The Ripple Effect of CoolSiteoftheDay.com

How do you fancy a link from USA today?
A feature on Yahoo Picks?
An editorial from the BBC?

Most website owners would answer, “Of course!”. Quickly followed by? but it will never happen to my website?.

Well as the old adage goes, “if you don’t ask, you don’t get”.

Getting links from such mega sites is entirely possible.

Turn that on its head and put yourself in the place of a journalist with a deadline to meet and a desperate need to find something interesting. Where might they go for inspiration? Where would they turn to for help?.

Mike Corso is one guy that might just have the answer to those questions.

Mike runs CoolSiteoftheDay.com. Every day a brief description and link to the chosen cool site of the day is sent to 150,000 subscribers who then rate the site on a scale of 1 to 10 for coolness. The immediate impact is a huge spike in traffic as subscribers who like the sound of the site visit. And for the featured sites that means more exposure, more sign-ups and of course more sales.

But there is another bonus - the featured sites are often picked up by media websites throughout the world. Many journalists and website reviewers subscribe to CoolSiteoftheDay.com and there is clear evidence that if a site piques their interest then further coverage will follow.

I saw the connection by chance. A small site dedicated to busting email scams from Nigeria was featured and caught my eye. The very next day, the same website was quoted on the BBC News website.

I wondered if this sort of thing happened often and dropped Mike a note. I wasn’t disappointed. According to Mike, “Yes, that happens a lot but its something we kind of underplay. We call it the ripple effect and we regularly get emails from our listed sites telling us about it.”

As Wendy Shepard of Momshack.com says, “I have been enjoying the ‘echo’ effect of being listed as Cool Site of the Day. Since the mention, MoMShack.com has been picked up by various big newsletters and even a radio station today. I am gaining many new members from this great ‘rippling’ effect.”

Doug, Payraise Calculator says, “What I wasn’t prepared for was the ‘copycat’ syndrome that CoolSiteoftheDay provided. I soon wound up on some other ‘cool site of the day’ lists and was even featured in USA Today.” Here’s how it works

You apply online at coolsiteoftheday.com/submit.html and pay a fee of $27 to have your site reviewed. According to Corso, many types of sites can be featured, “We feature websites that are personal, commercial, educational, whatever. The important thing is that the site should be compelling with a word of mouth potential. The choice is entirely subjective - on a Friday, we like to pick something that is a little bit goofy and entertains people as they finish up work for the week.”

If you’re featured, you also get a permanent link from the archives, coolsiteoftheday.com/cgi-bin/stillcool.pl which are a fascinating place to browse. There you can see commercial sites such as internet telephony company Skype skype.com/ and the deeply personal diary of a female motorcyclist as she travels through the deserted land around Chernobyl, elenaschernobyl.com/. Does Corso have any tips for getting featured?

“We look for good content, something innovative, a clever design element, something that has a ‘tell a friend’ quality about it. The best tip I can give people is to put a lot of effort into writing the short description you submit to us. You’ve got to be brief, enthusiastic and honest.”

CoolSiteoftheDay.com is an excellent way to promote your website and the entry fee of $27 can be repaid many times over. Not only do you get a tremendous spike in traffic, but the ripple effect can generate lots of links from other webmasters and attract the interest of journalists who write for some of the largest media sites in the world.