Part 3 : Emailaddresses.com

Let's talk about your flagship site at www.emailaddresses.com. What gave you the idea?
This is the first site that did not come automatically from something I had been researching at the time. I wanted to try my hand at a more "commercially popular" site and I noticed that sites collecting freebies were getting a lot of traffic. I looked at many freebie-related sites, doing a bit of market research over a period of about a fortnight. I found there were a lot of new free email services coming out (this was around December 1997/January 1998) but that the freebie sites I looked at only carried a handful of listings each. So again it was a case of identifying a niche and then trying to fill it.

Can you keep such a large and popular site current, given your other work?
To be honest, it's not a huge time commitment... maybe 4-5 hours per week. I do the updates once a week at the weekend, and spread the task over Friday evening through Sunday morning, then upload the changes around lunchtime Sunday.

From what you said earlier, your other sites will have suffered from your commitment to emailaddresses?
Absolutely! As soon as it was clear that Emailaddresses.com was getting 10x or more traffic than any of my other sites, it was very easy to prioritize my time! As I mentioned earlier, I still hope to get my other sites up to date, but this is going to remain a wish rather than a reality for quite some time, I suspect.

And how did you make it so popular? What promotional strategies worked best for you?
I was quite surprised at how instantly popular Emailaddresses.com became - the site received 30,000 visitors in the first week it was open. I launched the site with about 100 listings, which was by far the largest collection of free email service reviews on the Web at that time. I put out a press release through the Internet News Bureau, which is now a part of the Internet.com network of sites. It picked up quite a bit of publicity and a few awards, including a USA Today Hot Site award within the first few weeks. And by constantly updating the site (apart from a few brief periods, the site has been updated every week since January 1998) I encouraged people to come back again... and again. Frankly, I was amazed at how keen some people are on free email - the site has its "regulars" who come back practically every week to try out the new services.

Another benefit of a site such as Emailaddresses.com is that it is based around reviews; I can usually persuade between 10% and 20% of the sites I review every week to add a link back to Emailaddresses.com. This "link relevance" has boosted my site's rank on search engines such as DirectHit, as well as bringing in more direct traffic.

In terms of paid advertising, I've spent very little money on promoting the site. I have had some long-running campaigns on Goto.com (at $0.01 per click-through the value can't be beaten) but I won't be renewing these once my credits run out with them, since Goto.com only accounts for about 3% of my overall traffic. Why spend money when you don't have to?

You've attracted one or two competitors in recent times, notably Internet.com's. InternetEmailList.com. Does this worry you? Are you taking any specific measures to keep your No.1 position?
I worried about Internet.com - for about a week! But it's been over six months now since they launched the site, and as far as I can see they haven't added anything or changed anything on the site! They have a clever mechanism that rotates "new" featured services and resources on the front page, but nothing really changes on the site. One other "competitor" is the Free Email Providers' Guide at FEPG.net, but frankly I don't see us stepping on each others' toes much, especially given that Emailaddresses.com now ranks in the Top 10 of all major search engines. I think I have a pretty strong lead, seeing as many newspapers and magazines now automatically quote my site at the bottom of pieces about free email services. What worries me more is the copycat sites - I frequently come across sites that have stolen my entire content (including the copyright statement with my name on it!) I find that a sharply worded complaint to their ISP gets them shut down, but it's all extra work.

You've recently introduced discussion forums to the site. What was your thinking behind this and has this feature proved successful?
I wanted to have discussion forums for two reasons: because they increase the pageviews to my site, and hence my advertising revenue, and also because they make it easier for my visitors to comment and ask questions about the free email services that they use.

The discussion forums have been up for about 6 months now, and have gathered 310 posts at the time of writing, which averages two posts a day. So it's not a major part of my site but at the same time I believe people find the information there useful, and enjoy the chance to share their thoughts. In terms of traffic, the forums add a few hundred pageviews a week for what was essentially a small one-off payment for the forum software, so that's a success too.

The jury is still out on the viability of the content-based, advertising revenue model. But you've been very successful in this respect - what has been key in generating advertising and sponsorship revenues? What tips can you give others looking to follow a similar route?
Make sure that you have a comprehensive media kit that explains all about your site, its audience, traffic and demographics. In my case, I found that packaging my inventory into large blocks (1 million banner impressions and more, often) is actually an easier sell than a very small buy, since I can justify a hefty discount compared to my listed prices. Don't be afraid to cold-call by email on half a dozen or so key potential advertisers - but tailor your message to each one, explaining clearly the benefits they will get from advertising on your site and why it's better value than the competition (assuming that it is - if not, go back and rethink your pricing scheme!)