvious to all. The subject line for each post.

In most instances they have been chosen for the purpose of testing their impact on search engine results. You might be surprised to learn that I get around 50 – 100 hits in the logs for “cracks, hacks, keygen’s and torrents” each month due to one article alone. That I get currently twenty hits a day for “secret herbs and spices” even though this blog has nothing to do with chicken…

This would be utterly stupid for a product site where you want relevant eyes on relevant content. But in the nature of an experiment anything goes – OK?

OK – the point is that the subject plays a critical part and it’s so easy to do. That the subject is also a meta tag in WordPress by default certainly assists in this.

But to really make a difference you have to have posts that relate to the subject, my “secret herbs and spices” hits will ultimately wither and die, I have no interest in maintaining those keywords. I just wanted to see if I could.

The other, for this blog, more important keywords however are used in blog posts time and time again. In the subject, in the articles, in the meta tags, in the blog tags, in the categories and so on. They are more durable, though do require maintenance – frequent posts with content.

I see, in various forums, at times folks asking how often Google spiders a site. They don’t believe me when I tell them that Google comes into this blog several times a day (other blogger’s will understand this and why it is so), and articles go up within hours and often right to the top of Google (and Yahoo and Microsoft’s various search engine flavors like Live).

The trick is the XML sitemap and the fact that you can set Google (via a free account from Google) to come at a certain frequency. That and a WordPress plugin that notifies Google of a new post when it’s posted…

But without frequent posts Google has nothing new to get (same goes for the other engines). So clearly if you want to play this game, and I believe firmly you should, you’re going to need information that updates frequently.

There are several ways you could handle this.

A blog.
A website that incorporates a blog type engine.
A CMS like Joomla or similar.
Hand written HTML pages (a major PITA – I used to do it this way in the 90′s and trust me, you don’t want to have to do that when the other tools do it so much better).

You don’t have to have a blog, at least not in the sense we think of them. You can use blog software simply as an article manager. The idea is to get people to visit. Information has more “stickiness” than a product page. The idea is to become a resource.

Alas Usenet is Dead…

Many years back now the accepted wisdom was to join Usenet groups and offer information to people and become a helpful regular using your signature in each post as a sales tool. Alas Usenet is Dead.

What’s needed, and has been lacking, is a clear alternative. People are not subscribing to Usenet. Heck, most these days don’t know what it is, let alone how to use an NNTP client.

Articles are that alternative.

People use Google as if it is the Internet. We need to grasp that average people are typing URL’s into Google instead of the address bar and clicking the Google result to go to a specific site.
People use Google as an encyclopedia. Why not be the source of information they are looking for?
People are hungry for information. The mISV and ISV can fulfill that hunger and in the process expose these people to their product. Tactfully of course. One has to resist the urge to blast them with marketing rhetoric in articles unless the product clearly addresses their quest. Tact…

There are rules here…

Yep, there are rules. The objective is not to try or succeed in spamming a search engine. The objective is to become a valid, readable, content rich place that adds value to the search engines themselves, potential customers and as a neat side effect, your business. The rules are:

If you write crap you’ll be crapped on.

You have to write information with the intent of contributing something of value. Your opinion is valid, your perspective is valid, your knowledge is valid. However a half hearted attempt to scam the search engine with unfulfilled keyword stuffing and rubbish will hurt you, not help you.

This is the virtual world and not the physical world.

The same rules do not apply. You can build up your content over time, and get pretty quick results as you go.

Google, for example, can be inexplicable at times.

This is not a get rich quick scheme. This is about hard work, planning, rolling up your sleeves, analysis and it must be said – sheer determination.

It’s true the Google-dance, the sandboxes and other weird stuff impact on us all. But content – valid content – can greatly assist. None of my sites have been sandboxed, for example, ever and I have numerous domain names. All of them have been indexed and visible within 3 weeks of registration and putting something up.

The old truisms are no longer true…

At least as far as marketing ISV wise goes. What I’m talking about here is the old “truisms” that were dead set true yesterday are no longer true. Download sites were essential to our businesses. Usenet and forum posting was the only way to get the message out. But the new mitigating factors such as the emergence of Google, blogs, PHP driven content technology (like WordPress, Joomla and similar tools to name but a few) are more effective, within reach of any ISV and have an incredibly low cost.

I’m no soothsayer and I’m not trying to say a sooth. Waking up and smelling the coffee brewing is part of evolving our business, products and minds however. There is no doubt we need to wake up and start inhaling those vapors. Way past time.

I do know, understand and appreciate that many reading will not feel comfortable with what I’m suggesting here. It does require, for many, the pain of overcoming comfort zones. But a decision has to be made – do you control your destiny or are you happy to let it meander along with the likes of download sites and your competition controlling it for you?

Yes, that’s a rhetorical question. But it needs to be asked because time and time again the same objections come up with ISV’s.

“I can’t write.”

You couldn’t program once either – how did that change?

“It’s OK for you.”

No it isn’t. That’s presumptuous of you. We all have nagging doubts about ourselves and we all have the capacity to address them. You are no different to me or anybody else in this regard.

“You’ve had a lot of practice.”

So have you – you’ve just got to change your perspective on how you consider what you’ve written.

“There’s nothing to be said about my product.”

Respectfully – look at the logic of that statement. Either you don’t know your subject matter (domain knowledge which you can fix) or you wouldn’t say that – or you’re backing the wrong horse and need a different product that you do know something about.

The bouncing cueball…

Steve Ballmer bounced around the stage and yelled “Developers, developers, developers…” and forever made an impression on programmers. I still haven’t worked out why this is so. I simply can’t fathom any sincerity out of Steve’s repetitive bouncing athletics in this case. However – I do believe there is a more important bouncing chant for ISV’s and it’s this:

“Content, content, content, content, content…”