Genres, Creators, Deck Store Update. Optimizing for SEO & Usability
I'm happy to announce an update to Deckible.com and the Deck Store.
Directories are complex things. A delicate balance of finding the design with the right mix of simplicity and power.
When we launched Deckible, we knew Genres were important, but we also knew we had to keep things simple, so we limited ourselves to 18 genres. We focussed on sourcing decks and building a community of creators.
As we approach 500 decks it seem 18 genres is just too few.
We end up with too many decks in some genres where there is clearly differentiation. That's when you know you need more genres.
We're definitely seeing a need to be more flexibility in managing genres. To respond to individual creators and niched sub communities we have made this easier to change and evolve over time.
We will end up having more genres that we show in the Deck Store, but with additional genres offer better sharing and findability.
Genres also become a strategy for collaboration (i.e. creators can work together to promote a common genre). We'll elaborate on that in the future.
We intend to let approved creators create their own custom genres, but only if this is collaborative and we see that you (the creator) are promoting other creators and that you are trusted supporter of the community.
Dynamic Genre Management
Previously genres were managed as "list" and not a platform data structure. We fixed that.
With the first phase of this, we can create new genres and assign decks to as many genres as makes sense.
We've had requests for many different genres.
Here's a few examples that we will be adding. So please submit your suggestions for missing genres.
- Women Decks / Feminine Energy Decks
- Masculinity Decks
- Collaboration Decks
- Question / Journal Prompt Decks
- Decks with Audio
- Decks with Video
Genres just make it easy to share specific collections of decks. Decks that meet specific criteria. Genre's, when done right becomes a segmentation tool.
The thirst for segmentation and individuality is real and never ending.
I will write another post shortly once I have these new genres created.
SEO Findability of Decks and Creators
Genres are now first class citizens of the platform.
With this release we now submit three distinct types of links to Google et al via a sitemap.
1. Decks
Each deck URL when pasted into a blog generates a widget like shown below
The URL is made up of 3 parts
- deck name
- tag line
- author name
Each deck has a public URL and this is the URL you should use to share your deck and to link back to Deckible from your blog.
Also make sure you have rich description for your deck
The more links to your public deck URL the better. The more you will get found.
We have simplified the UX for this page as follows. The slider now slides in place (no more popups) and there are buttons to navigate to the next/prvious image.
And we added linked to IOS/Android as some people have been buying decks not realizing that DEckible is an app.
2. Creators
Each creator get their own URL
https://www.deckible.com/community/Nz-kris-hey-owner-founder-all-things-intuitive-
Again this URL is split into name and tagline.
Make sure you use intelligent keywords to help you get found.
The UX for the page is as follows.
It lists links to all you published decks
Please ensure you complete all your social links
3. Genres
Each genre now has its own rich url.
The name for the genres is included in the URL, which aids finabability. Genres also have rich keyword description and an image.
We now submit these genre URLs to Google et al as part of the sitemap.
If you are part of a genre, it's worth linking to the genre pages featuring your deck.
You can find your genre URLS from the Deck Store
https://www.deckible.com/marketplace/genres/3-humor-digital-card-deck-apps
All these pages have the potential to be significant content draws for the future growth of Deckible. And the means your content will get found more.
The genre experience is simpler with more decks per page.
This will also be enhance finability especially when we add some more genres as listed above.
With 150+ decks in the Oracle genre that is too broad for optimal findability.
For example we could create a "coffee genre" as we currently have 4 decks on the topic of coffee. That's not something anyone could have anticipated! Or perhaps we should! Who does not like coffee!
Promoting Your Deck
This is important.
I detailed here how to promote your deck. This gives you the steps to follow.
First, you needs to write a post on your blog. Make sure you link to your Creator, Deck & Genre URLs. Link from you blog to these pages.
With more creators doing this we will accrue more SEO ranking from Google etc. And this will lead to all your deck being found more.
If you have more than one deck that can be a lot of URL so we decided to make it easy for you to find your URLs.
You now receive an email from platform listing your "Deckible Publish Decks Summary".
this will make it easy for you to know all the URL you should link to on Deckible
ie Creator, Deck and Genre URLs
So please link to you URLS. this helps everyone. Please promote your decks.
All I can tell is is that creators who promote their decks, sell their decks. And those who don't, don't.
It's not magic. We have to work to gain attention. This will get easier with time as we accrue more SEO rank and as more people get to have heard of Deckible
If you have not received your email yet, you can send it to yourself
Self Submission
It's just not practical to let creators choose the genres for their decks. Human nature has us choosing so many categories, which then denies segmentation.
That said we plan to let creators suggest the genres for their decks, as the current stream of manual requests emails is not scalable.
We will announce this feature in due course.
Approval by Jury
As we move forward we intend to share the approval of new decks with creators. If invited to the panel you will be asked to vote and comment on new decks.
If decks receive enough approval they will go live and be published.
If not, then feedback will be shared with the creator so the deck can be corrected and resubmitted.
We think this seems smart and fair.
Lucky Button
We added a lucky button to the Deck Store and also on the Deck Landing Pages
So now you can find a random deck with one click.
You will get a different deck each time you click
https://www.deckible.com/lucky
Social Media
Were focussing on Instagram for now, with some posting to LinkedIn and Twitter
We'd appreciate if you followed along with deckible.cards and like a bunch of our posts.
We're passed 1000 followers and things are definitely taking shape.
We have a varied feed that is deminstating a lot of amazing content on Deckible.
And were making as much use of video as we can
We are using some tools to drive this content process, and we hope to share them with you very soon.