GMJS-CEO wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:31 pm You do well with the Facebook business manager account and boosting traffic here through advertising. I told them to do that on 440 but I don't think they know what they are doing to manage traffic. Firstly they would need to have news articles posted and translated.


In return, you can generate more revenues through advertisers on your site. I'm not sure these forums are at that level where you get revenue based on the number of clicks to your site.

Who is managing the FB account? What is your revenue model (i.e. are you getting paid by advertisers)? (Just curious as I have done some work for people that generate revenues through website advertising)

phuketrichard wrote: ↑Sat Oct 28, 2017 9:38 pm Gonk moves slow. He took almost 2 1/ 2 years just to join agodas affiliate program lol
To make $$ of of clicks u nred generate tens of thousands/ day

Fair questions......

First off, THAnKS!!! We definitely do a lot with social media, and promoting stuff on Facebook is one channel I like. I kind of figure if I find something interesting, there are probably thousands of others out there that find the topics interesting as well. So what better way to get discussion topics out there than to circulate it on social media! And yes, we try hard on CEO to get all sorts of crazy news translated into English for all of us (yes, 'us,' as I don't read Khmer either) to read and share our thoughts on. With Facebook it definitely costs a bit of money to 'promote' topics, but hey, I happen to have a bit of it at the moment, and since CEO is my entertainment, I am glad to get the word out there by any means.

To be honest, as the owner of the site, I feel obligated to our members to help attract as many contributors and readers as we can, as people post online to be read. Simple as that. I know a lot of comments are just short, sweet posts, but there are also a lot of members who go out of their way to post well thought out stories/reports/info, so I really do feel obligated to attract as much readership and as many members as we can. It's a thankless job at times, but my team and I put in a lot of hard work (although fun) to continue running a platform so everyone, anonymous or not, can be heard on the internet and voice their opinions that would otherwise go unheard, even if we don't agree with their take on things. We have very few guidelines about what you can and cannot say, but the rules about what you cannot say are mostly to do with making sure everyone feels free to voice their opinions without fear of being attacked, both online and off. And of course we don't want CEO littered with nonsense, but hey, it's a fine line, as all of us have a different sense of humor, LoL.

Starting out CEO cost very, very little to run, but as time has gone on, I've learned a lot and realize what things we can improve for everyone. Since I'm no techy, these things most often cost money, and always time, so I have been covering all the costs, but it would be great if the costs could be covered by people who are willing to pay to reach our audience. So, it's a fine balance. I'm kind of glad we lost Google Adsense early on, as it allows us to say 'fuck you' to Google and not have to worry about everything being family friendly. Sure, it's still a good idea to be on Google's good side so that everyone can find us through their massive search engine, but it's a whole different ballgame to appease them enough to allow their ads on here, so thankfully our members don't have to worry about that.

Also, there will never be an end to the improvements we will continue to make to CEO. There is no such thing as a 'perfect' site. We got karma back. We have an improved email/notification system. Our site is secure/encrypted with HTTPS/SSL certificate. We've updated our logo. When a member quotes another member, you can now click on their name in that quote and it takes you to toe post they quoted. Images now display formatted in perfectly spaced boxes that you can click on to view larger. You can now login/join CEO through various social media networks like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, etc. We changed our image uploader to IMGur. Those are all things we've done quite recently, and we are still testing out a few more things, like 'mentions,' better spam protection service (which I'm afraid already needs to be updated again, LoL), and even an EASIER video uploader where you'll just be able to post a link straight from YouTube/Facebook/news sites, and it will automatically embed itself without having to fuck with those damn [ youtube ] [ /youtube ] codes and what not. And there's probably a lot of things I'm forgetting That's just a few we are currently working on, but the list goes on and on. All of this comes at a cost and takes time to implement. Oh, and even getting our own CEO app is not out of the question, but we need to think it through a bit more.

The only limit to anything anyone does to a website to improve it is time and money. So, in order to have more money to continue innovating is to get some more paid advertisers, of course. I truly enjoy improving the site, but since I'm not very tech savvy, I'm spent my energy figuring out SEO. It's a lot of fun and interests me a lot, but it also takes up quite a bit of my time (hell, I'm taking a Google Analytics course as we speak so I can even know more how these damn websites work). It may sound stupid, but I had no idea there was so much you could do to a website!!!! Really. It's pretty interesting how search engine giants like Google, Bing, etc, work, and I'm keen to get better at it.

There is also getting advertisers. CEO is a perfect place to have an ad for anyone who wants to reach expats in Cambodia or the region, so I've recently been putting more effort into that as well. As many already know, we gave friends with businesses we support free advertising for the better part of 3 years, and we were glad to do it. However, now that I know that there are endless ways to improve the site, it seems only fair that if someone wants to advertise on here that they should contribute financially to improving our site. That said, having a banner or 2 here and there doesn't interfere with discussions, so I'm all for it, and eventually it will become necessary if we want to be able to do all the improvements on the road map. When we have had tech issues in the past, a couple members were kind enough to privately offer some money to get it sorted, and while we didn't need it, it was a kind offer and makes you realize that a lot of people really want us to succeed and are willing to help out if needed. Again, getting money from members is never something we want, but it was a very kind offer from you all, so thanks.

I'll be in Bangkok next week, and while that's a bit far from Phuket, I'd love to sit down with Richard at some point and get some help from him with more ideas, as he seems to know a lot about making a website financially independent, so hopefully one of these days....

So yes, I'm very passionate about CEO's success, and willing to do what it takes to continue growing/improving the site. So while money has never been the motivation, having the site generate some fair cash will really help us move things up and up. We currently have at least 9 individuals (including myself) who are constantly doing things to keep things up and running, and also improving things, along with all the contributing members who are active on here as well, so CEO has a bright future ahead of it. Most people only see 4 of us (Username Taken, Frank Lee Bent, Lambo and myself) , but for the 5 others I am eternally grateful for their help as well, and of course to all are members to who go out of their way to start new topics of discussion or even just comment.