every 5 weeks

As promised, another RSS aggregator is ready for release.

Most Previewed

Most Previewed aggregates movie trailers from around the web and present a poster wall for all movie fans to easily enjoy the latest in movie previews.  An aggregated RSS feed is also provided so make sure movie buffs can easily stay abreast of the latest movie trailers.

Most Hired aggregates jobs from the popular Web2 job boards. Allowing you to easily find the latest in cool web design and development jobs, avoiding a lot of the noise that greets web professionals on other sites.

http://www.mosthired.com

I have more RSS aggregators planned, although they won’t be officially part of the Every5Weeks project. I’m trying to make each site in the project unique and distinct.

Enjoy, and please feel free to share any comments, or suggestions you have.

You meet lots of people when you’re making your website. I think they generally fall into the following 6 categories:

Those that don’t care

You’re building a website, so what. People are busy they don’t care about what you are doing.

Those that want to help

So you spent 20 minutes talking about your idea with someone, and they want to join, to help you make your idea a reality.

Those that want to ride your coat tails

Some people see that you’re on to a good thing and just want to be associated with the project. They might not be able to help you in any particular way, but want to share the limelight.

Those that want you to succeed if it helps them

I made this bucket with VC’s in mind, but most investors fit this description.

Those that want you to fail

Yeah they exist. Some people will just want you to fall on your face. They maybe the competition, or someone who has a philosophical disagreement with you about the way you’re doing things.

Those that want you to finish already

Yes, potential customers! They can’t wait for you to build your website so they can start using it.

So when you talk to people about your ideas, keep in mind why they might be saying what they say.

Just under 3 weeks until the release of Site 3, and I thought I’d leak a little information.

Site 3, no that’s not the name, is all about the power of RSS. I’ll be building a information aggregating site similar to Most Inspired. The subject matter is very different, but the site is possible only due to the availability of RSS feeds.

If you’re not using RSS for aggregating content, or for syndicating your own content for other to use, what are you doing! Get going with RSS now.

It worked for Kevin Costner in Field of Dreams, but it probably won’t work for your website or mine.

Promotion of a website is an important factor that most people ignore. All websites even those with great content, however beautiful, and solidly constructed need promotion, or they will lay dormant.

First off some websites will NEVER get a lot of traffic, and that’s OK. Some sites aren’t built for large numbers of users, and don’t be discouraged if you don’t get them. Take this website for example, I really don’t expect millions of people to come read these posts, but I’m OK with that, understand what your trying to do with your website, and you’ll save yourself from a lot of headaches.

If you do want lots of people to come, what can you do?

(The tips are listed in no particular order, what works well for one website will not do as well for another. A technique that works for one person will not do well for another. It is best experiment with all the techniques until you get a feel for what will for you and the website you are trying to promote.)

• Restrict Access. There’s nothing like telling people they can’t have an account to make them kick and scream until they get one.
• Write a press release. This can be daunting, only big companies write press releases right? Nope, anyone can. Doesn’t mean you’ll get anything out it if you do, but if you have compelling story, you could get some decent coverage. Also, its a sure fire way to get into the likes of Google news.
• Email everyone you know! It may not bring you a lot of traffic (unless you know a lot of people), but it will get the ball rolling, and show some activity on the website for when real visitors come calling. And you’re friends may tell their friends, and it gets all viral like that. Remember to update your signature to include links to your website.
• Social bookmarking. del.icio.us, ma.gnolia, and many others services exist to help you manage and share your bookmarks. Bookmark your sites and others will too. Be sure to make it easy for your users to bookmark too, to improve your rankings.
• Social news gathering. Digg and Reddit, to name a couple. Some people frown on submitting your own news or sites, but isn’t that part of the point? I’m not saying spam them with every page of your site, but if its relevant submit it. A lot of niche user submitted sites are popping up so even if you don’t make to the home page of Digg, try some of those and you might get better quality traffic.
• Comment. Find blogs that match your website content, and make comments to the posts. Be careful to write useful comments, or you’ll do more harm then good. Remember to link back to the website you’re promoting.
• Galleries. Your site is beautiful right? Built with web standards? There are many galleries that will show your lovely website to large numbers of people. The traffic may not be very targeted, but its about getting the word out. A couple of sites exist to make your life easier in submitting.
• Stay Involved. You’ve built the website, but it doesn’t run itself. You’ll need to watch the website, and engage the users if appropriate. If your website has comments they’ll need to moderated, and responded too. If you stay involved the visitor will too and be more likely to return.
• Exchange links. Find sites with related subject to your website and ask the webmaster if they’ll exchange links to the benefit of both your visitors. I must admit I don’t do this one much, but it works well or some people.
• RSS. One of the simplest ways to keep people coming back is to offer an RSS feed for news or important information. Since it take no real effort for the user once the RSS feed is added to their preferred reader, they can easily be informed new information about your website.
• Keep working. You’ve got those users, now keep them coming back by adding more content and more features to your website.
• Forum postings. This is much like posting on Digg or Reddit. If you’re a member of forum (and their rules allow it) announce your website, or post a discussion related to something hosted on your site.
• Advertising. Oh no, you should have to spend money to promote your website! Yet people do it every day. You may not have a lot of money for this, but if you budget with this in mind, it could garner great results.

These techniques should help drive traffic almost immediately, but also help with building page rank and back links, which in turn help with better search engine ranks, which you guessed it leads to more traffic.

Finally, be patient, if you build it they will come … eventually. All sites, yes there are a few exceptions, take time to become the big. Over night success is craved by everyone, but success takes time and hard work.

I’m sure I’ve missed a few ways, so feel free to share.