Business

Business

Just some business resources that I've made for myself, may also be helpful for others.

Side projects don't need to be billion-dollar businesses.

XKCD: Is it worth the time? How long can you work on making a routine task more efficient before you're spending more time than you save? https://xkcd.com/1205/

Business Ideas

What market to get into? When there's a market fad with low barriers to entry, be the supplier for that market. Examples:

  • Froyo (Yogurtland, Pinkberry, ...): Supply the froyo machine
  • Electric scooter companies (Bird, Lyft, Uber, ...): Supply the scooter
  • Gold rush: Supply the shovel, blue jeans, hotel
  • Bitcoin: Supply the wallet
  • Wine: Sell barrels
  • Movies: Create animation software
  • Restaurants: Build the restaurant supply company

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Quick notes

  • If you are reading this, them I'm assuming you already know a bit about SEO.
  • Stop trying to game the system, just do what is best for users.
  • Just because you've read a lot of SEO articles doesn't make you an expert.
  • I am not an expert.
  • I am not going to talk about blackhat SEO. Don't do it. If it might seem wrong, then don't do it.

In the following ideas that I share, I have no insider information. I'm just thinking logically of things that I would add if I was in charge of creating a generic search engine. At times it may appear specific to search engines like Google, Bing, or DuckDuckGo, but this information is also useful for app stores for Google, Apple, Microsoft, and many other different types of search engines on many different platforms. TODO: Target each of these separately, later.

Simple Ideas

These are the ideas that I see thrown around the most. They may be useful, but there is also a lot of competition in this area.

  • Keywords
    • Title
    • URL, canonical links. Ex: danialgoodwin.com/main-keyword/lesser-keyword-phrase
    • Body / Description / Meta-description / Copy
    • Bolded and emphasized text. Ex: Use <em> and <h1> tags to promote keywords in posts.
  • Backlinks: Quantity and quality of other sites linking to a certain site.
  • CTR - Click-through rate: Quantity and quality of users clicking through link.

Interesting Ideas

None of these ideas I have seen shared anywhere else. They may or may not be useful, but they do make sense for a search engine to implement and are all technically possible.

  • CTR: At a more advanced level, I theorize that platforms can also keep track of when and how fast the back button is pressed after user follows link. Ex: When a user goes through link and stays longer and/or continues forward from that site, then that site will be ranked higher than a site that was closed immediately or backed out from. Of course, the user could have found the information needed quickly, but search engine wouldn't know that from one search. This leads to platforms keeping track of how many different searches are made in a row and what was the last search and linked clicked on, if many links were gone through. (Much more to write about this)
  • Clicks/Interaction in a page. Ex: Time spend on page, number of interactions done on the page, how much movement.

Very Basic Tips

Don't read this section. This is just a collection of simple advice that will waste your time.

Get Started

  1. Create good content.
  2. Become an active member in a community focused on the same topic. Be helpful there, without spamming.
    • Generalized: Share link to natural places that would fit into the context/environment.
    • You can add link to email and blog post signatures.
  3. Share link to social media(s). This is later in the list because it is less targeted than the above.
    • Don't just post blindly, have a goal and target audience in mind. Where does your target audience mainly go to?
    • Is rel:follow: Google Plus, Reddit, possibly more. [Old info, no references anymore]
    • Is rel:no-follow: Twitter, most blogs/comment areas, possibly more. [Old info, no references anymore]

Keep Going

  • Get clicks on platform and keep users engaged.
  • Use good copy to raise click-through rate.
  • Get users that love (or really like) your project so that they are willing to share it even more.
  • Contact specific news outlets.
  • Ask people to blog about your product and email you the link to share more.

Don't Do

  • Don't go overboard with SEO so that you hurt user experience. Users should not even notice it there.
  • Don't just copy-paste comments and posts to build links. Bad karma.

SEO for Google Play

Disclaimer: I have no insider information. I am not an expert.

Things to Consider

  • Title
  • Description
  • URL
  • Rating
  • Downloads
  • Uninstalls
  • +1's
  • Crash rate
  • Refund rate
  • Quantity and quality of screenshots
  • Different types of screenshots provided
  • Time user spend in-app
  • Number of times user opens app
  • Battery drain
  • Rate of each of the above happening and over time

TODO: Give specific examples of my tests, like Simply Tone Generator app.