Confessions of a Six Figure Professional Blogger

Project Update: Making PCMech Cool Again

View Comments | Posted In Personal by David

This is my weekly spotty project update, where I tell you what I’ve been up to in my business and share what’s on my mind.

I’m pushing a few projects further down the road at the same time. I’m not usually a big proponent of multi-tasking, but it is kind of what I’m doing right now.

Today, I thought I’d give you an inside look at what I’m working on for my tech site: PCMech.

Mission: Make PCMech Cool Again

Many of you know that, well before I ever began blogging about blogging, I was (and am) a tech blogger. PCMech.com is my largest blog and it has been online for well over a decade now.

The thing is… it is becoming irrelevant.

I don’t really enjoy saying that about my own blog, but it happens to be the truth. The tech niche has saturated so much and things are changing so quickly. And we, at PCMech, aren’t doing a great job at keeping up.

Now, don’t get me wrong. As a business, PCMech is doing fine. The site is on it’s way, still, to generate a six-figure income this year. So, it isn’t sucking in the revenue department. However, traffic has decreased and the site is becoming a bit stale. The bounce rate has gone up, too.

So, the project is to make PCMech cool again. I actually have this project set up in Basecamp called exactly that. :) In short, here is what this campaign of mine is going to entail:

  1. A complete re-design of the entire site. Emphasis here not only on aesthetics suitable for a technology site, but on focus on community, mailing list, premium membership, and searchability. Use of ads will probably diminish somewhat.
  2. Refocus the content. The industry is moving quickly and, today, it is more about web apps, mobile, and lifestyle. The days of talking about building computers is over. The number of people out there who still build their own machines is dwindling and getting smaller every day. So, I’m going to be bringing on some new writers. I’m also going to bring on a researcher who can act as information gatherer. By doing this, I think we can create some much higher quality posts than we have in the past.
  3. Ramp up the community. A strong sense of community, united around a common desire, is what will help PCMech stand out in a crowed niche. That common desire needs to be shifted toward an emotion – enthusiasm for what we can accomplish using technology. To foster the community, the PCMech forums will be ramped up. I’ve already switched the blog to Disqus (which has better social media integration). Myself and the authors are going to be much more involved in the comments. By combining the content focus with this, I think we can get people involved like never before. The PCMech audience has been slow to adopt social media, and I’m going to have to entice them into it. :)
  4. Move revenue more in-house. PCMech makes more money from the membership than from ads and it has been that way for awhile. However, I think we’re going to begin making the switch even more by not showing as many ads. Now, don’t get me wrong – there WILL be ads. Unlike this blog, PCMech is suitable for advertising so I’m not going to completely ditch that revenue stream. However, in general, I want to begin promoting the membership more and start lessening the visual clutter of the ads. It allows me to control the message. We’ll see how this one plays out. :)
  5. Bring back the Daily Alerts list. For some time, we’ve mostly stuck with the weekly newsletter on PCMech, plus a few random emails in between. Our daily “Tip of the Day” email just goes on automatic and isn’t really promoted that much. However, my “Tip of the Day” emails enjoy a much higher open rate than anything else we send. Now, that’s interesting! It tells me two things: (1) People want to get alerts for new content via email because they don’t use RSS, (2) They like “tips”. So, I’m going to bring back this option in public on the blog, powered by Aweber’s blog broadcast feature.

I won’t go on and on. There are a lot of details in play here, plus some other psychological things I’m going to build into the site. I won’t go into all of them here. :) Even once the new design goes live, I’ll be doing a lot of testing and fine-tuning.

The focus, so far, has been on the re-design. I’ll give you a look-see.

Screen shot 2010-06-28 at 11.42.29 AM

Essentially, I am taking a theme from the guys at Elegant Themes and I’m modifying it quite a bit. It has already been edited quite a bit, however the site is undergoing a “treatment” from my graphics designer, so it’ll be getting a full new logo, some color adjustments, layout adjustments, etc. But, this screenshot is as of 2 or 3 days ago and gives a bit of a look at my “sandbox”.

So, that’s the scoop. So much to do here, but PCMech has been needing my attention for some time. And now it is getting it. :)

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  • David I love case studies like this, and also love it when the "blogging bloggers" bust the usual myths by demonstrating that they don't just blog about blogging.

    Good luck on the revamp, that design is looking hot so far!
  • You're spot on that nobody cares about building PCs any more. I saw the writing on the wall when TechTV changed over to the nonsense it is today. Like your audience, I am also resistant to the whole Social Media thing,but that's where we're going whether we like it or not.

    Good luck with the transition. I've done some major overhauling on my sites in the past and it can be quite overwhelming, especially the traffic downturns while Google gets to know you all over again.
  • Hi David,

    One thing I might focus on if I were you is to train your writers in keyword research. I was poking around yesterday trying to find out details of Intel's new core i7 970 chip (planning to build a new computer around it soon) and I didn't see your site in any of the search results. I ended up on anandtech and some other competitors of yours.

    -Erica
  • Well, that's because we haven't talked about it. :-) PCMech isn't a hardware review site.

    I am currently looking for a researcher for me, though, and one of the skills they'll need is keyword research. So, I'm on it.
  • Robb Sutton
    Nice! I'm looking forward to what you come up with. Those of us in "product heavy niches" will be watching the results for sure.

    At Bike198.com, we are working at integrating the site more as a whole than it appearing to be 4 separate sites to get more brand awareness and to spread a little bit more spill over of the mountain biking's success. Should be an interesting turn as my graphics/web people start their work.

    Progress is always a good thing and with any progress you are going to have those that bitch about change and those that love it. The tell tale is in the results.
  • Good luck with the overhaul, David! I'm "re"-launching a blog that I had started earlier this year revolving around data integration development and would be curious to see how your efforts pan out. Concerned about the same issue as far as tech blogs forever increasing, but with the narrow focus, I tend to receive much more targeted visitors rather than the drive-by's.

    Also, have a great Fourth!
    -Rich
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