Slides from Caezar Al Jassar presentation at Bloggers Collective Workshop 16.02.12 by YEP media.

1. Mobilephonenerd.com
Caezar Al-Jassar
University of Birmingham

2. Overview
• Introduction
• Why I began mobilephonenerd.com
• What’s been achieved
• What’s worked
• What’s not worked

3. About me
• PhD student – 1 peer reviewed paper published
and 2 more to be submitted before close of the
year
• Summer business school – award winning group
• 4 years experience in the mobile phone industry
• Love technology and helping people

4. What’s the idea and why?
• Impartial mobile phone advice website
• Only one website with impartial money saving
advice
• Uses the philosophy of the website which is
immensely popular but does not have a
comprehensive mobile phone section
• Impartiality for return/long term business

5. The research
• 80 respondents from the medical school
• Multiple sources - no one comprehensive
website used for advice
• Multiple sources - no one comprehensive
website used for purchasing contracts
• 75% would use a impartial mobile phone advice
website
• ~30% wanted ability to compare contracts

6. How will the website make money?
• Discussing money saving topics (content)
(i.e.) the cheapest sim only deals
• Contract comparison tool (search engine)
Links to the networks and purchases make a
commission

7. What we have achieved so far
• Live for 4 months
• 6 bloggers
• ~15 articles, 2 pages to submit queries
• Successfully approved to be affiliate with:
Vodafone, O2, T-Mobile, Orange, Phones 4 U and
Carphone Warehouse
• >1000 unique visitors a month
• Facebook advertising
• Google Adwords advertising
• Twitter news feed – 280 followers to date

8. What’s worked
(writing style and approach
to the website)

9. What’s worked? – Creating a collective
• Used skillpages.com
• Found people willing to write pages for the
website in return for a cut of commission
• Decreased time consumption from my PhD

10. What’s worked? – The “Google tail”
• Targeting the google “tail”
• Look out for the gaps
• Capped contracts, T-Mobile vs 3 plans
• 85% search traffic
• Some search terms: ranked no. 1

11. What’s worked? – Understand the
google algorithm
• Google constantly reinvent their algorithm
• Keep up
• Dates, limited ads
Latest
google algorithm
Your blog/website

12. What’s worked? – Use Google plus
• Get on google plus
• Page ranking often biased by google simply by
sharing it with google plus
• Give your viewers opportunity to share (use
addthis.com or addtoany.com)

13. What’s worked? – Use google analytics
• Understand your viewer
• Is (s)he interested in your page?
• Figure out where they are going (use bitly.com
for your links)

14. What hasn’t worked?

15. What hasn’t worked – Flash
• Website is flash orientated – Apple and phone
unfriendly
• ~25-30% viewers use these platforms
• Unlikely to return
• Linked to lack of HTML experience
• Find yourself an HTML expert or teach
yourself before going public

16. What hasn’t worked – Layout
• Linked to flash/company I use
• ~3 pages per visit
• Linked to limited time
• Linked to lack of (post launch) market research
• Ask your friends/family/visitors about it (make
sure they’re honest and take the criticism
well!)

17. What hasn’t worked – Limited time
• PhD is very time consuming
• Make sure it is a passion/hobby as it can be
very stressful/deflating

18. What hasn’t worked – Page rankings
• Some pages just will not increase in page
ranking
• Usually dependent on competition

19. What hasn’t worked – Paid advertising
• Google adwords breaks even
• Some keywords are very expensive and
usually requires the visitor has prior
knowledge for CTR to be high
• Facebook advertising generates few leads
• Indication of poor adverts or true reflection?

20. What hasn’t worked – “Ask the nerd”
• An impartial and custom advice service
What hasn’t worked – Newsletter
• Few takeups

21. Future plans
• Create a mobile phone comparison tool
• Turn it into a profitable business and model

22. Thank-you!
• Don’t forget to follow us on twitter:
@mobilephonenerd
• We also have a facebook page!
•If you’re interested in joining email:
info@mobilephonenerd.com or see me!