WolfServers.com bought out by AOWC?

[pjdaley]

I was actually thinking about doing an oscommerce website, using, well, oscommerce. It would be clean, and very professional looking. It would look too much liek a noraml store though, so I shunned from it. I playewd with a Joomla CMS, and it looks extremely nice, but was too complicated. So, I go for something easy.

 

My site is actually that previous template that was for sale, the one that had the blue USA map on it, not sure if you recognize it, but with HEAVY tweaking, he did not give me the CMS backend sql database for it, so I had to basically gut it and convert it to html I was thinking of rotating the banner image with a few others I ahve been messing around with

[HGN-Daniel]

Or just use Wordpress

[Defcon|Rich]

Second that. Wordpress is becoming a pretty popular option.

[Jesse]

You would be correct if we were selling Rolex watches, but we have the philosophy that a GSP website should look like a gaming clan website and what do 95% of all game clans use, PHP and PHP nuke. People that shop at Wal-Mart don’t go there to look at the pretty displays, they just want to save money.

 

We chose e107 because it is easy to admin and setup, but mainly because it is free.

 

We incorporated a .asp ecommerce shopping cart that we fully integrated into the WHMCS billing software so the orders are automatically transferred. It may look like a simple site but getting everything to work was not easy.

 

But the one thing we can say with 100% certainty "There is not another GSP site like HostileContact.com"

 

And by the way the ugly website has not stopped us from reaching the 300 customer mark. That might not be a lot compared to AOW or Gameservers.com but for us it is right on track with our business plan. Next year our target is 500 and we fully expect to reach that number by the end of the third quarter.

 

So maybe some of the GSPs with pretty websites that are selling out or going under should take a little word of advice "Go ugly early or you might go home alone"

 

I disagree. If you compared company to your competition for the $1/slot niche, your site doesn't perform as well as you're claiming.

 

I'm wondering if you have the #1 position for any particular keywords on Google four our niche? Of the traffic to our site, 22% is from search engines with Google taking 97% of that market share.

[SickPuppy]

Template buyers are generally people like my mom or little sister who aren't web savvy but wish to host a website with a point and click interface.. When I see a company in business selling things like server hosting I cannot help but think, "These guys cannot even design a simple website, How could I trust them to fix something if it breaks?" Seriously bud, Your only kidding yourself with that logic.

 

It is called outsourcing read about it.

 

I build computers and servers and I have 2 Network and IT specialist on staff. But all of that is pointless because when something goes wrong we outsource the repairs. Not very cost effective to fly from Georgia to Los Angeles or the United Kingdom to replace a hard drive or a network card.

 

That is like saying in order to run a company you have to be able to do it all. Do you think the CEO of FORD knows how to go down to the assembly line and install transmission? Or logon to their website and update their homepage.

[SickPuppy]

I disagree. If you compared company to your competition for the $1/slot niche, your site doesn't perform as well as you're claiming.

 

I'm wondering if you have the #1 position for any particular keywords on Google four our niche? Of the traffic to our site, 22% is from search engines with Google taking 97% of that market share.

 

Traffic and rankings will increase over time this site has only been online for 8 months. But it is not about the number of hits your site gets each day it is the percentage of sales those hits generate.

[JasonF]

IMO a lot of the template buyers are the people who give up or quit within 1-2 yrs. People serious about running a good GSP buy professionally made sites for their company.

[pjdaley]

IMO a lot of the template buyers are the people who give up or quit within 1-2 yrs. People serious about running a good GSP buy professionally made sites for their company.

 

I disagree. Look at most GSP's minus Gameservers, they look pre made, and all have the same basic layout. If you wanted to pay someone $4,000 to make something that you can get for $200 and edit it yourself, be my guest, I will use that extra money to invest in PPC, SEM/SEO.

 

Anyone can do $1/slot, having your marketing and brand name/loyalty high enough to make it at $2-3/slot is where I want to be. I can do $0.45-$0.90 a slot and still turn a profit, not a big one, but still a profit.

 

You could have the best SEO/SEM/PPC page in the world, but without a strong customer base, and without tons of inbound links.

 

The only thing that REALLY matters, is Turning your traffic into actual clients, everything else your arguing about does not matter.

[Jesse]

Traffic and rankings will increase over time this site has only been online for 8 months. But it is not about the number of hits your site gets each day it is the percentage of sales those hits generate.

 

In specific reference to Hostile Contact.

 

When your site is SEO friendly, you get ranked based on keywords that are 100% relevent to your website. When someone searches $1 per slot game server or something else of that nature I can confidently say that they're looking to buy exactly that. 70% of the traffic searches coming to my site from $1/slot niche keywords converted.

 

If you set-up Google Analytics on your site you'll see that you're not getting search traffic for keywords that have high search volumes.

 

http://sixpop.com/files/220/keywords.jpg

 

You have the #2 spot for "affordable game servers". There were approximately 210 searches for this keyword in the month of may. This means you saw 80-130 hits (not unique visitors). Aside from traffic from keywords like Hostile Contact, you're easily missing FREE traffic from Google because you're choosing to keep your site. In a post from a few months ago you stated there was nearly no return for the amount a pretty website costs when in fact this is proven to be the opposite.

[pjdaley]

Inbound links...

 

When I had my previous site design up, http://www.websitegrader.com graded it at a 89. And when I searched for "game servers" I was on the 6th page, after only having the website up for <7 days.

 

Looks like you have quite a bit of inbound links, that is a major factor of higher.

 

DCH SERVERS:

F. Inbound Links: 423

Domain Age: 1 year, 10 months, 16 days

Time To Expiration: 1 month, 14 days

A website grade of 59/100 for dchservers.com

 

That is telling me your rank is a result of awesome keywords, and quite a bit of inbound links and traffic(probably word of mouth, etc... I don't need to state the obvious). you should probably renew your domain name now, might give you a slightly higher seo ranking :-)

 

ps: I am not saying I get quite a lot of traffic, because I don't things are still being setup, I do get 40-90 unique hits a day for some reason though, without key words and meta tags setup yet :-)

 

pps: mine is 48/100 becasue I havent done my alt text, blog, title, meta tags, etc... if you were interested.

[Jesse]

We would have quite a few more if TCAdmin gave Google spiders a log-in to index all of the forums and the links inside

[pjdaley]

True but Google also will rank you down/not rank at all for having multiple links in the same post/thread multiple times. I have seem the disadvantages of this, but also the advantage. Sometimes a catch 22

[SickPuppy]

In specific reference to Hostile Contact.

 

When your site is SEO friendly, you get ranked based on keywords that are 100% relevent to your website. When someone searches $1 per slot game server or something else of that nature I can confidently say that they're looking to buy exactly that. 70% of the traffic searches coming to my site from $1/slot niche keywords converted.

 

If you set-up Google Analytics on your site you'll see that you're not getting search traffic for keywords that have high search volumes.

 

http://sixpop.com/files/220/keywords.jpg

 

You have the #2 spot for "affordable game servers". There were approximately 210 searches for this keyword in the month of may. This means you saw 80-130 hits (not unique visitors). Aside from traffic from keywords like Hostile Contact, you're easily missing FREE traffic from Google because you're choosing to keep your site. In a post from a few months ago you stated there was nearly no return for the amount a pretty website costs when in fact this is proven to be the opposite.

 

Any time you want to post your annual balance sheet and do a comparison I am more than willing. The proof is in bottom line. In less than 1 year we have grown from a 1 server 20 customer company to a 15 server 300 customer company and even during this economic recession we continue to grow. So as long as our ugly, cheap, template website keeps us on track I think I will stick with it.

 

And it looks like we are getting ready to jump into the colo business

[pjdaley]

Any time you want to post your annual balance sheet and do a comparison I am more than willing. The proof is in bottom line. In less than 1 year we have grown from a 1 server 20 customer company to a 15 server 300 customer company and even during this economic recession we continue to grow. So as long as our ugly, cheap, template website keeps us on track I think I will stick with it.

 

Actually, I like the hostilecontact website. I do have a suggestion, take it as you will, I think you should make some of those icons on the left and right side a little smaller, just a personal preference

 

I do prefer Hostile Contact over DCH Servers, purely based on look. I do find DCH servers page to be more cookie cutter template, than a "custom" template. Same thing can be said about mine, I have no content published yet, but hopefully soon

[studeggle]

Come on folks, why keep arguing about it? He will continue to do business his way until he becomes an old timer and thereby shows his way works, or folds up shop showing it was full of hot air.

You all have beaten this argument to death and then some, and a simple review of posts shows that if he does post something he feels looks bad he’ll edit the posts out. Which is rather smart when you think about it as these forums and there content can be found on Google and other search engines so its not wise for any GSP to have statements on here that could harm there business.

So let the dead topic lay. Many believe a good website that is clean and crisp and SEO friendly pays for itself. He feels it doesn’t. Only time will really tell as all one can use to prove it are past stats. And from time to time folks come along and show the industry a new way that works, other times they crumble.

[pjdaley]

Come on folks, why keep arguing about it? He will continue to do business his way until he becomes an old timer and thereby shows his way works, or folds up shop showing it was full of hot air.

You all have beaten this argument to death and then some, and a simple review of posts shows that if he does post something he feels looks bad he’ll edit the posts out. Which is rather smart when you think about it as these forums and there content can be found on Google and other search engines so its not wise for any GSP to have statements on here that could harm there business.

So let the dead topic lay. Many believe a good website that is clean and crisp and SEO friendly pays for itself. He feels it doesn’t. Only time will really tell as all one can use to prove it are past stats. And from time to time folks come along and show the industry a new way that works, other times they crumble.

 

as far as I know, Google does not crawl these pages since they need an account to view other sections :-/ That is why we do not get linkbacks from links in our sigs

[Jesse]

Come on folks, why keep arguing about it? He will continue to do business his way until he becomes an old timer and thereby shows his way works, or folds up shop showing it was full of hot air.

You all have beaten this argument to death and then some, and a simple review of posts shows that if he does post something he feels looks bad he’ll edit the posts out. Which is rather smart when you think about it as these forums and there content can be found on Google and other search engines so its not wise for any GSP to have statements on here that could harm there business.

So let the dead topic lay. Many believe a good website that is clean and crisp and SEO friendly pays for itself. He feels it doesn’t. Only time will really tell as all one can use to prove it are past stats. And from time to time folks come along and show the industry a new way that works, other times they crumble.

 

I wouldn't call this an argument. There's a lot of interesting info for people looking to grow and see what does and doesn't work.

[pjdaley]

I wouldn't call this an argument. There's a lot of interesting info for people looking to grow and see what does and doesn't work.

 

Agree constructive criticism at its best, no one is really attacking anyone, just offering their opinions.

[SickPuppy]

Actually, I like the hostilecontact website. I do have a suggestion, take it as you will, I think you should make some of those icons on the left and right side a little smaller, just a personal preference

 

I do prefer Hostile Contact over DCH Servers, purely based on look. I do find DCH servers page to be more cookie cutter template, than a "custom" template. Same thing can be said about mine, I have no content published yet, but hopefully soon

 

Right now I just don't have time to work on the website. I am a full time Grad student working on my M.B.A. Combine that with running 2 online businesses and an embroidery shop. I don't have time to do much with the web site. Not to mention fishing, that consumes quite a lot of my time.

[SickPuppy]

A pretty website is not going to compensate for a poor business plan, just ask Wolf.

 

Have you never heard the phrase "If you polish a turd it is still a turd it just looks good."

[pjdaley]

A pretty website is not going to compensate for a poor business plan, just ask Wolf.

 

Have you never heard the phrase "If you polish a turd it is still a turd it just looks good."

 

LOL, yes I have :-)

 

I understand the time constraints. I am a newly married man, another full time business I am running, etc... I rarely have time to even play video games ;-)

[jbiloh]

A pretty website is not going to compensate for a poor business plan, just ask Wolf.

 

Have you never heard the phrase "If you polish a turd it is still a turd it just looks good."

 

Attacking Wolf Servers is a mistake and indicates that you are misinformed. As I have said before, and will say again: They had a diverse and strong business. Everyone "has a price" for which they are willing to walk away and start relaxing -- perhaps he got his. I suppose you'll never know.

[pjdaley]

how much do sites like that normally go for anyways?

[nosit1]

In the higher thousands if not hundreds.

[leetservers]

I seem to remember another debate we had here where I was flamed for my thoughts on the "pretty vs ugly" websites. PRETTY sites means SALES, get it? I have spoken!!, LOL

 

He is an example......

You on a summer road trip, (internet) in another town that you were never in.

It's lunch time, you pull off the exit and see a strip mall (google)

You get out of the car and walk down the mall (clicking on links)

Low and behold you see 2 chinese restaurants 3 doors away from each other, what can I say the landlord was a prick, LOL

Both have a $4.99 lunch special. Great Deal!!

Place A is so dirty you can barely see thru the windows, floors are filthy, I swear I saw a dead cat in the corner, LOL

Place B was brand new and sparkled.

 

I'll eat at place B THANK YOU!!

 

If the above don't convince you then look at Mr.Biloh!!

He is so cheap his shoes squeak but he spent bucks on his crossing site..

 

j/k John!!

 

=bobby