Are You Sure You Have a Great Website?

One thing I hear around the forums and blogs from disgruntled webmasters is complaints about how they have a quality website with amazing content, yet they don’t get tons of traffic or recognition.

If the site was really good, then they would just need traffic to get started. And it’s true, there are plenty of high-quality sites that don’t get the traffic they deserve.

“Could my baby be any cuter?!”

But… a lot of people exaggerate their site’s quality. It’s the same as with baby pictures – pictures of your own child appear tremendously cute, no matter how truly ugly the baby really is. (And if you ask someone, they’ll probably just agree with you to make things easy.)

So before you put lots of money into advertising, or go on a rant complaining how your awesome site isn’t getting as much attention as crappy competing sites, sit back and really think, “is my site really that great?”

I’ll just tell you right now – your site probably sucks. The majority of websites do, so don’t feel bad.

Let me give you an example:

I recently came across a site called Campus Squeeze. It’s a “college humor” type website. The owners probably think it’s the best thing ever.

To their credit, the site does have decent headlines and concepts for articles that seem like they’d do well on social media sites like Digg.

But put CampusSqueeze in comparison with a really great site like Cracked.com. Cracked blows this site out of the water! (Cracked.com is so awesome is was even featured on DoshDosh.com as an example of creating Digg-friendly content.

No need for me to explain further, though, when you can simply check out Cracked.com for yourself. Here are a few articles I enjoyed:

• The 8 Most Obnoxious Internet Commenters
• Videos You Didn’t Know Were Staged – And How They Did It
• 9 Manliest Names in the World

My guess is, once you start reading one, you can’t stop. And once you’re done, you’ll read another article! (I have probably stayed on Cracked for the 9-5 workday on more than one occasion.)

If you analyzed the site while you were browsing (like a true internet marketer,) you probably noticed that Cracked has hilarious concepts, gracefully-written articles, intensely funny commentary, killer headlines, and thorough research.

By comparison, Campus Squeeze is lame. They have decent headlines, but the articles are scrapped together. There is just no real content.

Take this one for example – “Top Upsets in NCAA Men’s Basketball History”

It’s just a few pictures and short paragraphs. There is no substantial research and description to go with them. No suspense built up that draws you into the situation. In short, the post created no excitement whatsoever.

And the “no research” applies twice actually. There’s no research to determine if these are actually the 10 best, or if there are much better examples.

Another example – “The NHL’s Best Goalie Fights”

This one is eight random videos pulled from YouTube. Each one has an entire sentence worth of description. I could type “goalie fight” into YouTube and create just as good of a post in about five minutes.

Another – “Jail Bait Celebrities”

A child molester may get a quick bit of enjoyment from this post, but any celebrity gossip addict will be disappointed. The post provides very little information, tons of celebs are left off the list, and there aren’t even links to pages with more pictures!

Moving on – “Halloween Is The Best for Pranks”

OK, so some of these vids are kind of funny. But where is the funny commentary? I could go to Youtube.com and get the exact same pleasure.

Still going – “The 14 Biggest Upsets in College Football History”

Here we have an article that consists of pathetic commentary and no videos. Enough said.

Not done yet – “Sports Icons Who Called Their Shots and Failed”

The commentary wasn’t too bad here – it’s almost worth reading. And it did well on Digg, so I can’t fault it too much. (One of the very few exceptions.)

Last one – “The Hottest US Olympic Women”

In this case, the writers were smart enough to combine hot women (always popular on Digg) with a current event, the Olympic Games. The article did well, but too bad the pics and info were lame.

You see the difference, right? CampusSqueeze has its moments, but I think it’s clear that Cracked is better in every way.

The lesson in all this is… The sooner you get realistic, the sooner you can build a site that is great, and make lots of money. But if you want to live in denial, so be it.

The other lesson, that those true internet marketers probably picked up on, is that if you find a great site, you should copy its exact strategy!

Photo credit: AntToeKnee

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