Since I launched Black Book Singles midway through 2008, the site has gradually increased in ad revenue to where I am earning about $300/month with virtually no effort. I have been distracted by working in the real world again at a full-time position where I had been working well over 40 hours/week, and as such, I have not had much free time to work on the site until recent months.

However, I ultimately decided to take a step back and put a lot more work into my website for three major reasons:

1. The fact that I am earning $300/month by doing nothing demonstrated to me that there is a lot of money-making potential.
2. There are a lot of ways I can improve the site to increase traffic while improving conversions — that is, getting visitors to sign up as users, and getting users to create profiles.
3. I’ve learned a lot over the past year on technical and professional fronts, and I’d like to make use of what I’ve learned.

In terms of improving the site, my primary goals in terms of improving visitor experience include (but is not limited to) the following.

1. Higher search engine placement. The prior version of Black Book Singles essentially had one landing page — the home page. By dynamically generating separate homepages for major cities, I hope to allow users a greater opportunity to find the site by searching for phrases like “free Philadelphia dating” or “Seattle singles”.
2. Utilizing a better geocoding database. My previous database was missing key locations, including Austin, the capital of Texas, which I didn’t even realize until I moved here. Also, because the database includes location that I never intend to use on my website, searching through it is more time-consuming than it should be. This slows down many page loads, hurting the end user experience.
3. Improved navigation. Navigating through the first version of Black Book Singles was very hands-on. With the exception of a few recent profile photos displayed on the home page, finding members required a minimum of manually providing a location name. To help make the site more user-friendly, my plan is to automatically look up profiles who are in the same location (determined by IP address as described in the prior point). If a user already created a profile, then the site will automatically use that location for searches. Users can still manually type a location name to find profiles in other areas, but it is an optional step that makes the site easier to navigate for those who would be turned away from a site that requires too much personal effort. Additionally, the dashboard displayed once logged in will provide an overview of what other users in the vicinity have done on the site recently (kind of like Facebook’s News Feed).
4. Administrator console. One of the problems with the first version of my website is that it was very difficult to manage. I never took the time to create a simple interface where I could control various aspects of the site, including the removal of forum spam and the deletion of non-human users. The new version of the site includes a preliminary effort at making these tasks much easier on me, and offer a good opportunity should I ever find myself paying someone to handle this bit of website overhead on my behalf.

Looking at the code behind Black Book Singles for the first time since launch made me realize how much I have learned in only a few months. I used the CakePHP framework, which I was learning in concurrency with developing the site. There are a lot of ways that I didn’t take advantage of the framework due to a lack of familiarity with it, and there are places in my code that can be considered workarounds that I have since been able to improve and optimize. Additionally, CakePHP has improved since I first started coding with it.

Since I will essentially be rebuilding certain pieces of the website from scratch, I decided to rebrand the service by purchasing a new logo along with a redesigned site layout. The logo has already been completed by The Logo Company for the low price of $150, which can be seen below.

In addition, I wanted to redesign the layout to give it a friendlier appearance, and make better use of available space. I originally designed the site for 800×600 pixel displays. However, the majority of web users are using a minimum of 1024×768 pixel displays today, which offers another 25% of space horizontally, as well as more content being visible before the fold. In terms of the general layout, I am not a graphics artist, and my original site design demonstrated that. It “worked” at best. Through eLance, I found a superb design team that provided me with Photoshop layouts for 5 pages, only costing me $750. An examples of the new layout can be seen below.

My supervisor at work challenged me to have my site generating $2,400/month in ad revenue by the end of the year. The challenge was originally set forth several months ago, and now that it is already November, I don’t anticipate that my site will reach these numbers by year end. The main reason I doubt my ability to reach these numbers in 2 months time is that I am relying on search engines to increase my traffic, and gaining traction in search engines takes time. Nonetheless, I think that integrating these changes will make this kind of income an attainable goal at some point in the near future.

I hope to update this blog again in the near future with some interesting (and positive) updates, but I welcome you to follow me on the online dating blog as well as my Twitter account @bbsingles for more frequent updates.

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Considering it’s been awhile since I updated my blog here, I thought I would provide a little update on the progress of Black Book Singles, which launched on July 10th.

So far, Black Book Singles has not acquired as many members as would I have liked thus far. As of the end of day yesterday, the site had 343 members with 200 total profiles created. 47% of the users who have created profiles are from the U.S., 11% are from the U.K., 9.5% are from Canada, 8.5% are from India, 3% are from Australia, and the remaining 21% are from various countries abroad. Of the U.S. members with profiles, most are from California and New York.

Early on when the site was launched, new users would be taken to a member dashboard page, where they could basically stray through various areas of the site. I ended up changing this a little over a month ago, such that new members are immediately taken to the profile creation page. This boosted the profile-to-member ratio over time, with it slowly creeping from about 49% to 58% over time.

In order to help increase conversion rates for new members to create profiles, I also spent much time creating a script that will send member emails daily. The script won’t email every member daily; instead, it will see what types of emails are set up for each member, sending it when appropriate. For example, I could create an email specific to new members that is sent 3 days after joining only if they haven’t created a profile. This email would encourage them to create a profile by highlighting what they’re missing. The script isn’t 100% complete yet, but it is almost there. (This will also be useful in the future for sending relevant marketing offers, such as 1-800-FLOWERS opportunities near Valentine’s Day.)

The site’s homepage currently appears on page 8 of a Google search for 100% free online dating. This isn’t that good, though it’s not completely awful considering that PlentyofFish.com appears on page 4 and has been around for many years. Granted, Markus Frind (the site’s creator) may not be specifically targeting this phrase, as he has the #1 spot for several variations of free online personals, a more popular search phrase (over 3 times more popular) according to WordTracker. Hopefully as I have more time to work on SEO related to the site, Black Book Singles will move up the list for this phrase as well as other related — and more popular — phrases.

The dating forums have unfortunately been relatively unused. Hopefully as more new members join the site, this will change. Additionally, I will likely add a “recent forum posts” section to the member dashboard, similar to how I have a “recent articles” section that is populated by dating articles from the blog.

Lastly, and ultimately the goal, I have been making an okay bit of pocket change since launching the site. In all, I’ve made a little over $85 since July 10th, with a 2.27% CTR and eCPM of $5.64 between BlackBookSingles.com and the related Facebook application. One thing that’s important to note is that I added a new Adsense link unit on August 19th, which greatly improved these stats. Prior to that date, ads on BlackBookSingles.com had a 2.35% CTR and $6.23 eCPM; afterward, these numbers respectively jumped to 3.09% and $7.27.

In addition to sending various email reminders to members (that they can opt out of, of course) and pushing forum involvement, one other change I would like to make is to write more articles in the blog. I have not been on top of this, and right now, it is one of the primary sources of organic traffic. The more articles that are available to the public, the more users will be able to find my website.

Hopefully the next update will include some significant improvements on this stats!

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For several years, I’ve wanted to create an online dating website. After starting over several times as I learned more and more about web development, I began once more last year with what would become the first public release of Black Book Singles.

Black Book Singles officially launched on July 10th. As with my original intentions, the site remains a 100% free online dating service. My intention is to generate revenue via ads, primarily through Google Adsense initially. While my choice of advertising provider may change, the method of monetizing the dating service will definitely remain the same as it grows.

To get an idea of how the basic profile layout appears, check out my dating profile, or simply take a look at the screenshot below.

In addition to profile creation and member searching, Black Book Singles members will be able to send private messages to other members, participate in public discussion via the dating advice forums, and read frequent dating tips and advice in the blog.

Although Black Book Singles still off to a bit of a slow start, the dating service has 77 registered members and 49 total profiles, 47 of which are publicly viewable. Considering that the primary incentive in joining a dating service is to meet others who use the service, and considering that most of the initial members won’t be able to fulfill that hope, these numbers aren’t too shabby — especially considering that the site was created by a one-man team with virtually no cash to put into advertising.

For those who are curious about some of the technical details regarding Black Book Singles, the site utilizes a LAMP system architecture. Here’s a bit of a breakdown of what runs the dating service:

• coded in PHP5 using the increasingly popular CakePHP framework,
• utilizes MySQL 5 for data storage,
• runs on Ubuntu linux, using Slicehost for web hosting,
• HTTP request handling performed by Apache 2,
• Sphinx full-text search engine used to perform quick location lookup, and
• memcached implemented for partial geographical data caching.

So if you’re hoping to find local singles or are simply looking to help an aspiring entrepreneur, why not go ahead and sign up today?

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I’m a day later than I anticipated, but I completed my first Facebook application: Favorite Games. Perhaps the best way to summarize this application is to include what I wrote in the about page.

Track your favorite video games with Favorite Games! Let your friends know what games you’re playing, want to play, or have already finished. Your games are displayed in a clean, compact box in your profiles for your friends to see.

Check out each game’s page for trailers and gamplay videos, user ratings and reviews, and a link to Amazon in case you decide you want to buy it.

If you’re thinking about buying a new game, just take a look at the “Most Popular Games” page. This page tracks games those that are highest rated, most played, and most favorited.

Getting started is easy! Just add Favorite Games to your profile, then click the “Add Games” button in the application.

In the process of learning to program with the Facebook Platform, I soon learned that there is not much information beyond what’s available within the Facebook Developer’s Wiki. Unfortunately, the amount of information available here is limited, and some of it is outdated or deprecated. As such, I was inspired to create Facebook Developer, a website where I plan on sharing tutorials, code snippets, marketing and monetization strategies, application reviews, and much more.

As part of my efforts in working to make Facebook Developer the best site in its niche, I included a much more in-depth review of Favorite Games that can be read there.

I’m very interested in receiving comments, questions, and criticism on both Favorite Games and Facebook Developer. My goal is to make both of these the best that I can. And, with you being the end user, it’s mutually beneficial for me to provide what you’re looking for. I’m looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

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I’ve been working fairly diligently over the past several weeks to get my first Facebook application up and running. I was originally hoping to have most of the work done last Monday (a little over a week ago), but I realized that was too soon to completed everything. As I finished certain tasks and resolved various issues on my to-do list, I had to add other items to my to-do list in the process. I’m finally at the point where I feel confident that all my programming work that I wanted to put into the first release of this project will be completed this week, likely by the end of Wednesday.

Once I feel that the development of my application will begin, I’ll be rigorously testing the functionality as if I were a new user to ensure everything works correctly. On top of testing the functionality from start to finish, this also includes tinkering with URL’s to ensure that users can’t break anything important.

As soon as I release my application, I will post the full details about it here, and I will be contacting an assortment of Facebook-related blogs that I have come across in the past. As other blogs include any press releases about my app, I’ll be sure to include links here for anyone who is interested in following the scope of its publication. I am optimistic that a large number of potential users will have the opportunity to discover this Facebook application through a variety of sources so long as I remain diligent in my efforts to contact other website authors.

In addition to contacting other websites, I’ll be sending app invites throughout Facebook (although I believe the daily invitation limit is set to either 10 or 20 per user), and I’ll post links for my Facebook friends to see in their News Feeds.

I’m started to get excited to share all my hard work with those of you who are interested!

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After improving my Facebook dialog code by over 99%, I decided to take it one step further. The previous improvement allowed the dialog contents to be loaded dynamically with a Mock AJAX call. However, the user was left wondering what was going on if the AJAX request had a slow or even marginal response time. I decided it was necessary to show the dialog box immediately, offering a “Loading..” message until the content arrives.

Creating a loading message message in a Facebook dialog is not as straightforward as it could be. I admit, this is one area where Facebook could stand to improve its JavaScript and Markup Language implementations. After spending a few hours trying to come up with a method to do this, I finally came up with the following setup.

First, I need to pass loading message FBML to the FBJS Dialog constructor. Second, I need to make the AJAX request for the desired dialog contents. Finally, I need to replace the loading FBML with that returned in the AJAX response.

The Loading Message

In order to pass FBML (or even pure HTML) into an FBJS Dialog, it must be pre-rendered. This adds a slight complication to the solution. Fortunately, Facebook offers a means for working around this issue via the <fb:js-string> tag. This tag can be used to render FBML and store it into a JavaScript variable. We can now use this knowledge in creating a loading message.

<fb:js-string var="add_dialog_fbml">
<div id="add_dialog">
<div class="dialog_loading"><img src="<?php echo AppCallbackUrl;?>images/loading.gif"/> Loading...</div>
</div>
</fb:js-string>

The extra DIV element with ID “add_dialog” is important, as we’ll see momentarily.

The FBJS

The next step is to update the FBJS function that creates the Dialog object. Previously, the AJAX call was made prior to any Dialog code executing. For this change, the Dialog needs to be created with the loading message content prior to executing the AJAX request.

<script><!--
function showItemDialog(id, title, ok, cancel) {
// Set the default values.
if (title === undefined) { title = "Add to My Items"; }
if (ok === undefined) { ok = "OK"; }
if (cancel === undefined) { cancel = "Cancel"; }
// Build the Mock AJAX object to request the dialog contents.
var ajax = new Ajax();
ajax.responseType = Ajax.FBML;
ajax.requireLogin = true;
ajax.ondone = function(data) {
document.getElementById('add_dialog').setInnerFBML(data);
};
// Create a "loading" dialog box that will be updated via the Mock AJAX request.
dialog = new Dialog().showChoice(title, add_dialog_fbml, ok, cancel);
dialog.onconfirm = function() {
// Submit the form if it exists, then hide the dialog.
frm = document.getElementById('frm_additem');
if (frm) { frm.submit(); }
dialog.hide();
};
// Update the dialog contents via Mock AJAX request.
ajax.post("<?php echo AppCallbackUrl;?>ajax/add-dialog.php?asin=" + id);
}
//--></script>

Note the use of the “add_dialog_fbml” variable (as declared through the <fb:js-string> FBML tag) when creating the dialog. Also, remember that “add_dialog” DIV that I mentioned before? Here you can see why it’s important. This bit of FBJS calls the “setInnerFBML” prototype function on this DIV element in order to update the dialog’s contents. Naming this DIV element provides a reference point for updating the content once the AJAX response is returned.

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In developing my Facebook application, there has been much to learn about the specifics regarding the Facebook API structure. My most recent endeavor included creating dialog boxes (<fb:dialog> elements or DBJS Dialog objects for those in the know) that are used for updating user content within my application.

Part of the Facebook application I’m building includes setting up items with certain details as specified by the user. Specifically, the user can say if they own something, used something, or want something. In an effort to keep the page relatively uncluttered, the status of these items is set up to be changed within a dialog window, such as the one above.

Original Design

At first, the only means I found for displaying dialog boxes with varying content was to create an fb:dialog element in my FBML. Each of these tags included much more FBML — the title, content, and action buttons — resulting in lengthy HTTP responses. Specifically, the FBML for each item’s dialog was over 1,500 characters (or 1,500 bytes) varying slightly from item to item. With up to 40 items appearing on the busiest page, over 60,000 bytes of data will have to be sent to a single user for dialogs that will typically go unused in a single page load. This will undoubtedly result in slow responses to user requests when the application goes live, which will be unacceptable for a positive user experience.

Improved Design

After doing some searching, I found that there is a better method for dynamically generating Facebook Dialog objects via FBJS with a single function instead of numerous fb:dialog elements as described above. First, I created a simple function that requests the dialog content via Facebook’s Mock AJAX. The function is exactly 658 characters long, which could further be reduced by removing white space and utilizing an obfuscator if desired.

<script><!--
function showItemDialog(id, title, ok, cancel) {
// Set the default pop-up dialog values.
if (title === undefined) { title = "Add to My Items"; }
if (ok === undefined) { ok = "OK"; }
if (cancel === undefined) { cancel = "Cancel"; }
// Retrieve the dialog contents via Mock AJAX, and display the dialog.
var ajax = new Ajax();
ajax.responseType = Ajax.FBML;
ajax.requireLogin = true;
ajax.ondone = function(data) {
dialog = new Dialog().showChoice(title, data, ok, cancel);
dialog.onconfirm = function() {
document.getElementById('frm_additem').submit();
}
ajax.post("<?php echo AppCallbackUrl;?>ajax/add-dialog.php?id=" + id);
}
//--></script>

(Note that the AppCallbackUrl value in the code above is simply defined in an include file via PHP’s define function.)

The second step was to provide the output from the add-dialog.php file referenced in the JavaScript above. Basically, I looked up the item ID passed to the PHP file, and returned FBML based upon the item’s details. The resulting output from the code is about 950 characters long, varying slightly from item to item.

<?php
// Include the Facebook client library and app config.
require_once('../../client/facebook.php');
require_once('../inc/config.inc.php');
if ($_REQUEST['id']) {
$item = getItem(trim($_REQUEST['id']));
}
?>
<?php if ($_REQUEST['id'] && $item):?>
<form id=”frm_additem” action=”add.php”>
<input type=”hidden” name=”action” value=”add”/>
<input type=”hidden” name=”id” value=”<?php echo $item['id'];?>”/>
<p>Add <a href=”item.php?id=<?php echo $item['id'];?>”><?php echo $item['name'];?></a> to My Items?</p>
<table>
<tr valign=”top”>
<td><label for=”sel_status”>Status:</label></td>
<td><select name=”status” id=”sel_status”>
<option value=”O”>Own It</option>
<option value=”U”>Used It</option>
<option value=”W”>Want It</option>
</select></td>
</tr>
</table>
</form>
<?php else:?>
Sorry, the item you selected could not be found.
<?php endif;?>

(Note that, although I’ve edited the content of the file here for the sake of not wanting to reveal my personal coding efforts, the above code essentially performs the same task.)

Finally, I had to make a simple update to my anchor tags in the FBML for each item that needs to be associated with a Facebook dialog. This was a simple change within my items loop, coded as follows.

<a href="#" onclick="showItemDialog('<?php echo $item['id'];?>’); return false;”>Add Item</a>

Quantified Results

In all, I reduced the average response length for an individual dialog element by almost 37%. Additionally, assuming that a user loads a page with the maximum of 40 items, there is more than a 97% improvement in the amount of data sent as required for displaying dialogs. Furthermore, if the user doesn’t utilize any of the dialog boxes while visiting one of these pages, there is more than a 99% improvement in the HTTP response length! It doesn’t get much better than this, people.

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• Aaron Wall of SEOBook created an extensive Internet Marketing Mind Map demonstrating everything he knows on the topic of Internet Marketing. This definitely belongs in your bookmarks!
• I absolutely love Christine Senter. On top of being a total sweetheart, she’s a good writer and blogger. On her personal blog, she writes Sunday Seeds, including topic ideas — or writing prompts — to keep you going on your own blog. The idea is fantastic to say the least! Here’s a direct link to her latest Sunday Seeds.
• According to Darren Rowse over at Problogger, YouTube is offering publishers the opportunity to monetize embedded players with AdSense. (Here’s a direct link to the information on YouTube.)

If you write or come across an article that includes some great content that you think would benefit others here, feel free to contact me to share the link!

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I’ve had problems with seeing projects through to completion in the past. Whenever I have an idea, I tend to work on it for awhile, but I gradually lose interest or hit a road block that causes me to focus on other things in life despite my progression.

I don’t want the same thing to happen with my current efforts I’m putting forth on a Facebook application that I think has strong potential. That’s why I decided to come up with a way of motivating myself and seeing this project through.

I’ve been drooling over the concept of Halo 3 ever since its initial speculations and first official announcement years ago. However, I don’t have an Xbox 360 on which to play it. Tonight I purchased both the system and the game, and I made a deal with myself. I won’t allow myself to open either until my Facebook application is complete.

Unfortunately, simply giving myself the goal of completing the application in order to play Halo 3 has one major flaw. It means I could potentially half-ass my programming efforts due to my excitement to play the game, resulting in a poor product that doesn’t generate the kind of money it otherwise has the potential to make. For this reason, I’m imposing a second requirement before I’ll allow myself to open my new system and game: I have to earn at least $150 per week with my application.

By imposing the requirement of earning $150/week before allowing myself to play Halo 3, I’m forcing myself to make a strong effort in my project such that it will have the ability to earn that much money. I will have to see my application through to public release, ensure that I market it well (both internal and external to Facebook), and find parties that are interested in advertising relevant content within the application.

Lastly, I must sell my current Xbox (the first generation system) for a price higher than what Electronics Boutique offers (i.e. more than $20) to partially cover the expense of the new system. Additionally, I will be organizing my existing Xbox games to see what doesn’t play on the Xbox 360 to sell along with the old system.

I expect this to provide a great deal of motivation, and I hope to reveal the new application by Monday at the latest. Wish me luck — looking forward to seeing you all on Xbox Live!

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45n5 recently released the list of Top 100 Money Making Online Blogs. The list actually extends beyond 100 blogs — currently at 189 blogs — with the reason stated as a means by which “up and coming” bloggers get to see their blogs in the list.

While the logic of the ordering in the list is not shared, it appears to be based upon a combination of a blog’s Google PageRank, Technorati rank, and Alexa traffic rank. The top several blogs include known authorities such as Darren Rowse, John Chow, and Shoemoney. But if you look a bit further, you’ll find that MattHuggins.com is listed (at the time of this writing) in position 46.

If you’re interested in having your blog added to the list, simply send an email to mark@45n5.com, and he’ll add you. Your position in the list will be determined by the factors mentioned above.

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