“PHP isn’t even a programming language, it doesn’t have XYZ!!!”

You’re right, and not only that – it doesn’t even have ABC. But surprisingly it just works fine without it.

When you read these flame wars on forums and blogs you may start thinking that everyone out there works for NASA or Merrill Lynch (oops), does super advanced programming that your life depends on.

The truth is that at least 90% of the web software out there doesn’t need most of the advanced features that even languages like Ruby have, and that doesn’t make the software less valuable. A simple blogging platform like Wordpress, written in PHP and working with MySQL has done a lot more for the internet and for the people than some advanced banking software has. A cheap looking personal network called Facebook (surprisingly, written in PHP again) does a lot more connecting people all over the world than those forum heroes who bash you for not using namespaces.

I’m not writing this to undervalue the work of the “real programmers”, neither to say that PHP is any better than Ruby or Python, or that Ruby is better than Java or .NET. PHP is indeed not a very well designed language and lacks many cool things that the others have.

What the simple languages like PHP and Perl have however is the ability to start quickly, throw few lines and have something working and in fact and finally to get the work done well enough.

Learning a more advanced language is definitely a plus, but switching your development to it may not be worth it. Your work matters because you create valuable software that people use, not because you know Java better than everyone else in your city. If PHP helps you to produce more good software in short time and cost effectively, then it is all you need to be successful. (And yes, to make more money).

P.S. This advice like everything in this blog is more attended to independent professionals and not so much for people who are looking for a job – to the latter it may make some sense to switch to more advanced language and get a better salary.

If you have a Facebook profile and children, you may want to give it a try.

Here are few first thoughts about the development:

• The API documentation seems quite unorganized and confusing
• Sometimes you need to do quite stupid things. For example to “register a template bundle” just to publish a feed on user’s wall.
• The lack of normal Javascript in FBML mode is boring
• At least I didn’t stumble on any bugs

What about the results of a widgetbait? A SEO effect cannot be expected, because (as far as I know) all the pages in Facebook are accessible to logged in users only. So the “bait” can be only for direct traffic. You need at least 5 active users in order to submit your application to the directory, so it’s nothing like to drop a wordpress plugin and get the traffic rolling in.

If you plan to use a Facebook application for promoting your own site(s), you will need at least:

• A good idea. Something original. Not like 90% of the apps out there
• Some initial users. It would be a good idea to promote the app on your site first before expecting the app to promote your site
• Your app and the site/service you are promoting should have something in common. For example our “I have children!” is promoting baby contest site and free baby photo album.

I’ll hopefully have some more results and stats from this widgetbait to share soon.

Even if you are not a developer yourself, you can benefit from the builder. You can draft most of your application yourself (it’s simple enough for non programmers) and hire developers to finish only what you couldn’t do with the builder. How much you can save? Better just check yourself.

If you are a software developer or company struggling in the unsure market right now, it’s much likely that you are failing at some of the points discussed there.

Most developers/studios websites or their applications are not presentable at all. You can hardly understand what they are offering, how it can be beneficial for you and are they offering anything at all.

Many developers are so keen on writing “amazing loops” and “sexy recursions” that they build apps without taking in mind the user needs. If you are one of them, then you should generally change the way you do business.

The other points in the article also address very common mistakes, so I’d suggest you just read it.

“I am the best programmer” or “We have a great team” is just as flawed. “Best” is subjective and I bet you aren’t, sorry (I doubt exactly “the best” is reading). Even if you were, your customers don’t care. They want a job done well for a good price and most won’t pay crazy fees to have a great work done. What could be so great in a simple PHP site anyway? It either works correctly or it doesn’t.

If you want to build a successful business in web design and/or development, you need an USP.

I can think of at least two relatively easy ways to differentiate your service by all the “we do it all” crowd.

Specialize in technology

If you are a freelance developer or small development studio, taking this approach can really help you find your market position. For example you can specialize in doing Facebook apps, Wordpress plugins, Joomla modules or Twitter apps. Going this route exposes you to a smaller but a lot more targeted and less competitive market. If you build your site or blog around building Facebook apps for example you will have much better chance to rank in search engines for such searches, they are a lot more likely to convert into real customers and you can quickly become recognized as an authority in building Facebook apps. Such a targeted approach will also justify some advertising (PPC for example) because an ad “Get a Facebook app developed” is having a much bigger chance to convert someone who is looking for a Facebook app, rather than an add “Outsource PHP Programming” which leads to a site offering all kind of PHP programming services.

Specialization in technology will also help you become really good in the area and will easily justify higher rates.

You shouldn’t worry about the market being too small. If you can’t find enough customers for building Facebook apps, you can add a site or subdomain (”department”) offering programming Twitter apps. It’s enough to tell that you are doing some specialized service to convert better the customers who are looking for it. (assuming you really can do it of course)

If you are a designer or design studio, there are plenty of options for specialization as well. You can offer explicitly Wordpress templates, Joomla themes, logo design, design of sites for mobile devices, Flash design etc. The key again is not to have a site saying “we offer web design”, but to have a point of difference.

Specialize in niches

If you a dentist and want a website you will prefer “Dentist’s Web Design” or even “Medical Web Design” (ridiculous company names of course, don’t use them) instead of “Web Design Gurus”. This is not only a marketing trick. Building a good web site (even if you do only the design or the development) requires a knowledge about the business logic your client operates in. Of course you can always just follow the requirements document (if you are lucky enough to get detailed one) but your service will be so much more valuable if you can provide advice and input that will genuinely help the client in their business.

By specializing in a niche you will quickly become knowledgeable about it and about the online strategies the businesses in that niche use. This will not cost you losing good shape in the general web field – you’ll have to do good design/development in the niche anyway. Even if several years you do exclusively websites or software for forex brokers nothing stops you do a completely different site after that. On the contrary, you may even transfer good ideas from one niche to another which is often incredibly valuable.

Specialization also means reuse. For example a while ago in Axaya we were doing a lot of social network sites so we got not only good in them, but also had a lot of ready code to reuse. This allowed us to give good quotes and show impressive portfolio to customers who look for social network sites.

Whatever business you are in, think how to differentiate yourself from the crowd. Being the best is not the answer even if you are. Being the cheapest is the worst possible answer even if you are only a pretender. Being different is what you need – it requires some effort, thoughts and time, but pays better long term.

Fifth page in Google may not be a huge thing but is significant progress since the previous time. Important thing to mention is that in addition to the widget bait we got few links from forum signature, few links from one article and a link from Hubpages hub. So it’s not the widget alone, but good luck ranking for such a keyword without it.

Now the next step includes wiring one more article and maybe making one more hub and squidoo page. Since this is very unlikely to give significant improvement, we’ll plan the next widget targeting the same page. Stay tuned.

There is no PR update yet, but 10 days after releasing the investment calculator plugin the first results can be seen.

Searches for “investment calculator plugin”, “investment calculator wordpress”, “investment calculator wordpress plugin” and “investment calculator wp” all rank sharkinvestor.com on the first place in Google. For most of the key phrases we get also the target page – http://sharkinvestor.com/investment-calculator/ – ranked as a sub-result of the plugin page. Yahoo and Live are pathetic and not only rank the domain lower, but also return completely irrelevant pages from it. I am not a fan of Google’s monopoly but it clearly shows to be much better in this experiment so far.

Now, the results for the above phrases are great, but our target is to rank for “investment calculator”. Of course I don’t expect that to happen only with one widgetbait, but there is already some success: the right page ranks in Google currently at 195th place (page 19 of the results). Being in page 19 in practice is like being no ranked at all, but we look for the fundamental effect and it is quite good. From now on, we’ll do some standard linking to see how much the combination of both will help.

We’ll publish few articles, will get few forum signature links and few links from partner sites. I’ll ensure one PR 6 link from the FirstTimer’s page – I’ll post something like “Other plugins from the author”.

We’ll follow the result after a month and if it is still not good enough, it will be a time for the heavy guns – another widgetbait for the same page.

The Investment Calculator Case Study

When I created FirstTimer I did not target any specific search engine optimization benefits. Now it’s time for a more focused widgetbait effort and for it we picked the site which first started using FirstTimer as well – http://sharkinvestor.com.

The task will be to optimize this investment calculator for exactly the same phrase – investment calculator. The phrase is competitive but not so much that it would be a dead cause. I will limit other SEO to minimum and use mostly the worpress plugin for this study.

Currently sharkinvestor.com does not rank at all for the keyphrase, so it will be quite interested if something will happen in the next few months. As a side effect of course we will be watching the direct traffic which will come from the widgetbait and the bounce rates.

There is a big chance that the plugin page will rank better for “investment calculator” rather than the page which we want to rank (the live installed calculator). This is also something which is worth thinking about once I get any results.

Zzzzzzzzzz….

Next time when you make your company or personal website spend less time thinking about that rounded blue corner that no one will notice and put some effort to make the entire site more interesting. Because, you know, there are few other billions websites struggling for your visitor’s attention. She does not care about you or your company, she cares about herself.

Message your visitor, not your ego and your site may just become a little bit less boring.

There are many approaches, but surprisingly most people go with one – blatant self promotion. I guess I won’t surprise you if I told you self promotion and hype no longer work.

There are several well known online marketing “gurus” who own huge mailing lists and send hyped emails to their subscribers on regular basis. Guys like Ewen Chia and Mike Filsame do make huge sales and profits although all they sell is crap and their promotional methods are close to spam.

It won’t work for you. Guaranteed.

If you think you can do like them and sell a lot, sorry to tell you – you won’t. There are many reasons why these guys can sell using hype – they have reputation, they have huge email lists and their potential customers are desperate newbies in the “make money online” market. Unless you have the same, you won’t have any success.

If you are a freelancer or small business owner targeting prospects with above average intelligence, you should try different approach.

People want genuine suppliers.

No matter if you sell copywriting services, software consultations, e-books or potatoes – unless you are a very well known name, most buyers want to know they deal with credible person.

How much do you add to your credibility when you claim being the best (or your product being the best), giving the best price, offering outrageous money back guarantees or monkey “bonuses”?

I’ve seen freelancers who bid on $50 project and claim to be a company with 200 designers and developers. Imagine if someone believes them.

Next time when selling your skills or products you can raise your credibility along with the sales process just by being honest. Saying that you have no experience with something, explaining that your resources are limited to X and Y and being upfront about why you are interested in the deal and why is your offer exactly that is unlikely to push your buyer away. It will make them feel they work with real and genuine person.

“Why” is the most important question in business and “because” is the answer that will make you close that deal if you are honest. Try to cheat and you just lost the buyer forever.

A little story…

Some time ago I worked with a friend on a site about high yield investments. We had a small section recommending investment opportunities to the readers usually having referral links. Once he smelled something phishy with the top performing investment program we decided to add a warning. The warning was saying something like “We have reasons to doubt in this program. We advice you to think carefully before investing and if you have large funds in it, better get some money out”.

After releasing the warning we expected most people would withdraw their money and no new investments will go in. Instead of that the investments and commissions doubled.

Makes no sense? Think again. People value honesty. But no, it is not that they were rewarding us for being noble. Here is what one of them told us:

“You are warning us about potential problems. So you are honest. If there were very serious problems, you would warn us to get out. So this opportunity should still be good”.

I would guess that even without talking to anyone, just by putting myself in their shoes. Do that more often and you can change not only your business, but your personal life too. Too bad empathy is not taught at school.

Honesty sells. Empathy helps you know when, why and how much honest to be.