AddToDesign

In the past few days I’ve had the chance to catch up with web developer and designer, Jacob Gube. Jacob is the founder and chief editor of Six Revisions, a website that publishes practical and useful articles for designers and web developers which reaches over a million visitors each month. Along with working on Six Revisions, Jacob has recently finished writing his first book entitled “MooTools 1.2 Beginners Guide Book.” Thanks to Jacob Gube and Pakt Publishing, AddToDesign will be giving away 3 signed copies of this awesome book. To enter, simply leave a comment below with your thoughts on this interview. The competition is valid until the 11th of May, 2010 and the winners will be announced via Twitter on the 15th of May, 2010. Be sure you’re following AddToDesign on Twitter to be notified if you win. We will ship the books to anywhere in the world, free of charge.

When Six Revisions launched in February, 2008, how did you go about marketing your blog?

At first, I really didn’t have any idea on how to market the blog. When Six Revisions was started, it was supposed to be my personal journal where I shared my ideas and thoughts about making websites. And I think that’s part of the charm of Six Revisions: All Six Revisions authors write from the heart and write what we know.

But one of my posts was submitted on Digg and it got me a lot of site traffic. That was a thrilling experience (even though my site crashed). I couldn’t sleep. I kept refreshing the page every few minutes to see if there were any new comments about the article.

After that experience, I said to myself, “Wait a minute… people actually want to read what I write?”, so I began to look into how to write content that other people might be interested in reading. It turns out it wasn’t that difficult: If it was interesting to me, I’m sure there would’ve been others who’d find it interesting as well, since like the readers, I’m a web developer as well.

The only marketing strategy I have is to write content people want to read and gain information from. You’ve heard it over and over again: Content is King. You hear it often because it’s true.

The Web is a tricky thing: Most people go on the Web to learn or find an answer to their question. That’s why no matter how much a minor but very vocal group of people hate them, list posts are popular. They’re intuitively formatted, you don’t have to read too much, they’re predictable, bookmark-friendly, and you learn and discover a ton of stuff.

One of the biggest things that can make or break the posts you write is the headline. It is the single most important thing on a web article. That’s the only thing most people will see before they decide whether or not to visit the page. Unlike print, where you can show them a teaser and maybe a lead-in image, most people on the Web will only see the title of your post to lead them into your site.

Back in March, 2009, your post count went from 9 a month to 1 every day. Why did you decide to do this and have you experienced any difficulties to staying committed to this schedule?

I decided to post more frequently because an irregular posting schedule was beginning to bother some subscribers. I actually got a lot of emails about the irregularity: Some weeks they’d get two posts, and other weeks they’d get none, and they were getting tired of not knowing when they’d get to read another post. Some readers even asked if it was possible to send them an email whenever I plan on updating the site with an article.

I think it’s very important to post on a regular schedule, whether it’s one post every Monday, or one post every day.

I decided a post a day (on average) is a good frequency so that readers can incorporate going to Six Revisions at least once a day to check out the new story into their daily routine. That way, you can create a community—users, and not visitors.

I have to say that it’s hard to maintain the posting frequency, but you get used to it and you learn to front-load your work instead of waiting until publishing deadline to start writing posts.

What’s the most popular (in terms of traffic) post on Six Revisions? Why do you think it was successful?

Statistically, the most popular post is 40 Beautiful Free Icon Sets. I think it was successful because it was useful, simple, and featured great items.

I remember that post taking quite a while to write. I had a list of maybe 500 icon sets that I whittled down to 40.

You’ve mentioned several times that Digg.com is one of your favourite places to visit online. Do you attribute some of Six Revisions success to social media, or Digg in particular?

Digg has a lot to do with why Six Revisions is where it is now, especially at the start. It’s a social news site that has been very receiving of stories published on Six Revisions. I’ve had an account on the site since 2006, so I’ve been a Digger for at least 4 years now. Being a part of the Digg community gives you the advantage of knowing what will work and what won’t work on the site. For example, when I write a post, I ask myself: “If I see this on Digg, would I vote for it?”

Six Revisions has almost hit the 50,000 RSS reader mark, which is quite the accomplishment. I’m sure many of your readers, particularly those looking to start up or those who have started up their own design-related websites, would be interested in seeing the traffic growth of Six Revisions over the last few years. With regards to Six Revisions’ traffic, what statistics have shocked you the most?

Because I’m a web developer, the most shocking is that most people used Firefox and not IE. In sites I’ve built for the mainstream Web populace, most of the traffic comes from IE, and thus, I’ve been trained to develop around IE.

But on Six Revisions, it’s the other way around. There are more Chrome and Safari users than IE users on Six Revisions. At one point, there was a month where 80% of the users were using Firefox.

It’s great for me: It means I don’t have to worry as much about supporting IE (which is a pain).

In past interviews, you’ve posted the same two pictures of your workplace. Can you show us a more recent picture of your workplace, or is it still exactly the same?

It’s the same except I have my speakers on the desk, and not on the open shelves below. And to prove it, I’ve included a new picture that I’ve snapped just now without tidying up my workspace, taken by my iPhone’s camera instead of the fancy-shamancy DSLR camera I used for those two pictures.

You’ve recently written a book called “MooTools 1.2 Beginners Guide Book.” Can you tell us a little bit about it, whose decision it was to write it and why?

Packt Publishing approached me about writing a book for them. They had a list of titles they wanted to cover, including jQuery, MooTools, and WordPress. I’m pretty familiar with all three of them, but I liked the “Beginner’s Guide” book format the best, which was only available for MooTools. In addition, out of all three, I’ve been using MooTools the longest, and I wanted a way to broadcast this amazing JavaScript framework that, to my surprise, not a lot of people used or know about. Writing a book is one way to draw attention to the MooTools project.

So, the short answer is that it was my decision to write about MooTools, but it was prompted by the publisher.

Writing the book was one of the most difficult things I had to do.

You were also involved in writing a chapter for “The Smashing Book” – Smashing Magazine’s first ever printed book about the best practices in modern Web design. Tell us how you got involved with this project.

The editorial team approached me to see if I’d be interested in contributing. At that point, I was already a regular article contributor to their site and had a great relationship with them. They had a list of topics they wanted to include in the book, and I wanted to write about CSS layouts. I just couldn’t pass up on an opportunity to be a part of something that I knew was going to be a favourite book among the industry.

Do you strive to profit from Six Revisions or increase the monetary value of the site? For example in the previous question, did you negotiate a cut of the royalties on sales of the Book or some other form of compensation in which value was added to Six Revisions?

Six Revisions was never about the money. I’d be lying if I said that it wasn’t a nice bonus though. I just wanted to carve out a little patch on the Web where I could bring people like me to talk about the subject of design and development.

In terms of the book: Books typically have a set acquisition fee and a fixed percentage for royalties based on the sales of the book. I didn’t have to negotiate, though now that you mention it, maybe I should have! But negotiating the contract seems like it’d be the same as going to Best Buy and negotiating on the price of an Xbox 360 game with a store employee; the rates and terms are standardized.

I think just being a book author adds value to your site. It’s all about credibility.

On the 16th of April, 2010, DesignM.ag was sold for just over $50,000. Has selling off Six Revisions ever crossed your mind? If you had to give an appraisal of it right now, how much do you think Six Revisions is worth?

I’m still a bit surprised at the DesignM.ag sale—that’s a good chunk of change! I think every site owner has contemplated selling their site at one point or another, or at least got curious enough to ask the hypothetical question of “How much do you think people would buy my site for?”

But I’ve never considered selling Six Revisions. It has an intrinsic value to me that can’t be matched by money.

Mashable, the world’s largest social media blog, has taken you on as a writer. Can you tell us the story behind this and the circumstances that led to it?

Long story short: I just asked if they wanted to run posts written by me. It’s surprising how many opportunities can open up if you just ask. I’ve been reading Mashable since it first started, and so, writing for them is an honour, and something that came natural to me.

How’d it start? One of the editors contacted me about providing a quote on a feature they were putting together about what tools designers use. After that, I kept in communication with the editor, and one day, I just asked what I needed to do to get a writing spot on their site.