Name of your website?Stormynites
Your name?
Mark Hedtke
Your Location (city, etc)
Orlando
When did you start your website and why?
Originally the attempt to get the name started in 1989 out of respect to my father, who had the nick name stormy. I managed to finally acquire the name stormynites in 1997. Initially the site was to get a business presence on the internet and has gone through many phases. The phases have generally coincided with other ideas to help people. In fact the initial name was changed early on from Old Hi Skool because at one point I purchased a old high school with my father and were going to develop it into a series of businesses. Poor planning and lack of funds squashed that project. I had a brainstorm on selling truck ramps, that involved shipping ramps made in Australia, proved too costly. Eventually after having so many domain names, I settled upon offering hosting, domain name registration, ecommerce and email. I finally recognized the purpose of the name so I introduced storm, emergency and survival supplies as well. In order to market these businesses better I also helped develop an online newspaper locally and thus I was in the advertising business as well.
Please give us a short summary of your website, business model, etc
The website was not designed to be slick or impressive. It purpose is to help people find what they are looking for quickly with major categories shown on the first screen. All of the sites linked to have two purposes, to help people and do it in an economical way.
What has been the most difficult part of creating and running your website?
The diversity of information that is available in the world today has a tendency to lure me into offering more than I can handle. So, the temptation to put more on the sites is difficult to resist. Also keeping content fresh and interesting on each while conducting business often is a daunting task, especially with most of my time drawn away into advertising.
What has been the easist part of operating your website?
The ideas for more content has been the easiest part of having a website. That's why the Hedtke Institute is so great, as it has provided such a wealth of ideas.
What was your biggest mistake?
It may still be the lack of focus onto one single idea. The mensa in me has aways been more of a curse than a gift. My interest, ideas and focus often drift into the world of possibility.
Who maintains your website and why?
Most is done by myself to have better hands on control of content and to continue to make sure it is helpful to visitors.
Tell us how your business has benefitted from your website?
It has grown gradually over the years, as I have zeroed in on the key money making features. Mostly, the business has benefited because of the many people I have had the opportunity to help and not gouged in the process. They have always gotten their moneys worth.
What are your views on ecommerce and the future of the internet?
Views on ecommerce? As each passing generation has more interaction with using the internet, it has a higher acceptence of it's online bill paying and reliability of product representation as truly being what was offered. On my own newspaper authors site at http://orlandofloridaonline.net/orlando-fl-local-authors/orlando-fl-mostpopular.html we regularly see how the internet makes life better. Ebay has done a lot to help that along. The future offers limitless opportunity as long as government intervention is restricted.
What are your views on Search Engine Optimization (SEO)?
Personally, I have not been impressed at all with respect to the money gouging that most of the major players offer. The playing field is not level, but then life isn't fair either.
What are your views on Search Engines? Have they helped or hindered your website?
At one time search engines provided a reasonable means to locate other netizens and surely we all recognize just how impossible it is to visit all the web sites on the internet today. The fact a large number of sites are still inaccessible because they are part of the deep web, requiring passwords or have restricted access in some way makes finding everything that much more impossible. So when I hear of a major search engine delisting websites because these websites in their opinion do not meet the algorithm requirements in some way or happen to have so many inbound links that they feel that it just isn't possible for any sites to have that many. What part of whats wrong here, makes people realize search engines are abusing their presence on the internet? Has "G" forgot, now that they are so BIG, what created their meteoric rise? That was listing everyone. I certainly hope that their handlers get religion soon or they may end up, in our opinion, like another alphabet company.
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
Investing in advertising in my local Metro Orlando Online Newspaper. Local portals have a greater ROI such as what is found at http://orlandofloridaonline.net
What method has been least successful for promoting your website?
Without a question in my opinion, all the scams out there like SEO, PPC, and advertising on the major search engines.
What would you like to see change with respect to the internet?
Requiring all X rated sites to use a new domain registration url for their websites, something like sex or xxx or some such new designation. In that way the people who wish to use these sites can readily find them and those who don't can screen them from their view. With an international collaboration of this effort with civil penalties, minors or those people with more restrictive sensibilites would not have to be exposed to this.
You can enter a question of your choice and the answer here:
How can you solve almost anything? Using your Head is the Key.
What is your website address?
Stormynites
