A few months ago while talking to Thomas Rutter, the co-administrator at Site Point Forums, he mentioned about his upcoming site - xhtmlfilter.org.

The concept behind this site is that you can submit the HTML code for your website at Tom's site. His software there would then analyze your code of segments that don't comply with the standards and actually modify them into compliant format!

Last week Tom released his site to public. And as my usual habit is, I began to analyze his site and started to think about how he can promote his site and what he should be doing to make it more effective.

The Money Potential - From my analysis, the site's primary audience is the beginners who have a quest to do correct things and follow the standards. (The expert would get his or her code validated rather than get it corrected: p ).

Now this is an excellent thing as this segment has more potential to make money than an audience of 'expert' developers.

Why? Because as I already mentioned -

a. This audience has a quest to do correct things and follow the standards.
b. They are not afraid to take help or getting their things corrected. This is an awesome thing as it shows that they do not suffer from a superiority complex (or should I say inferiority complex?)

So, what can Tom offer on his site? -

1. Hosting Affiliate Links - Since what these people are getting corrected on his site is their HTML code i.e. the markup language in which the websites are written.

This shows that they either already own a website or are working on one. And, every site needs to be hosted somewhere

Why not offer Hosting Suggestions with links to reputed hosts like LunarPages etc. They pay about $60 a signup.

2. Books and Training Products - Since this audience has a quest to improve ( or why would they want to correct their invalid xhtml code? ), why not offer them products that actually help them become better coders and designers?

3. Software - How about offering some affiliate links to webdesign software and addon software for websites like vBulletin etc. ?

4. Don't forget AdSense!

Tom never asked me for the above suggestions and neither I know if he has any intentions to put ads on his site. It is just me exercising my mind

How can he Promote his site?

1. Information Resource - Yes! I mean articles, FAQs etc. I already see that Tom has put some FAQs on his site but I would even suggest that he puts some tips and other articles. And make them reprintable with credit to his site.

From my experience, this method beats nearly every method of marketing out there.

2. Handout xHTMLFilter buttons to everyone who gets his or her code validated on his site and actually ask them to use it (People are really lazy. They need to be reminded to do things ).

3. Give every validated code a percentile and make a top list of the URLs filtered getting top percentile and put them on the front page! This is a viral tactic and certainly helps generate some buzz.

Also, if possible, hand out percentile badges with a link to your site so that they can verify the badge (by revalidating the code)

4. Clearly ask people to link to xHTMLFilter.org from their sites and blogs. Also ask them to tell their friends about it (Like I said, People need to be reminded to do things )

5. If possible, along with the corrected code, give them an analysis of what the software has corrected in it. This would give them some food for discussion and that would probably get a mention of xHtmlFilter.org when they talk about it with their friends or on online communities.

6. Send a press release about xHTMLFilter to various webmaster publication and bloggers. This is a 'one of its kind' thing and would most certainly get some mentions and reviews.

7. Did I suggest it to Tom earlier that he should make it a Validator + filter rather than just filter? This would give him an edge over the W3C Validator as he would not only be telling them that their code is wrong but also what is wrong!

8. Tom should perhaps use some .htaccess rewrite to have a format like - http://www.xhtmlfilter.org/filter/<<site address to filter>> or http://www.xhtmlfilter.org/f/<<site address to filter>>.

Trust me, this thing really works. Having this ease is why I basically use Whois.sc for checking a domain's availability and in turn make them some money.


So, do you have any more suggestions to add for Tom's site - xHtmlFilter.org?