E-Ladies: Navigating the Wired World-Chapter 52 - Episode 52 Just starting out and already hit a

Chapter 52: Episode 52 Just starting out and already hit a bottleneck, how to make money? 1 (Please subscribe!)

Chapter 52: Episode 52 Just starting out and already hit a bottleneck, how to make money? 1 (Please subscribe!)

The forum was nearly on the right track, although the traffic from the magazine section was still pending, the users who came because of the plagiarism scandal were spreading the word about 51buy through word of mouth.

Even though the registration count had not reached its peak, it was far better than the lack of interest at the end of August. freēnovelkiss.com

The work of the team still consisted of uploading original content and interacting with those who contributed their content, creating a harmonious atmosphere on the forum.

“KK, what do you think about creating a portal-like homepage?” Zhou Xueyin said as she looked at the full screen of posts, feeling it was not intuitive enough, messy, and not able to find what one wanted at first glance.

“I was going to talk to you about this… When we closed the registration, Shanshan and I made a draft. We were planning to polish it after the National Day holiday and then show it to you…” Kang Siyin had already prepared the initial draft and sent it to Zhou Xueyin.

“Nice going, you two. Why wait until after National Day to show me?” Zhou Xueyin praised after seeing the page.

“Well, it’s because we were afraid you’d rush us to launch this page before the holiday…” Kang Siyin smiled sheepishly, “You see, we didn’t go home for the summer vacation, and now it’s National Day… Right… We all kind of want to go back home, so…”

“So, have you bought your train tickets yet?” Upon hearing this, Zhou Xueyin didn’t want to push them to finish the homepage immediately.

Indeed, those who should have gone back home were now with her starting a business, so it was only fair to give them a vacation.

“Tickets are so hard to get; we’ll probably have to go to the station and get standing tickets.” During school, tickets were purchased by the institution, but now that they were working, they had to go to the train station or ticket office themselves, and they might not even be able to get one…

“How about this? Let’s launch the homepage first before the holiday. Then, after the holiday, I’ll give you a break, how about that?” Zhou Xueyin suggested considerately.

“That could work…” Kang Siyin thought for a moment and nodded her head.

“Yinyin, your suggestion is great! Just perfect for the National Day, I can go on a date with Old Li, hehehe…” Jixiang said with a mischievous laugh.

“Eh… Jixiang, do you need to show off like that…” Yao Shanshan shielded her eyes with her hand, tilting her head back as if she was really being sunburned.

Perhaps once the homepage was done, it would ease the content theft by those carriers, but now with Fashion Xinrui as a backer, whenever they saw a website taking content without permission, Xinrui would send a lawyer’s letter to warn them, no more fear of unauthorized copying.

Zhou Xueyin specifically instructed Yao Shanshan to leave some margin on both left and right sides of the homepage when redesigning it, as they planned to place ads better in the future.

Even though it would look like a couplet, the layout would be much more comfortable to look at compared to those portal sites where ads and content were mingled together.

With Cui Hu’s assistance, Kang Siyin directly used the website’s backend management system to reprogram and create a CMS system exclusive to their homepage that could automatically and manually change content.

This way, Zhou Xueyin could set content to be manually changed or automatically fetch the latest forum content based on different sections’ needs, significantly reducing manual control costs.

Once the homepage went live, netizens seemed indifferent as if they hadn’t seen it at all, with no feedback whatsoever.

“This is so weird, the homepage has been online for two days, and the backend data shows single digits? What’s going on?” Zhou Xueyin stared at the forum’s data, perplexed.

“What if I told you… those few backend numbers… were all clicked by us…” Kang Siyin straightforwardly doused cold water on the situation.

“Er… Do we have any way to increase the click rate of our homepage?” Zhou Xueyin worried, “I was hoping to get more clicks during the National Day, but with these numbers? We can’t even proudly show it to others, let alone get ad sponsorships…”

“Could it be the domain name’s fault?” Kang Siyin speculated, “Look, our homepage’s domain name is www dot 51buy. But the forum’s domain name is bbs dot 51buy, and netizens have bookmarked the forum’s domain. So maybe they haven’t noticed the homepage??”

“Let me tell you, when the homepage went live, I had already pinned it across the forum…” Zhou Xueyin showed Kang Siyin the post, “You see… It seems that even with it pinned site-wide, everyone is just acknowledging they’ve read it, knowing it, but no one has commented on our new homepage…”

“If it were me, I’d also say… acknowledged…” Jixiang walked over with coffee in hand.

“Acknowledged, but not clicked? Why?” Zhou Xueyin was puzzled as she looked at her.

“No reason, because it’s unnecessary!” Jixiang explained succinctly, “Think about it, if you’re already a registered user on the forum, would you care if the forum added another page?”

“Oh!!!!” Zhou Xueyin and Kang Siyin had a sudden realization, “Indeed, if one can already find the desired content on the forum, why bother with anything else?”

“But this click rate for the homepage is ridiculously low…” Zhou Xueyin went back to her initial concern, “Right, what Xiaojing mentioned before, something about SEO? Does anyone remember?”

Zhou Xueyin remembered the early days when she was starting the forum, having had a conversation with Wei Jingzhu, who had mentioned doing something about SEO. However, since it was during a meal, she really couldn’t recall what SEO was for.

What was the point of owning a network? Zhou Xueyin smacked her forehead, turned on the search engine, and did some serious research.

It turned out that adding keywords related to the website’s content in the pages could help users find the website with accurate searches.

Subsequently, the four of them summed up some fashion-related terms, and Kang Siyin added these terms to the page, also inserting a command to hide those words.

Whether these additions would be effective or not would be seen if the search engine would capture these keywords in the future.

“Alright, the homepage is ready, and keywords are set. You all can go ahead and buy your tickets home!” Zhou Xueyin started planning ahead, feeling it was okay to let her colleagues go home for a visit.

“Yinyin, saying that just shows you don’t understand how hard it is to buy tickets after National Day…” Yao Shanshan pouted, looking eagerly at Zhou Xueyin.

“Ah? What’s the issue?” Zhou Xueyin, who had hardly ever left Beijing, really had no idea how the drifting Beijingers arranged their journeys home.

“Come here…” Jixiang pulled Zhou Xueyin out to the balcony and pointed to the busy streets with constant traffic, “After the end of the holiday, all the tourists in Beijing will also be returning. Do you think the tickets will be easy to buy?”

“So what’s your plan?” Zhou Xueyin looked at them, concerned.

“November, maybe. It’s the off-peak season for travel, tickets suddenly become a lot easier to get.” Kang Siyin shared her plans, “Moreover, the new issue of Fashion Xinrui is about to be released. If the forum traffic explodes by then, you won’t be able to handle it alone, right?”