Update on Changes to Shoefiti.com
Shoefiti.com is less than two weeks old, but has already undergone a series
of changes in an attempt to make the site more user friendly:
- RSS Feeds: you can now view Shoefiti.com using your favorite
feed reader. This is an easy way to keep up to date without having to stop
by our site to see if it’s been updated. Instead, the content comes to you
on your My.Yahoo.com homepage, a feed reader
like Sage for Firefox,
through Live
Bookmarks in Firefox, a web based feed reader like Bloglines,
or a Windows feed reading application like Feedreader
or NewsGator. Take
your pick. The link to FeedBurner.com will likely offer additional syndication
options as they become popular. - Google Site Search: Our blog application includes a site
search engine, but we decided to use Google’s
AdSense for Search instead because it offers a familiar search interface,
and results pages. The only drawback is that we’re dependent on Google keeping
up to date with the content on our site, so searching for something very recently
posted may return zero hits. However, Google’s been stopping by on a very
regular basis, so this shouldn’t cause too much frustration. We also make
a few cents if the ads on the search results page are clicked on. Not bad,
eh? - First non-Twin Cities Metro Sighting: We now have a recording
of shoefiti in Duluth, MN. The only problem is, it doesn’t display on the
current map. Based on the map’s current layout, two pair are currently out
of sight (Duluth and Minnetonka). We’re trying to decide the best way to solve
this. We’ve also received requests from other areas of the country to add
their areas into the mix. This being the case, we may switch over to a national
map, but will need to experiment with the usability of that view. Let us know
if you have any suggestions, or have any examples of how other similar sights
have addressed this. - Google Sitemaps Integration: You can’t see this one, but
trust us, it’s there. Google’s
SiteMaps service allows webmasters to create list of a web site’s pages,
called a sitemap, in order to help aid indexing. Basically, we create a file
that tells Google the locations of all of our web site’s public pages, how
often they change, when they last changed, and what priority we give them.
Google will use this as a guide to properly navigate our site’s content, and
possibly save a both of us a bit of bandwidth by visiting pages that rarely
change on a less frequent basis. - Google AdSense Integration:
The site now has advertising below the map and in the footer of every
page. That advertising is syndicated from Google’s
AdWords advertising program. The ads that appear on the page are automatically
determined by Google’s ad program on the fly based on the content appearing
on the page. For example, the page of the site containing this techie content
will probably have ads drastically different from the more typical shoefiti
related posts. Websites receive a share of the revenue generated by clicks
on the ads and Google receives the rest. We’ll consider this a success if
it covers our hosting costs. If you’re a Google Adwords advertiser, you could
set up a site specific content targeted ad campaign for this site. You can
find out how to do that within your AdWords account. Additionally, if you’d
like to buy advertising on Shoefiti.com, drop us an email telling us what
you have in mind. One last thing. If you see advertising on this site that
appears to conflict with the goals of the site, please let us know. For example,
we’re not interested in serving advertising from businesses that sell graffiti
supplies. If you send us the address of the offending ad, we can block it
in our publisher interface. We really would appreciate any help you could
provide us with that.
Enough updates already. Thanks for stopping by. Post a comment if you have
any questions.
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