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The Website Makeover Project has been exciting process for me even though we are only into a couple of weeks of it. Today I am going to be introducing you to the website and will introduce the author and photographer of the website later this week. To set the stage we will start by introducing the case study website OnTrackMagazine.com.
The Heavy Metal online magazine, OnTrackMagazine.com launched in February of 2001. On Track Magazine features interviews with some well known metal bands such as Slayer and The Scorpions. These interviews as well as concert reviews and CD reviews has brought On Track Magazine a boat load of traffic. You can see what I mean by the traffic details in the screen shot below.
Though this site has received as much as 627,000 hits in one month it has not been able to earn any income. The reason for this I believe has to do with visitor/reader usability, search engine optimization, marketing (seo) and lack of suitable monetizing techniques. This case study shows us that content is not everything because the content on this site is very rich and sought after by fans of a particular music genre. Content is a certainly an important part of the website success but if that where all that was needed then this sight would be able to make money.
Over the last year or so I have learned a wealth of information about seo, monetization, marketing, website design and reader usability. I do not consider myself an expert but have enough information that can help On Track Magazine to succeed. I hope that you will also be willing to help with this case study by offering your thoughts, suggestions and advice. I believe we can all learn a lot from this case study and hope you will be willing to participate.
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Hi Mona,
With that amount of traffic it’s amazing that they haven’t made any money. When I looked at the site it said my browser didn’t support java. All music sites seem to be black… I find it really hard to read those sites. (might just be my poor eyes!!)
I’m also surprised not to see at least some Google ads.
Other advertising & promotional alternatives are:
New Amazon Widgets
http://onlinemasterygold.blogspot.com/2007/10/new-amazon-widgets-review.html
Chitika
Clickbank products
Shareasale
Congratulations on your Website Makeover Project and look forward to updates.
That’s surpising that the site hasn’t been able to generate any sort of income. With that many hits, a CPM advertising model might suit the site.
[...] RSS feed. You can also Subscribe to iwebis by Email Thanks for visiting!As I mention in my last Website Makeover project update I am going to introduce the author and photographer of the website OnTrackMagazine.Com. Dave [...]
Mona,
I am so excited to see that you are doing a redesign on OnTrackMagazine.com. It is about time. As you might know, I was the person who did this design… in (I think) 1999!!!! When we implemented this design, we went from under 10,000 hits per month, to about 50,000 hits per month, within a couple of months. That was incredible growth. Dave’s hard work and tireless devotion has contributed to continued growth over the years, but unfortunately, the design of the site has languished.
Approximately a year after this design was completed, I approached Dave to suggest ways to monetize the site. After the redesign, I contributed articles, photos, and album reviews for about 2 years, and I was continually impressed by the sites traffic, and the loyalty of the readers, but couldn’t believe, even then, that no money was coming in. Unfortunately, we could never agree on the path to take to monetize the magazine.
As is perfectly clear, web design has progressed a ton since this design was launched. When I was working on this page, one of our main concerns was page load times. This design was launched when dial-up was the reigning standard for internet access. Almost no one had DSL, and cable was just a pipe dream. DSL was so new, that there were still constant discussions about DSL flavors; ADSL, IDSL, SDSL. This was emerging technology.
What may not be immediately clear to readers, is how much progress has been made in the area of website income generation, since this design was put in place. Google Adwords and so many other viable income options didn’t exist at this time. Our discussions centered around paid subscriptions, banner ad sales, and merchandise (photos, books, and printed magazines) sales. As the dotcom boom of the late 90’s busted, we saw that many of these methods were not really viable, anyway. I envy you. It should be MUCH easier to monetize this site now, and with this much traffic, it should be a real money generator.
You also mentioned SEO (Search Engine Optimization). When this site was launched, Yahoo was the king of the search engines, and nobody really knew anything about SEO. We did know enough to make the site mostly text, which made it easily searchable. At the time, we had very high rankings on Yahoo. I imagine now, the website is lost on Google. Luckily, there is a ton of content available. This will make OnTrackMagazine.com a search engine magnet, once it is optimized a little bit.
I just thought you might want some of the history of the site, and a little perspective. Good luck with the redesign. I can’t wait to see the finished product.
P.s. Lose the pentagram. (You can tell dave I said so.)
Hey Garritt! I didn’t realize you where the original designer. Thanks for stopping by and giving us a little more background on the site.
Happy to do it. By the way, I forgot to mention that the site was “designed” completely in Notepad. WYSIWYG HTML editors were terrible at this time, and real men (and women) wrote code in notepad, then checked the results in Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator. (Ahh, the good old days!) Things have gotten so much easier.