Oct 11

DeerandDeerhunting.com

Posted on 10/11/2009 by Dennis

Deer & Deer Hunting Magazine was born in 1977, a by-product of the Stump Sitters Whitetail Study Group. It was founded by Jack Brauer and Al Hofacker, two ultra-serious whitetail hunters from the Upper Midwest. The magazine built its reputation on editorial quality and integrity.

The website provides a lot of useful information and is somewhat easy to navigate. The multimedia on the homepage drastically slows down the rendering of the homepage, something we all need to stay away from. The total size of the multimedia is 1472714 bytes, 30k over than a respectable number. There is no RSS on the homepage, so you may never be “pushed” updates on the homepage. There is RSS on the blogs, which is powered by blog.com. We’re not certain why there is splash page when “Blogs” is clicked from the top. This is a useless click and page.

The major issue we see with the site is none of the website pages utilizes the same template. “Rub Line” the sites blog, forums, .com, and Resources all utilize different page templates. The site is filled with great content and the forums are active. The site received about 40,ooo visitors last month, a 50% increase from June.

Oct 09

Customize Your YouTube Hunting Channel

Posted on 10/09/2009 by Dennis

Customizing your brand’s channel on YouTube is quick and easy. You can customize your channel to reflect your logo’s colors and fonts. Follow these 5 easy steps:

1. Log into your YouTube account. Click the yellow “Edit Channel” button.

2. Set up your channel information – website URL, profile picture (88×88) and description.

3. Within Channel Design scroll down to Advanced Design Customization. Set background, link and border colors. If #ffffff means nothing to you, click on the blue pick link to choose your colors. You can hide features like the video log by unchecking the box.

4. Now the fun part – just under the Advanced Design Customization heading, YouTube allows you to BROWSE to your background image. Just save out one of the free YouTube backgrounds below into a folder on your system, then click browse and locate the file.

5. Click update channel.

Oct 08

Website Showcase: Whitetails.com

Posted on 10/08/2009 by Dennis

As part of our continuing series of highlighting hunting websites around the web, today we showcase Whitetails.com:

Whitetails.com began in 2000 with a strong dedication to the hunter and outdoorsman. Our passion for both whitetail deer and all wildlife propelled us to compile one of the most complete and informative deer websites on the Internet. The site aimed at supplying both hunters and outdoors people alike, with the most beneficial and insightful information available. We strived to create a site with an open communication forums which encouraged the transfer of information and helpful tips between fellow hunters, and improved hunting successes.

Since this time, Whitetails.com has become the #1 rated deer site on the Internet. Not only do we continue to feature the latest and most relevant information, but through our partnership with Outback Trading Shack we have also expanded to offer the highest quality hunting products and accessories available in the industry. Our team has compiled one of the largest collections of hunting products, accessories, gifts and much more from only the most trustworthy manufacturers. Furthermore, we are able to offer these items at the lowest prices due to our industry expertise and exclusive agreements with top manufacturers.

Oct 08

Hunting Competitive Analysis

Posted on 10/08/2009 by Dennis

Competition

If you run your own hunting website, hunting blog, or hunting business, you need to perform a competitive analysis on a regular basis. What I mean by a regular basis, you need to look at your competitors’ sites at least once a month, if not more. You cannot afford to have your competitors launch new services/functionality and steal your users.

Some important things to look at when you analyze your competitors sites:

-Check your competitors features/functionalities (ie widgets, forums, etc).
-Analyze page structure, graphics and language of the site. Cleanliness is the key on today’s web.
-Check your competitors keywords.
-Research their social media presence (Twitter, Facebook, Flickr,etc).
-Follow their press releases for new launches.
-Keep an eye on their traffic via compete.com for spikes and valleys. Take advantage of those valleys.
-Keep an eye out for what other hunters are saying in forums or message boards.
-Run searches on your competitors via Google, Bing, and Yahoo to see their page rankings.
-Set up a Google alerts to be notified when your competitors are mentioned on the web.

Monitoring your competitors online is key and will enhance your hunting business.

Oct 07

Create Your Own Twitter Hunting Community

Posted on 10/07/2009 by Dennis

The are many Twitter applications on the web today. If you are looking to build your own hunting community using Twitter as the platform, you should check out Twibes.com. Twibes.com allows anyone to create their own group and customize their “look and feel”. Once you join a Twibe, your Tweets will appear in your Twitter stream as well as in your Twibe. Setup is quick and easy and requires to technical skills.

From Twibes.com:

A Twibe is a group of Twitter users interested in a common topic. To create a Twibe, just choose a name and Tweet it using the form above. The URL must be included in the tweet. Example: http://twibes.com/hunting

How do I create or join a Twibe?

To create a twibe, just tweet a link to it. For example, “I just created the coffee Twibe: http://twibes.com/coffee”. Any people to subsequently tweet “http://twibes.com/coffee” will jointhe Twibe. *Be sure that the full URL is included in the tweet. Please note, some desktop applications through which Twitter users tweet may filter the URL, and thus cause an error.

Oct 06

What’s up With TheHuntZone.com?

Posted on 10/06/2009 by Dennis

One of our favorite hunting communities seems to be struggling as of late. TheHuntZone.com site use to be informative and very active in the forums. But visitors are way down. They are now average an annual low of about 277 visitors a month. Is this because the site changed ownership several times in 2009?

What are your thoughts on why the site is not receiving decent traffic? Here is more about Huntzone.com:

“This unique hunting community was established in 2006, as one of the original social networks to give hunters a dedicated, friendly, and customized place on the web. After years of consistent growth, our dedicated deer hunting community was asking for a broader scope and to add a fishing community influence to enhance their overall experience, so in 2009 we enhanced this project and added the obvious outdoor elements of the full spectrum of hunting interests and now all types of fishing to this already great hunting community.

With a large commitment to this project, TheHuntZone.com exchanged ownership a few times in 2009, but is now managed by Twin Rivers Media. This dedicated firm that also runs www.TheIowaSportsman.com, www.IowaOutdoors.org, www.FamilyFishandGame.com, has put even more development into a site that was already great and is looking forward to bringing this hunting community back to the highest level. This social network that’s just for the hunting and fishing community will continue enabling you to keep in touch with friends, meet new hunters, share your expertise, and a place to find dedicated hunting and fishing resources.

Twin Rivers Media believes the best information and insight about hunting is delivered directly from the field. This hunting network provides a hunting forum for the true hunting and/or fishing enthusiasts to share their experiences, expertise, and personal adventures through unique hunting experiences, pictures, videos, conversation, and field reports.

We’re also proud to offer helpful hunting resources such as hunting guides and outfitters, sporting dogs, taxidermists, hunting real estate, and much more…right at your fingertips.

The number one reason why we created TheHuntZone.com, is to bring hunters together. Are you new to the community? Are you just discovering your passion for the outdoors? Are you looking for a new hunting partner? Do you love chatting about deer hunting? Do you have a hunting product or service you’d like to market? TheHuntZone.com was built just for you.

With a growing online community of hunters and outdoor enthusiasts, you are just a click away from joining us and meeting thousands of people in your area with hunting and fishing on their minds.

Join us today and we know you’ll enjoy all the action within this worldwide hunting and fishing community, here at www.TheHuntZone.com!”

Tell us why you don’t visit the HuntZone.com.

Oct 06

WhitetailTube.com

Posted on 10/06/2009 by Dennis

WhitetailTube.com is a website full of hunting videos. The videos are pulled from YouTube and embedded onto whitetailtube.com. Users also have the option to upload their own videos directly onto the site.

From WhitetailTube.com, “Years ago a man and his 7 year old son had an idea. Build a website FULL of deer hunting information that was free to everyone in the nation. Today that dream is alive and growing daily. With close to a MILLION deer hunters a year visiting, the combined sites are one of the nation’s biggest gathering places for deer hunters. Our newest site project WhitetailTube.com is quickly becoming the talk of the whitetail hunting world. Make sure you BOOKMARK our site and watch for the changes daily. We welcome you.”

Oct 05

PetersensHunting.com Beta Launch

Posted on 10/05/2009 by Dennis

Petersenshunting.com recently launched a new website that is still in Beta. The launch was way over due for a re-design and needed a face-lift. At first glance, the site is clean and organized. The graphics are not overwhelming and content is easy to locate.

Petersens is probably my favorite hunting magazine to read; however, their new site probably should not have been released until further testing was complete. We often encountered XML issues while pages were loading.

petersen

The gear database link does not seem to load properly as there are many blank spots left open on the page. http://gear.petersenshunting.com/. We also could not find a “Contact Us” link throughout the site.

Our biggest issue with the site is the ability to share articles. In our mind, Petersens probably provides the best hunting articles in the industry today. The articles should have the ability to be shared across the web. There is no social bookmarking ability throughout the site. No RSS in the site either. This great content needs the ability to be shared across the web and could dramatically increase traffic for the site. I would love to read Petersens content in my favorite Reader.

About Petersens from their site, “With a total of 500,000+ unique monthly visitors, magazine readership of 3.2 million and 4.2 million TV-watching households, Petersen’s Hunting is the most trusted brand solely devoted to the pursuit of sport hunting. Intermixed with content on all facets of this sport are key features on conservation and game management , all serving to position Petersen’s Hunting enthusiasts’ at the forefront of the ‘green’ movement.

Petersen’s Hunting is one of the core brands of InterMedia Outdoors, a company devoted to reaching the most avid outdoors enthusiasts across all media. InterMedia Outdoors, Inc. is recognized for the strongest brands in the industry, including In-Fisherman, Fly Fisherman, Game & Fish and 12 other leading magazines; 20 associated and complementary websites, including the BassFan network; 25 popular television shows; 8 consumer events; a National television network, Sportsman Channel and Barrett Productions, the premier producer of outdoor-sports television programming.”

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