The What

A co-branded website is someone else’s content, with your name on it. Basically, they provide all of the content that your users may be able to use, you just supply the traffic. Co-branding agreements come in many forms, but typically you make a revenue share off of their co-brand.

The Why

• More content for your website = More value to your users!
• Increased cashflow!

The Who

So what types of companies do co-brands? Some big ones include sites like Careerbuilder or Pricegrabber. These co-brands can add value while producing income and I highly recommend them. They are not the only co-brands out there, but they are amongst the biggest. If you run accross a co-brand that seems to fit your site, I highly recommend taking it into consideration.

So what can a smaller blog do to increase their comment traffic through the use of SezWho?

Rate, Rate, Rate!

Rate your comments! Make a pledge to your readers that you will rate their comments whether they are good or bad. Don’t promise good ratings, just promise ratings based on how insightful or engaged their comment might be.

The Webmaster’s Edge Promises To Rate Your Commnets

I hereby pledge to read the comments posted on this blog and make certain to rate them. This means that if you make valuable and engaged comments on The Edge, you can earn EXTRA Entrecard credits if you are using SezWho! While I will not be going back and rating old comments, from this moment forward, I will do my best to rate all of the comments on the blog. This is my chance to engage my users in conversation and this is your chance to earn Entrecard credits for becoming involved in these discussions!

I was told that my site had too broad of a spectrum and that it is hard to get followers with so many topics. Do you think that is correct?

Great question Tom! That is something you really have to answer for yourself though. In order to answer it though, you will need to answer a few questions for yourself:

• Do I want people that I don’t know to read the Blog and get hooked?
• Do I want to eventually make money off of my Blog?
• Do I want people to feel that I am an expert on my topic because I have done so much research on it?
• Do I Blog about several completely unrelated topics?

If you answered yes to all of these questions, then your Blog is likely too unfocused and will need to be streamlined. Restrict yourself to certain topics and bring more focus to your Blog. Just make sure not to restrict yourself too much! Doing so could end you up with too many limitations, writers block, and too few posts. Most importantly you should love your topic(s)! If you don’t enjoy what you Blog about, it will show, and your Blog will only attract minimal visitors.

For example, my site focuses on helping Webmasters to achieve their goals, with the occasional post about grilling and life in general. So really, I’m only covering two topics:

• Helping Webmasters
• Tidbits About Myself

While I have chosen those as my topics, I am DEFINATELY not limited in my subject matter. There are so many different topics to Blog about that are useful to people designing their own websites that I have pretty much limitless material to expound upoon. While I have such a broad scope, it is focused enough that I am appealing to a certain audience.

I hope that helps! Now if YOU also have a question for The Edge, please post it in the comments and I’ll be happy to help!

Hi Bradford, Please can you take a look at my gallery and suggest ways of improving it,do i need to register a name for it? host it seperatly? anything from design to turning it into a membership site.I haven’t been able to get back to you bcos i have been packing up for our relocation soon.Here is the gallery link. http://blogbytyna.com/Gallery/index.php

First off…

i have been packing up for our relocation soon

I hope everything goes well! Travel is fun and exciting, but it can also become a headache. Lets hope for the former!

Well Tyna, I most certainly have some suggestions and take them or leave them, I hope they help! Especially since I feel you are a gifted photographer, I hope that my recommendations help! Lets start with…

do i need to register a name for it?

The short answer: No. The long answer: Depends on what you want to do with it. How do you feel about the photo gallery? Do you feel it is an important part of your website? Do you feel that it has a “life of its own”? More importantly, do you WANT it to have a life of its own completely seperate from your Blog? If so, then definately!

host it seperatly?

Well, that highly depends on your webhost. It looks like you have it hosted on a CPanel server, so if your host allows you an Add-on Domain or not. If so, then you can quickly and easily setup the new domain with very few changes to your gallery or hosting account!

turning it into a membership site

Well, this depends on what you would like to do with the photos and what kind of membership you mean. If you mean to turn it into a “paid membership site” where people pay to see your photography, I wouldn’t recommend that route unless the gallery is already exceedingly popular, though I would even be careful with membership then. I would most definately do advertising, however I could see adding a paid membership feature to the site allowing people to utilize your photos on their websites or in print. Sort of a “royalty-free stock photo” gallery where people pay you to remove watermarks from your images and use the photos.

If the type of membership you are looking to do is to allow people to register on your site and post their own photos, that can most certianly work, however you’ll want to be careful with it. Spam is one thing, but image Spam can get pretty…well…not very pretty at all. It would probably be best if you moderated all of the photos that get posted if you go with a membership of this type. A few things to consider though:

• What types of photos do you want others to post?
• Will the gallery have a primary focus?
• What types of visitors are you looking to attract?

These questions are very important when deciding on membership and membership rules. They are also very important in choosing your domain name, should you decide to host the gallery on its own domain.

Lastly…

suggest ways of improving it

and

anything from design

• First and foremost I would change the template/theme. It is too…”gray”. It gives off a very somber mood.
• Use a lightbox! Lightboxes are GREAT ways to make a photo gallery more…”flashy”. See: http://www.huddletogether.com/projects/lightbox2/ I manage a Vet website and chose to use Gallery2 for their gallery. I utilized a lightbox for displaying the large versions of the photos. Check it out when you click on a photo in the gallery at: http://kernroadvet.com/gallery/v/august_openhouse/
• Link your sites together in a more “prominent” fashion. While your Blog links to your photography website and photo gallery, it is almost difficult to find the links. Even on a large monitor (I am running in 1680×1050), after one full page scroll the links are at the bottom of that scroll. I really like your navigation for http://www.tynaezenma.com/ and think that you should use similar navigation to navigate between all three sites/subsites. Now, I wouldn’t use the image example I have included below, but I threw together a very quick photoshopped idea. Maybe include three options…”Tyna Ezenma Photography”, “Blog By Tyna” and “Tyna’s Photo Gallery”.

If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer a few quick suggestions regarding your blog as well.

• Your right side ads are bugged in Firefox. See:

• Your RSS feed is only slightly “noticable” and I think it would be good to emphasize it more. Maybe something along the lines of…

I hope these suggestions helped!! Now…do YOU also have a question for The Edge? Just drop me a line through the comments and I’ll see what I can do!

I will also be making tutorials to distribute through their service and will be encouraging users of The Edge and my other sites to utilize their video tutorial creation system in order to grow this library of knowledge. Videos are a great way to syndicate content and promote your site, as well as being a valuable resource for your site’s users. While written tutorials are great in their own respect, video tutorials add a bit extra for someone who is just starting out and needs a visual aid to help them on their way.

The Webmaster’s Edge is meant to help Webmasters of all skill levels. These video tutorials will be a great supplement especially for the novice Webmaster.

I’m very happy with how the Blog is unfolding and great things are yet to come. Stay tuned for some even more helpful reference guides in the coming weeks!

The most important form of website promotion though is content. Content, content, content!! I cannot stress this enough. Your website needs to offer something unique, or be presented in a better way than others. If you are continually producing content, you may eventually get lucky and a piece of content that you write will become viral. It can do so by getting DUGG, Slashdotted, Farked, or other similar news outlets. This type of “burst traffic” can enhance your readership and keep people coming back for more and more.

In other news, it appears that the website has started to see a “trickle-in” of visitors already. Jeez, not even finished with it yet! Better get my butt in gear and wrap things up so that I can begin promotion. Once the site is live I plan to have several blog postings a day, whereas right now it is a post here and there. I think that next week I will begin posting at least one a day to start getting myself in the habit.

For those who have stumbled across The Webmaster’s Edge, what do you think thus far? There are only a very few of you, so I don’t expect many (if any) comments, but would love to hear what anyone has to say.

It has been about a year and a half since I spoke with John about this site and I am hoping that he still would like to give me the “John Chow Bump” (ala The Colbert Bump?) with a blurb about this site on his Blog once I go public with it.

In the beginning the Ad Network Listing will have brief descriptions of each Ad Network, but will eventually include detailed reviews and interviews. It has an open rating system and comment system for Webmaster’s to discuss their experiences with these Networks and give the Networks themselves a chance to respond to these comments.

I will begin filling in the Ad Network details this week and should probably be able to finish inserting the information I currently have sometime next week. By that time I will hopefully have made the necessary PHP and MySQL upgrades for MediaWiki and then can begin fleshing those out. Once I have the templates finished and a few entries made, I will begin promotion, search engine submission, and can begin getting into the “real meat” of the site.

So what categories do I wish to start with on TWE? I can always add more categories later on, but I need to set up most of the primary categories to start with. So the categories and subcategories I am adding today are:

• Ad Networks
• Money Making Ideas
• Random Things I Find Interesting
• Reviews
• Running a Website
• Content
• Design / Maintenace
• Hosting
• Scripts / Software
• SEO
• Server Administration
  • Control Panels
  • CPanel
  • Ensim
  • Plesk
  • Linux
  • Windows
• Website Monetization
• Webmaster’s Edge News / Updates
• Ad Network Listings
• Blog
• Server Admin / Hosting Wiki
• Web Design Wiki

That should be a good start, though it may also be a good “finish” as it pretty much covers everything. Likely the only categories I will be adding in the future will be subcategories.