PlusOne - Musings of a marketer

Today’s webmaster interview is with someone with whom I have had an ongoing web contact with - via Mark’s Site-Reference forum. Mark Doust has a wide range on experience and skills and this interview opens the door on his experience and insight into the web as a business arena.

If you run more than one website, what is the name and URL of your primary website?

Site Reference (http://www.site-reference.com). I also just started
http://www.brewingkb.com.

The internet provides access to global audiences and markets. Where are you located and is your market influenced by your location?

I am in Minneapolis, MN in the U.S. and due to the nature of my business/es, my market is not influenced by my location.

What were the circumstances that led you to start your site/online business?

I have been dabbling in Internet ventures for several years. After seeing the success of some of the online webmaster publications, I decided that it would be a huge asset to have a popular publication that I could market some of my own products and services through. Little did I know that Site Reference would become my main business. Within 2 years Site Reference grew to over 200,000 subscribers and continues to add 300+ subscribers per day.

What does this site do?

Site Reference provides articles and forums for webmasters. We focus on SEO, marketing, and general web development and also try to focus more on the newer webmaster. There is a lot of information available for the advanced webmaster, but newer webmasters tend to have difficulty sifting through all the outdated or incorrect information. We try to help them through this process.

Is this your only site?

Sometimes I wish it was. I own several websites, although Site
Reference easily occupies most of my time. I also own NFL-Forums.com (http://www.nfl-forums.com) and BrewingKB.com (http://www.brewingkb.com), as well as about 10 other websites. And just when I think I have things under control, I usually find myself starting a new website.

Are you a full time web business person or do you have other income
as well?

I am a full time web professional. I probably spend anywhere from 60 - 80 hours per week on the Internet. A lot of this time is devoted to research and continue learning, playing around with development tools, and trying to get a pulse on related industries. The rest of the time is spent doing those boring business things, like accounting,
answering emails, etc.

The income so far has been good enough for me to not need a secondary income. There are some months which are extremely good and some months which make me wonder why I do what I do. My record earnings for one month was slightly over $50K, although that was certainly just a one-time month.

There are many methods of promotion for website. What do you do and which do you think are the most effective?

This is a fantastic question. You would think that a site like Site Reference would rely heavily on the search engines. Search engines definitely provide the best traffic possible and can provide some of the most significant traffic in terms of volume. If you do search for Site Reference in Google, though, you’ll find that the site does quite poorly.

I have often talked to people about the need to /not/ rely on search engines for website promotion. To do so places your business success solely on the decisions of a handful of engineers at a company that you have absolutely no control over. Search engines are the icing on the cake - a great reward for a job well done. They should never be the meat of your business success.

That being said, I am a huge believer in viral and referral promotion. A lot of people hear ‘viral’ and think that you need to be doing some crazy contest or have something gimmicky like the recent “Snakes on a Plane” Samuel L. Jackson voicemail campaign
(http://blog.fastcompany.com/archives/2006/08/16/mobile_marketing_snakes_on_a_plane.html).
But in its simplest form, viral marketing is nothing more than one person telling another person about a product or service. Site Reference receives most of its traffic from referral marketing - people read an article that they like, bring it to their blog or a forum that they frequent and discuss it. They save it in del.icio.us, or they send a friend to Site Reference. This traffic, in my opinion, is even better than search engine traffic.

The trick to this method is to create something worth talking about. It is not always easy to do this when you are selling a fairly common product or service, but it can be done. It just requires a little creativity.

Where do you see yourself in a few years time?

I’m sure my wife would like to know the answer to this question as well. In a few years time I hope to find myself continuing to do what I currently am doing - creating valuable websites that people can learn from and that bring in referral traffic. I hope to have a few
more sites under my belt, but I do not see any reason to stop doing what I am doing right now.

If you could give two pieces of advice to aspiring or new webmasters/internet business owners, what would they be

1. Do not be afraid of the Internet. Yes, there is a learning curve, but that curve can be overcome. Nobody starts out as an expert, they become an expert by experimenting, playing around, and trying different things.

2. Stay focused on one product or site until it has reached a level of success that you are satisfied with. This is a problem that I continually run into and that I see several webmasters run into. It is a lot of fun to start a new site or act on a new idea, but building a truly successful website takes a lot of time and effort.

My brother is a great example of this - he started CreativeHoneymoonIdeas.info a
few years ago. In a few years time he has continued to add quality content, seek out quality links, and has taken a very conservative approach to building a high quality website. The result? Not only is he being rewarded in the search engines for his efforts, he is also receiving a steady flow of traffic from other people who recognize his hard work.

If you would like to be interviewed, please just drop me an email an I’ll consider your proposal.

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