My baby steps to creating a 'proper' content site to monitise.

[JJMcClure]

UPDATE

Traffic is still low and not currently growing. Twitter has proved a little disappointing, I'm actually losing followers, perhaps they don't get that the site is ironic and take it at face value, I've had that problem before. I'm still in the 'building content' phase and when I feel the amount of recent content is sufficient I'll start looking for bloggers to engage with. The bounce rate has dropped 10% since I moved the navigation and people are spending an average of 5 minutes onsite, that's not too bad.

I've started getting the occasional spam comment, awesome! That means people are finding the site.

If at this point anyone is thinking 'jeez, this idiot has no idea what he's doing', please feel free to chip in with advice!

[Matteo]

UPDATE

Traffic is still low and not currently growing. Twitter has proved a little disappointing, I'm actually losing followers, perhaps they don't get that the site is ironic and take it at face value, I've had that problem before. I'm still in the 'building content' phase and when I feel the amount of recent content is sufficient I'll start looking for bloggers to engage with. The bounce rate has dropped 10% since I moved the navigation and people are spending an average of 5 minutes onsite, that's not too bad.

I've started getting the occasional spam comment, awesome! That means people are finding the site.

If at this point anyone is thinking 'jeez, this idiot has no idea what he's doing', please feel free to chip in with advice!

Sarcasm doesn't translate easily on the Internet, as you have discovered. I'm not exactly sure what your goal is after a quick look. If it is to bring attention to environmental concerns (and I hope it is), you need to mix in the "serious" stuff. Unfortunately, you will need to explain your "sarcasm" on your About page. I know that defeats the sarcasm part, but that is the way it is. Your site can easily be taken as anti-environment.

After you get that stuff in line and there is a clear mission (to the site visitors) you should be able to get some environmental people on board. The smart ones with real ideas and solutions, not the far left wackos.

[grynge]

I've started getting the occasional spam comment, awesome! That means people are finding the site.

Personally when I start a new blog I use the spam comments to start a conversation, I edit them to be a bit more on topic, I change the names to look more realistic and edit the email address so the user can't log back in.

[JJMcClure]

Sarcasm doesn't translate easily on the Internet, as you have discovered. I'm not exactly sure what your goal is after a quick look. If it is to bring attention to environmental concerns (and I hope it is), you need to mix in the "serious" stuff.

Yeah, I realised that to be successful this needs to actually be useful to people who do have environmental concerns so all the posts attempt to be informative and useful as well as employing the irony. If you worry about the environment, this is actually a good source of info... that's the plan anyway.

Ideally, I get visitors who don't understand the sarcasm and don't realise that it's ironic AND people who do and hopefully they'll argue with each other.

Personally when I start a new blog I use the spam comments to start a conversation, I edit them to be a bit more on topic, I change the names to look more realistic and edit the email address so the user can't log back in.

I didn't think of that, what else do you do?

[grynge]

I didn't think of that, what else do you do?

That's kind of the $64k question, before panda/penguin I would have gone to all the big sites and any relevant local sites (aboutus,wiki,dmoz,etc etc) and placed relevant links. I would have placed links on my link network. But of course all this is up in the air until I can work out whats going on lol

Have you thought about guest blogging for other relevant sites?

Have you done the rss feed update rounds?

[crabfoot]

If at this point anyone is thinking 'jeez, this idiot has no idea what he's doing', please feel free to chip in with advice!

I wouldn't put it quite so strongly - but if I didn't know where your sympathies lie, I might be a bit surprised by the content -

Your articles remind me of a curiously American form of Humor - perhaps best exemplified by Stephen Bishop's song, "Short People" - a direct statement of a point of view, personal, against the grain of tolerance, "redneck" ...

For irony to work properly on paper, it needs to have a certain surreal quality which you are not conveying. A lot of what you have written would be good to use in a spoken situation, where inflections and nuances in the tone of speech can be used to hint at the meaning inferred.

Go read some works by true masters of the "ironic art". The one that fits closest to the style I think you really want is Stephen Leacock, plenty of his books on gutenberg.org (avoid the non-humorous stuff).

Damon Runyon and James Thurber are humorous American writers also worth study.

If I'm not helping, it doesn't really matter. This is one of those occasions where you'll enjoy finding out if I'm helping or not!

[TheodoreK]

Maybe I am dumb but I didn't quite got the irony in the website until I've read about it here.

At first I thought it was some kind of controversial/offending/trolling anti-environment site, the likes of which can become viral. (example of a trolling site here: http://www.shortarmguy.com/drawings.htm )

Anyway, in my humble opinion, screwtheenvironment might be better off as a controversial anti-environment site rather than a pro-nature site with a twist of irony.

[Matteo]

Maybe I am dumb but I didn't quite got the irony in the website until I've read about it here.

At first I thought it was some kind of controversial/offending/trolling anti-environment site, the likes of which can become viral. (example of a trolling site here: http://www.shortarmguy.com/drawings.htm )

Anyway, in my humble opinion, screwtheenvironment might be better off as a controversial anti-environment site rather than a pro-nature site with a twist of irony.

You do have a point, however he may have a problem with that ethically. I know I would. If so, he is better off trying to spin it to make it work.

Studying the satire and parody nuances of The Onion may help http://www.theonion.com

[Kay]

I knew that JJ was being ironic but, as has been said, sarcasm/irony often doesn't travel well on the Internet. It's an ambitious angle for a first content site, especially by someone who's not primarily a writer. Comedy writing, and I would include satire and irony within that genre, can be one of the most difficult things to do successfully.

I like the concept, and it could work, but the site is really too embryonic to judge yet. Maybe what's needed is at least a small following of people who 'get' it, and so push its popularity. Easier said than done. But at least so far the site is differentiating itself and its approach from most of the other "save the environment" type of sites.

I see the point about people not getting it and arguing that you're wrong. But I wouldn't be too hopeful about that. If I thought someone was so at odds with rational thinking, I would click away rather than waste my time debating with them. There's a fine line between taking the p!ss and having people running away because they think you hold bizarre and irrational views.

It might have been better to start with a more mainstream site and do some controversial posts first, even if you had to use a different name for some controversial postings so you could come back and argue with them. There's a big mountain to climb here, not just creating the interest but also building the audience who appreciate the ironic postings. This site means jumping in at the deep end and learning everything at once, not least the satirical writing.

Grynge (and others) have mentioned the idea of using blam to our own advantage before. JJ, I'm very surprised that it seems to be something new to you. If a person is still finding out about the basics of running a content site, it's hard to imagine how you could have chosen a tougher way to go about it.

[tke71709]

Comedy writing, and I would include satire and irony within that genre, can be one of the most difficult things to do successfully.

And among the most difficult to monetize.

I like the concept, and it could work, but the site is really too embryonic to judge yet. Maybe what's needed is at least a small following of people who 'get' it, and so push its popularity.

I think this relates well to your earlier thread about the value of traffic. Even if it becomes popular, this isn't a site that is going to attract buyers of things. If anything, it will attract the anti-capitalist crowd.

Easier said than done. But at least so far the site is differentiating itself and its approach from most of the other "save the environment" type of sites.

But do the other sites use a different approach because it works?

It might have been better to start with a more mainstream site and do some controversial posts first, even if you had to use a different name for some controversial postings so you could come back and argue with them. There's a big mountain to climb here, not just creating the interest but also building the audience who appreciate the ironic postings. This site means jumping in at the deep end and learning everything at once, not least the satirical writing.

There is also a continual need to create new content to keep people coming back. Environmental news and the such is a very much a QDF (query deserves freshness) type topic from both a reader and search engine point of view.

This is the kind of content site that is a nightmare to maintain and run unless you can convince others to write the content for you. An ironic site, that requires a constant infusion of content that is geared to people that are anti-consumption and thus have little or no interest in ads and probably have ad-blockers installed.

If you're doing as a labour of love or to expouse your personal philosophies than more power to you but if you're doing this to make a profit I would suggest to you that there are easier types of content sites out there to monetize.