I have been having a goofy creative spell. What possesses me to do what I do I have know idea. The last few weeks I put together three sites that stemmed from an idea or a brainstorm through goofy conversations with co-workers. The three sites were built with a ‘viral market’ in mind but the main purpose is to sell some t-shirts.

First came twiturder.com. Twiturder (twit-turd-er) is a device that attaches to your toilet and ‘tweets’ whatever happens while you are on it. Yes, it can most certainly be gross. I tried to create a 1/2 serious and 1/2 silliness look and feel for the site hoping to have people guessing whether the twiturder device was real or not. The t-shirt for this product is a simple “got turd?” design. I also have a Twitter account @twiturder where I occasionally update what goes on at the plant including any new products that come along.

The next product to come out of the maelstrom is ThongDrive.com. During a conversation I was having with a co-worker I swear they said something about a thong drive. While he probably didn’t say anything close to that it sounded like a great idea to mix usb flash storage and a thong. Don’t you think? The site is complete with a little Flash application at the top where you can choose your skin color and preferred thong color. The t-shirt for this idea is a simple “ThongDrive” logo with the phrase “thong + storage = genius”. Usually people get a charge out of this product. I’m still working on a way to convince my wife to actually create one but it does not seem like she’s interested at the moment.

The newest product idea was easy to come up with due to the current scare of swine flu. The Swine B Gone.com product is supposed to be an aerosol spray that you can douse yourself with and remove all effect of the swine flu (H1N1). I had a couple t-shirt ideas for this one but stuck with the “Swine B Gone” logo and the words “swine flu protected” below it.

With each site I tried to make them have a similar theme but be fairly unique in content. Obviously the t-shirt element is in all three but the information about each product has it’s own unique flavor and humor. There are some key elements you should include in your site(s) when you build, develop and/or design.

Key Element 1
One of the key elements you need to include is an easy way to spread the word about your site via social mediums. There are a few ways you can cover Twitter, email, Facebook, Digg and a whole slew of others. I use the Add this menu which lists a number of popular social media methods in nice little package. The idea is to make it extremely easy for your viewers to spread the gospel about whatever page they are on.

Key Element 2
Another key element is keyword rich content. If you build a goofy site about a current event you should try to include the keywords in your content about that event. This goes for any site you build. Keyword rich content is extremely important for readability and SEO. Make sure you are conscious of grammar and spelling. People can be turned off by sentences that are difficult to read or include spelling errors.

Key Element 3
An important key element to add is data collection. At a minimum you should have a form on your site to collect emails and names so you can develop an email list. Once your list starts to grow you will be able to use it to spread the word of your newest ventures quickly. If you use Facebook or Twitter more frequently then request their Facebook or Twitter name.

Key Element 4
A key element I try to incorporate is some form of interaction. Generally, this can include a small Flash application that peeks someones interest, a game for people to play, a daily or weekly poll where people can vote on some subject or a comments section where viewers can interact with each other and you. The idea for this is to create a small element that could bring people back because they are curious about the results of a poll or the replies to their previous comments.

Key Element 5
Another key element you can easily include are affiliate marketing links. Obviously people have started putting on their blinders when it comes to banner ads and such but that does not mean they are completely ineffective. Try to think of a creative way to make them look more appealing in your design. There are so many cookie cutter looking sites that just slap them into a column and hope for the best. Try to add a new twist to your affiliate area that might peek more interest. Experiment. Experiment. Experiment.

Just because a venture is not as successful as you hoped does not mean it was a complete failure. Chances are you learned something from the experience and you will be able to put what you learned into use on your next venture. If you sense failure, reassess your position and either make modifications or move to your next venture. If you are just starting out, do not be afraid to fail. Usually in failure we learn enough to make the next attempt successful. Put some thought and creativity into each project you do.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 5th, 2009 at 4:14 am and is filed under E-commerce, social networking, Success. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.