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Black Businesses Matter - More Than Black People Have Ever Realized


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Black businesses matter. There is no debate about this. Go to any major Black populated neighborhood and you will not be able to find Black owned businesses. This is because these businesses do not exist. Coincidence? No. This is by design. Since birth, the biggest ambitions our parents generally have for us is to work for someone else and hopefully end up getting a high paying job. We aren't taught to create jobs and thus, create wealth. We can't even rap about that mess in hip hop music. Bet most people don't find it partly odd that most rappers only rap about non-black owned merchandise and how much they want material things that are not created by Black people. That's a sucker move!

 

Black business is important and it's the only way to change the circumstances of Black people in this country. Someday soon, Black people need to wake up and understand that your Black dollars matter. It's so pathetic that even when Black people make a definitive attempt to support Black businesses, they are usually duped to dumping their money right back into white people's hands. As a collective, Black people have to do better and undergo more thorough research. On intellect alone, we lose the game of supporting Black wealth and as of today, group economics in the Black community is laughable at best!

 

We don't have Black hosting solutions so therefore, we are forced to support companies who do not have our best interests in line - even on the web - and end up giving all our money away. Then we turn around and complain about the fact that we are doing just that! When does it stop??? When do we begin to make a little bit of sense?

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We definately need to push for more Black businesses.

But brother I would caution our people not to focus TOO much on entreprenuership.

Why?

Because someone has to be the worker.
Someone has to do the heavy work, hard work, grimey work, mopping the floors, building the buildings, paving the streets, ect.....
It takes ALL of this to build a soild Black community.

Too often a lot of our brothers and sisters want to own their own business NOT to empower the Black community, but simply because they no longer want to "work" and they figure if they own their own business they could enjoy reaping the benefits while OTHERS do the work and handle the customers.

It's sad but true.
White folks make the brother get up early in the morning to come to work and forces him to act in a professional manner (all to benefit them ofcourse)....he get's tired of that lifestyle because he feels it's too strict so he quits and gets his own business.
He wakes up when he wants to, talks to the customers however he wants to, and then wonder why his business went under.

I think only a SMALL MINORITY of any population Black, White, Asian, ect.....are actually fit to be business OWNERS and the vast majority should be WORKERS who are getting decent compensation for their labor. Our people need to be taught how to take pride in their work again and learn how to be good workers and produce good products.

For the small minority who actually start their own firms, they need to learn good CUSTOMER SERVICE.
That's where a lot of our people fail.
They have great products, but when it comes to customer service and managing their businesses efficiently.....they fall short.
Too many staff their business with family members and friends instead of qualified employees and then wonder why the business failed.

But overall, you're right we definately need to keep it in the family and own our own.

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@Pioneer1 I agree brother. Not every Black person is suited to run their own business. This is where we went wrong. For example, I remember attending an all white school for a brief period until I registered myself into a Black high school. I never regretted that decision. However, in the white school, our brothers and sisters were showing out. The white kids were creating businesses and thinking of website ideas. I would hear them converse with one another. The internet was fairly new during that time and nothing how it is now. They were way ahead of us. The most technical thing my brothers and sisters got involved with was building music studios which required a degree of technical skills. But we always seem to fall short when technology is involved. I don't like downing my people but I can't just pretend I never experienced what I did. While we were dreaming of making 40k-60k a year, which is chump change now anyway, those white kids were planning on being our bosses. 

 

I think we cut ourselves short too often. Of course, when we run our own businesses we better be prepared to work ten times harder. And when we create jobs for other Black people, they need to learn to be more loyal to us, because we will naturally look out more for their interests without being taken advantage of. The problem is that we raise our kids to become accountants, bank workers, construction workers, and some of our parents raise us to believe ANY job is a good job because "at least you're not doing nothing."  That's a trifling thought to put into a child's mind who we should be empowering to conquer the world. But our children are not taught to conquer anything. In fact, they are indoctrinated to behave, cooperate, fit in, think like society, and virtually become slaves.

 

When we think of creating Black businesses, we must understand what that will mean for our people. More abundant jobs in impoverished and urbanized communities. Businesses whose priority should be to put at least ten to 20 percent of profits back into the community that they sell products in, which would create pools of money for our next generation to continue the wealth and start their own businesses. If Black people stopped spending their money on non-black businesses today, by tomorrow we would actually start retaining the trillion dollars wealth that they claim we contribute to this nation. That could perhaps, finally work in our interest and turn some of our hoods into prospering communities.

 

But we do have to realize that most of us will not start out at that top. There are levels to this. We prove ourselves and work our way to something better.

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@NubianFellow, thanks again for adding your voice to the mix.  I agree 100% with your last post, But if a Black owned business is in the community then putting 10 to 20% back into the community would be trivial.  The real problem in doing this is that there are not enough Black owned business to patronize.

 

The other problem is getting people to patronize Black businesses.  I currently sell books any way they can be sold; I can sell them directly, direct readers to an author's site, publisher's site, and any large retailer including B&N and Amazon.  I'll give you one guess where 99.9% of the people choose to buy their books.

 

@Pioneer1, agreed not everyone is cut out to start and run a business, but Black owned business get FAR more grief and other business for poor service, when I'd argue that we chose get a bit more leeway other Black people.  I'm not saying we should tolerate bad service from a Black owned business, but I think we are held to a higher standard than even corporate businesses who benefit investor funding while we have to rely solely on revenue.

 

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@Troy Thank you, brother. I think 10 percent is a modest amount of investment to put back into a community that is loyal to the business and ensures that it thrives. This must be the responsibility of the community. If they ensure that Black businesses survive, the payoff for them would be great. Everybody wins as long as nobody goes to Walmart. Of course, these would be local businesses that have direct interaction with their communities.

 

I understand what you are saying about Black people not buying from you. From my perspective, there are so many reasons for this behavior. But the biggest reason, I believe, is indoctrination. I don't think Black people were so dumb that they just started to criticize Black businesses one day. I remember back in the 80's hearing Black people in Black areas put down Black businesses. It's a shame that we are too easily manipulated, brainwashed to trust anyone else before each other. So we gladly make other's rich and hardly make ourselves rich.

 

I'm surprised we ever had a Black Wall Street. I wasn't sure why I didn't know this information as a youth. It's because I found out my parents didn't know about it either. When I told my father about Black Wall Street he thought I was making it up. I wanted to believe that Black people got smart and wanted to challenge white supremacy. But as I looked into the history, the only reason Black Wall Street began was that white businesses wouldn't sell to us. Once they destroyed Black Wall Street, they started selling to Black people and even highering them for work - anything to prevent another one from emerging. Think about it, historically when white people attacked us, they didn't think we worth their bullets. They would push us off cliffs. Hang us. Burn us. Cut us. But when they saw we had economic power and was building our own systematic wealth, for the first time in recorded history, white people used a military strike to launch bombs on Black people. What they call a race riot was so much more than that. It was white people enforcing their greatest form of oppression against people of West African descent. They were saying, "Don't ever think about acquiring my money ever again in a systematic way!"

 

Now I am certain that Black people's behavior is engineered. White people are smart when it comes to their system of oppression. They use keywords.  To my amazement, many Black people don't catch on to the language being used, which allows them to directly insult African people without our knowledge of them even insulting us. No one today holds down Black people more than Black people.

 

Now it's funny what you said about 99% of those people who buy the books. Guess what brother? That 99 percent of people are also your traffic to this website. Something to ponder. Let me tell you something, on Facebook I created trending content for my website that attracted millions of viewers in a very short period of time. When I researched my traffic and how it trended on Facebook, I saw that some people would go to my website and take content directly from the article and post the entire story on other posts on Facebook. Some people on YouTube even created videos about the same content without mentioning the source of the information, which was unique to my website. I knew that no one else wrote that particular article. It showed me a lot about the behavior and thinking of our people. In fact, the rabbit hole goes much deeper than that...

 

@Delano I would be inclined to say that you can work for someone else and create money for yourself. You could even get rich working for someone else. The reality that most of us don't grasp is that wealth is set up to be systematic. So I would argue, that you could get rich working for someone else under those conditions that support the systematic structure of the wealth being created. This is why I loved Prince. He put that out there. One of the few musicians of our age who risked everything to x white people out of the picture when it came to building wealth.

I believe that wealth is when we have our own game!

 

 

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@NubianFellow, to be clear I did not mean that giving 10% to the community would be trivial in terms of it's impact to the I meant it would be trivial in the ease of doing it.  The more money I make, for example, the more Black writers I can pay. Most of my revenue goes back into the community. 

 

You know I just shared information about Beyonce's new book.  There are many issues with the product one of them, that I just considered, is that other than Beyonce herself, it is not clear to me how many Black people in the Black book ecosystem will benefit, financially, from the product....

 

 

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6 hours ago, NubianFellow said:

 

 

@Delano I would be inclined to say that you can work for someone else and create money for yourself. You could even get rich working for someone else. The reality that most of us don't grasp is that wealth is set up to be systematic. So I would argue, that you could get rich working for someone else under those conditions that support the systematic structure of the wealth being created. This is why I loved Prince. He put that out there. One of the few musicians of our age who risked everything to x white people out of the picture when it came to building wealth.

I am not certain what you are saying. What is your counter argument or where is the disagreement. I am not clearly on what you are saying.

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@Troy That's the problem with our celebrities. They do NOTHING to empower Black people and Black people respond nonchalantly about it and even make excuses for them not contributing their wealth back to the Black community. This is unheard of in any other culture but not in Black culture, and I would strongly argue, that there is no such thing as Black culture. No principles, customs, ideologies or knowledge that is being passed down that checks us socially. Pretty much, anything goes in the Black community, so much, that a Black man can date a white woman, refer to her as his Nubian queen, and many Black people will cosign nonsense like that. This is why Black men can attack our queens publicly to justify their fantasies of white women. The rabbit hole goes deep. We need to set reasonable expectations socially in our Black communities and we must learn how to control our own media. That is imperative. This website is a needed thing. Our voices are a needed thing. No filters. 

 

@Delano We didn't disagree brother. We both believe that you can create money or get rich by working for someone else. However, I would argue that being rich and wealthy are not one in the same.

 

@Troy On a side note, I have posted links to your website on Facebook and Google if that is alright with you. Hopefully, other than branding, it will also bring some visitors and open up more discussion. The group on Facebook is called https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheOfficialNubianPlanetGroup/.  It's a private group about supporting black media and networking.

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@NubianFellow thank you. Pplease share information about AALBC.com in any way that makes sense to you--I'm all for that. Any other readers out there you don't need permission to share information about AALBC.com anywhere--please share!

 

Nubianfellow, I post a links on Facebook myself, almost every day. I will also respond to or acknowledge people who have commented to something I've posted.  I'm just not going to post articles or anything that is more involved than what is needed to describe the link.  

 

I also do not think we should, or even can, use Facebook, Twitter or any corporate owned social media platform to uplift and empower Black people; their business models runs counter to those activities.  Besides that fact they exert complete control, and that we do not, is sufficient reason by itself.

 

NF, you also mentioned controlling out media, man we need to establish our own media.  That said, what would you say is the most important media outlet that we own today?

 

 

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@Troy I agree with your perspective brother. But for Black people its baby steps, unfortunately. The biggest disappointment and upsetting thing is that our people are not ready to tear themselves away from white supremacy.  I have seen posts asking Black people what they would do if Facebook went down and some said, kill themselves. I don't think they were kidding. I understand the need to be social, but not the burning desire to be apart of anything that white people do. I know a lot of it has to do with branding and everyone else' leap on us as far as technology. But we can and should be doing better.

 

That's why you said that it's important that we establish our own media and I agree 1000 percent with that. But in order to do that, it's going to take eyeballs. It's going to take Black people interested and who love all-things Black.

 

The most important media outlet we own today? Black people own and control no media outlets, at least, no relevant media outlets. Once you compare our wealth with everyone else', you notice how we mainly give it away to everyone else and keep none for ourselves. I don't know if this has to do with programming, ancestry, genetics or why this is the prevalent behavior of our people, but this seems to be the dominant behavior pattern.

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Man the line, about the white owned black planet posting an article that companies that are not Black owned and without mentioning themselves is deep! Sometime ago I compiled a list of the most popular Black websites, many of these are white owned

 

I'm in process of updating this information.

 

I asked the question about the most important media outlet that we own today, because I was thinking maybe we could figure out a way to rally support for the platform--particularly if they have already demonstrated the ability do do something substantive in this harsh environment or clearly have potential but just needs more support... I dunno just a thought.

 

@NubianFellow are you aware of any other websites owners that have your sensibility, particularly as it related to technology?  I don't know many, but the is a Brother @CDBurns, who posts here from time to time.  There is another Brother Derrick Young over at https://www.mahoganybooks.com/ who tried a few different things with and Ron Kavanaugh at https://mosaicmagazine.org/ 

 

Interestingly I never encountered any sisters on the tech side. Most technically oriented sisters I've encountered are completely dedicated to amping up their social media presence.

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I am glad that you composed a list of Black oriented websites. Unfortunately, there are many that wouldn't make my list. Huff Post is white owned, So is Essence that seems to definitely have an agenda with some of the articles I have read on that site. One recent story Essence did was this one. MTO News revealed this clownish article (see thumbnail). They also did an article on why the Black women should date white men. Considering the speculation that white people are having trouble breeding, which is backed by their own science, it's interesting. I thought it was crazy when I first heard but the more I learn about the scientific aspect, the more intrigued I become. Black Planet disrespected their website and haven't done anything to even try and keep their traffic, which they admit, only serves as an advertising platform for their network of radio stations.

 

AtlantaBlackStar, I'm not too sure about. I spoke with someone who claimed to be the developer of that website and they have held the claim that it is Black owned so I left it alone. But we have to be certain that when we support something to try and empower our people, we are supporting us. For instance, Blackpeoplemeetdotcom is the largest dating website for Black people, yet they are white owned as well.

 

Our people drop the ball when it comes to technology. Of course, we were once the most technologically advanced at one point. But due to supremacy, which I refer to as inferiority, the jobs were more scarce for us in technology fields. It became the tradition to aim lower because white people wouldn't hire qualified Black scientists and doctors.(this article is enlightening) Low expectations became the new Black standard. 

 

As far as the use of social media, I am against it in many ways but experience has allowed me to understand its relevance. Facebook, recognizes Nubian Planet for the search term Black Planet which validates the impact and relevance of that social network. Nubian Planet also has a larger presence on Facebook and Google. The site has really gone down.

 

What I would love to see or be apart of is the development of a Black search engine. Trust me, if I had the right algorithm, one of my sites would be a search engine. This brings me back to your inquiry about knowing technically inclined Black people. I know no one who has the degree of knowledge required to create our technology. I'm sure that there must be some capable, just haven't come across them yet.

 

 

 

 

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18 hours ago, Troy said:

Interestingly I never encountered any sisters on the tech side. Most technically oriented sisters I've encountered are completely dedicated to amping up the social media presence.

 

@TroyDo you mean you don't know any black women who are technically oriented that don't have their own websites?  Or do you mean you don't know OF any black women who are  technologically-oriented ...If it's the latter I can share with you 3 black women silicon-valley darlings who own/founded/and are running 3 very popular websites... 1 (Blavity.com) ranks 13,000 in the us and 36,000 worldwide; another is Awesomely Luvvie  41,000 us and 199,000 worldwide  who runs Awesomely Techie and The Wealth Factory   I subscribed awesomelytechie - I like her approach as she gets to the "why" behind the stats.  

Edited by Mel Hopkins
Added Links for Troy and NubianFellow
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LOL Definitely what are you waiting for Mel please share!

 

I've met plenty of women who own their run their websites, but I have not personally encountered any that speak the way Nubian Fellow or Chris Hayden does about them.  Nor have I ever been able to connect with any on any level over a sustained period of time.  But my niche is books, and I'm completely aware that I'm far more technically oriented than others in my niche. They have the content (books) covered but the website management does not interest them.  

 

How are you getting the ranking for the website.  If you are using Alexa (because you said worldwide and  US) I don't cite them any more because their data is not very good I actually expected it to improve after Amazon took over, but it seems to have gotten worse.  I'm using a site called https://www.semrush.com/ nowadays their data is qute useful and foots to the data I have much more closely unlike Alexa.

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Nubian
 

The most technical thing my brothers and sisters got involved with was building music studios which required a degree of technical skills. But we always seem to fall short when technology is involved. I don't like downing my people but I can't just pretend I never experienced what I did. While we were dreaming of making 40k-60k a year, which is chump change now anyway, those white kids were planning on being our bosses.


You're right.

I also attened a mostly White school as a kid for a couple years and saw a sharp contrast in interest in academic subjects and learning in general.
White kids LOVED that "tech" shit and working with computers while me and most Black boys loved physical things like sports and building or making products.

I think where we went wrong in the 60s and 70s was
  FOLLLOWING THE LEAD of White people in their current industries of communications (internet, cell phones, computers, ect...).

It's cool for SOME OF US to keep up with that, go to school for that, and build business around that but........
Those skills and businesses are things that add finesse to an ALREADY BUILT civilization!

In other words.....
White people already have mastered buildings, roads, sewer systems, cars, machines, ect.....so they can focus on interent, cell phones, I-Phones and shit like that because their immediate needs are covered.

We as Black people...most of us don't even know how to build the home we live in let alone fix the sewer system or pave the pot-holes in the damn street.
The only thing most of us know how to do is ask for work in a world White men have ALREADY BUILT FOR THEMSELVES.

So I think what we should have done in the 60s and 70s was tell the White establishment "fuck you but we aren't following your lead".
We're going to open up these building and trade schools and learn how to build structures, agricultural systems, housing for ourselves, learn how to build machines, ect.....
If Whites and Asians want to play on computers and walk around with cell phones texting eachother....let them.

But we should have worked on NATION BUILDING and learning how to repair and advance our own communities with mastering INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION.

It's the same with BANKING and FINANCIAL INSTITUTIONS.
We're constantly trying to get in on a game or system White people made up, instead of establishing our own.

Even in African nations you have silly negroes who run their own nation...by WHITE MEN'S RULES.
Still playing the same damn game White men left during colonialism instead of scrapping the game and building their own governments and financial systems.
......now most of them are in debt.


We're just as smart if not smarter than Whites .....but IN OUR OWN WAY.

When we do OUR OWN THING we excel and do exceptional things.
But when we try to imitate White people in their businesses and fit in with their system, we don't do nearly as well and most of us actually fail.

 

 

 


Troy
 

agreed not everyone is cut out to start and run a business, but Black owned business get FAR more grief and other business for poor service, when I'd argue that we chose get a bit more leeway other Black people. I'm not saying we should tolerate bad service from a Black owned business, but I think we are held to a higher standard than even corporate businesses who benefit investor funding while we have to rely solely on revenue.
 

I hear what you're saying and I often have to examine myself and wonder if I'm being too hard on my own sometimes.

Some Black people will go to Arab and Asian businesses and spend their money every day and even tell them to keep the change or leave their change in one of those little tip or take-a-penny plates.....but when it comes to a Black businesses they'll threaten not to even come back unless they get a discount.


But experience is experience and far too often I can tell a Black owned business just by walking through the front door of the establishment.
Even if there are no employees immediately available to help me, just LOOKING around at the place often lets me know who's running it....lol.

I really think NEPOTISM is the biggest downfall of most Black businesses that fail.
Instead of hiring QUALIFIED Black employees, too often a Black business owner feels obliged to hire their relatives or close friends to work for them which makes maintain professionalism and discipline in the work place akward and often times non-existant.

I remember after starting a few half-ass businesses my aunt and other friends of the family would often try to get me to hire some of my cousins because they may have had criminal records and couldn't get decent jobs anywhere else or they just didn't have good work ethics and couldn't keep a job.
It didn't take me long to realize how much of a mistake that was or would be.

Most Black people are very family and friend oriented and LOYAL to eachother in a deep emotional way that most White people don't or won't understand so it makes it harder for us to fire or discipline people we know and grew up with if they aren't performing correctly.
A white man will fire his own MAMA if she's costing him money!


My thing is.....hire qualified Black people.....but not your friends or relatives unless both of you have a CLEAR understanding of the expectations.

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@NubianFellow, funny you should mention a Black Search engine.  I forgot to mention that I ran one for several years called Huria Search.  I had to discontinue it for a lack of use.  But I felt one was needed because there was quality content out there was just was not ranking high enough to be discovered in search.

 

Actually Huria Search took advantage of a fee based service offered by Google, which allowed me to restrict search result to a curated list of a few hundred websites.  If you run a Huria Search and run the same search on Google the results will be dramatically different and I'd argue better.  

 

The fee based service allowed me to strip out all advertising.  I didn't even include my own site in the search results because i wanted others to use it and I did not want to risk it being considered a promotional tool for AALBC.com, my only goal was to uplift indie black websites.  

 

What is left of huria was moved from it's own domain to here: https://aalbc.com/huria/ 

 

I still use it periodically when I want to really see what my people are writing about a particular topic.  I no longer use the fee based service, so ads are present now and I no longer curate the sites included in the search results.

 

And the stupid Essence article speaks for itself.  Besides the abstract of the actual study did not suggest that the study concluded that "Black people who are nixed look better" that is something Essence made up to attract visitors.

 

@Pioneer1, sure people should hire qualified employees.  But we could stand from a little bit nepotism our selves. White folks do it.  I've seen it all my life. Look at 45. 

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Start where you are. You can have degree a skill or can hustle. You can play ib the game or make your own. Shore up your weaknesses or play to your strength. Or you can complain about the game and blame  (fill in the blank) for failure. Black America has GDP that rivals many nations. But we own little because we are culture whores. Who sell our own inheritance for a bowl of stew. 

I  have been lucky to attend good schools. And was fortunate to do jobs that allowed me to travel and have a 300 book library. Instead of watching TV i read widely. Words are warming but what's you're plan or where will you be in five to ten years. 

 

 

You have success stories here. Two entrepreneurs and two writers. 

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17 hours ago, NubianFellow said:

@Mel Hopkins Please share. I would like to visit these websites. Thank you queen.


My pleasure.  I added the links to my original post.

2 hours ago, Del said:

Words are warming but what's you're plan or where will you be in five to ten years. 

 

@Del  love this... 

16 hours ago, Troy said:

If you are using Alexa (because you said worldwide and  US) I don't cite them any more because their data is not very good I actually expected it to improve after Amazon took over, but it seems to have gotten worse.

 

@Troy Yes, Alexa is my choice because of the traffic they get via google... When people are looking at your site - the first place they go is Alexa ... Most people aren't savvy when it comes to technology statistics...(Hell, most people don't even know HOW to read statistics) so believing is seeing and Alexa has that on lock.   But anyway when you look and compare to other market researchers such as Nielsen and ComScore their rankings of websites are about the same.  

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@Mel Hopkins, sites in the top 500 with tons of traffic Alexa is probably as good as any of them, but for less popular websites, like mine and many of the others I'm interested in tracking SEMRush is far superior, besides the sites I'm most interested in are not traffic by Nielsen and ConScore. Check it out if you have not already done so.  

 

 

Yeah I know a lot of people use Alexa, but as you probably know by now I don't do a lot of things that other people do ;-) Alexa used to collect a lot of their data from people who used their tool bar, which was a browser extension.  It would collect the data of browsing data of the people who used the extension to compile their website ranking.  In an ideal scenario this skewed to people who used the browser extension which biased the data (i.e. Black women, my demographic, don't usually install extensions to their browsers).  

 

Of course, because of Alexa's popularity, many people began gaming their Alexa ranking, in much the way people buy followers or likes on social media, which further corrupted their ranking.  I don't know what Amazon has done to address these issues, but since SEMRush provides far richer information I don't really care.

 

Semrush collect large volumes of query results from google searches, which make their information quite good.  Still if your site in not ranking on search results SEMRush won't have very good data. If you are a site that gets most of their traffic from social media, SEMRush may not have much on your site (at least as far as I understand it), but if you are getting most of you site from organic reach on social I think you site's traffic is at a far greater risk than a site dependent upon organic search.

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4 hours ago, Troy said:

 

@Mel Hopkins, sites in the top 500 with tons of traffic Alexa is probably as good as any of them, but for less popular websites, like mine and many of the others I'm interested in tracking SEMRush is far superior, besides the sites I'm most interested in are not traffic by Nielsen and ConScore. 

 

 

Let's say, I'm a small business  and I have $10,000 budget for online advertising...  I decided not to hire  a media company to buy my spots, ads and banners.  I'm a DIY advertiser... When I go to SEMrush I only have 5 shots to look up websites before I have to subscribe... When I go to the site  I see it ranks by organic searches...  what I want to see right away, as an advertiser, is what type of traffic the site getting and where it is coming from - period.    

 

 I get that you are all geeked about analyzing data ...and I ain't mad at that! Heck,  my middle daughter is looking to get her masters in business analytics. She already has her  bachelor's degree in Statistics, but we small business folks are only interested in getting the biggest bang for our buck and getting back to our business.

 

We want to be where we can be SEEN; not get continue education credits.   

The thing is Troy, yes, it's always good to understand the stats.    I even follow you to the sites that unpack the stats - heck, I even took a few basic google analytics courses  - so I can pull back the curtain and have a basic understanding how google works.  

 

But the average person isn't interested in all of that... the average person wants something very simple.   So it's our job to make it look easy.  The most successful companies in the world have figured that out. And there ain't nobody more geeky than me... And even I  finally get it.  

So having said that, without making eyes glaze over and roll back in the head -  How does SemRush make it easy for platform owners to sell ad space on their websites to potential advertisers. 

 

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Troy

Sure White peope practice nepotism, but when they put friends or family in these positions they atleast make sure they're QUALIFIED and PROFESSIONAL when they hold them....lol.

Black people too often put their children or cousins or gangster friends in jobs and positions that they....as the old folks used to say "ain't bit mo' " qualified or ready to handle.....lol.



 

 

Del
 

Start where you are. You can have degree a skill or can hustle. You can play ib the game or make your own. Shore up your weaknesses or play to your strength. Or you can complain about the game and blame  (fill in the blank) for failure. Black America has GDP that rivals many nations. But we own little because we are culture whores. Who sell our own inheritance for a bowl of stew. 

I  have been lucky to attend good schools. And was fortunate to do jobs that allowed me to travel and have a 300 book library. Instead of watching TV i read widely. Words are warming but what's you're plan or where will you be in five to ten years. 

 

I'm sure Black America has wealth into the hundreds of billions if not over a trillion.
I've HEARD that Black America was worth over a trillion dollars but I'm not sure how they arrive at their figures.

But we're looking at how much we make, which is often a mistake.

To really determine the wealth potential of Black America or any population you have to look at the amount of DISPOSABLE INCOME they have.
Most of the money people get, they spend immediately for necessities and paying the bills and paying off debt.
Most Black people don't have the type of DISPOSABLE INCOME  that is necessary to generate wealth in conventional ways that White America has done it.

And don't even get me started on the education (formal or informal) needed to successful manage large sums of wealth and investments.
Most of our people don't have the mind for that.
It would be a waste of time and energy to expect most of our people to be successful playing in a game that wasn't designed by or for them. 
Just listening to Troy and Mel talk about the variety of SEARCH ENGINES and their functions is enough to dizzy some people....lol.

I just think the game is TOO HUGE and TOO COMPLICATED for most of our people to thrive in.
We need a new...."sub system" of our own that we can carve out of this system to allow us to generate wealth in a manner that's easiest and most effective for the majority of us.

 

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Pioneer you are missing my point. You are pulling numbers out your hiney hole. To a guy that's into numbers. Your solution is sub optimal. Your game is all talk. But hey maybe thst can be  your hustle. If your market size is 100,000 black people. You could be a thousandaire. 

"Talking is just exhaling with sound. " - Del Strachen

21 hours ago, Del said:

Start where you are. You can have degree a skill or can hustle. You can play ib the game or make your own. Shore up your weaknesses or play to your strength. Or you can complain about the game and blame  (fill in the blank) for failure. Black America has GDP that rivals many nations. But we own little because we are culture whores. Who sell our own inheritance for a bowl of stew. 

I  have been lucky to attend good schools. And was fortunate to do jobs that allowed me to travel and have a 300 book library. Instead of watching TV i read widely. Words are warming but what's you're plan or where will you be in five to ten years. 

 

 

You have success stories here. Two entrepreneurs and two writers. 

And a couple of degreed people. That you can't hear. You could have a brain trust ...

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@Mel Hopkins, I'm going to have a conversation with someone this morning about the very point you mentioned in the very large font.  I'll keep the "eye glazing over" in mind and let you know how it goes.

 

But in the meantime, I will share this anecdote.  There was another book site, now defunct, that I worked with closely.  I had 3 orders of magnitude more traffic--it wasn't even in the same ball park in terms of traffic (side bar: At one point Alexa ranked that site ahead on mine, which is one reason I've moved on from them as a tool).  Despite the substantial difference in traffic the other site was able to sell just as much advertising as I could--for years.  Their site, at least the homepage, was more visually appealing than mine--which I suspect was the reason.

 

The person that ran the site understood completely your point about data. We spoke about this subject frequently. I would point out information that would benefit their site and they simply did not care.

 

People are much more likely to make their decisions emotionally, not based upon data, or fact and figures.  The most successful salespeople know this.  Indeed they take advantage of people using this flaw in our decision making process.  

 

NY Publishing and individual advertisers are simply were not sophisticated enough to look at stats. I offer the ability for advertisers to login to my site to monitor their campaigns and no one does it--no one!  Google provides a remarkable service called tag manager, and I  don't know anyone in my niche that even uses it.  So trust me I KNOW the average person, in fact MOST people do get this.

 

But I do, and this is why I know I can attract more people to my site posting on wikipedia than I can with a Facebook advertisement.  This is also how I know I can benefit my site more through search engine optimization than through social media marketing.  This is how I know ads on my site out perform ads on social media--bank for buck.  Again I know the way I came to this knowledge is not the way I can bring other people to understand it.

 

This is also why Google, can algorithmically sell advertising on my site and get more money that I can.

 

This is why I can benefit from a sales person, translating this into a language which resonates with the typical person is not in my strong point, but I'm working at it.  I also need to free up more time to do it 

 

SEMRush and Google analytics are not easy tools for the average person to use.  Google tag manager is not intuitive at all.  I had to watch 3rd party video to understand how to even implement it. Again, I know few indie sites will use it--despite the tremendous benefits.  So no, SEMrush does not make it easy.

 

@Pioneer1, so you think Jared or Melania are qualified? 

 

@Delano, most of what you wrote is true, but running this site without a full time wage has been a struggle.  If I were not work for the first half of this site's life it would not be around today.

 

 

 

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Del I'm pulling back on the word "successful."  Now I know success is purely subjective and relative.  I just don't consider myself completely there yet, at least as far a AALBC.com is concerned.  From a technical perspective the site is better than any site in it's niche that I've ever seen. I think that is an objectively true statement.  But it is a struggle from a business perspective.  

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5 hours ago, Troy said:

 Now I know success is purely subjective and relative.

 

How do you define success, @Troy  ?   I believe the exchange we had here in this thread was hugely successful. You heard me and I heard you!  I'm thrilled at your response. In fact, I've been thrilled with your responses lately. I really feel like you hear me even when we don't agree 100 percent.    

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Its that drive or the need to inprove. Which is different than gunners and whiners. Who have lots of reasons for enabling failure.  @Troy @Mel Hopkins, @Cynique to me you're all successful because you created your world. And wasn't limited by the societal limitations that all people feel.

Pioneer despite your lengthy posts you can't envision black success. Or only in a rather narrowly defined range. Comic book Hyper sexual Hetero Black Men. With women as accessories. Which is the exact opposite of our experience in America. Black Women keep the Black church together. Because men are loners generally, and often don't forge relationships. Our thinking places us in different worlds.

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Mel i took Del's comment more generally.  Sure I think many of these conversations are successful in the sense that I come away with new perspectives and insight.

 

But as far as myself personally I still have some work to do; true be told, I'll probably never be satisfied with myself :)

 

 

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17 minutes ago, Troy said:

Mel i took Del's comment more generally.  Sure I think many of these conversations are successful in the sense that I come away with new perspectives and insight.

 

But as far as myself personally I still have some work to do; true be told, I'll probably never be satisfied with myself :)

 

 

And that's what separates doer from talkers. 

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Success is merely accomplishing your goals.

If your goal is to own and operate a website.....you're successful.

If your goal is to become a millionaire before 25 and you hit that goal....you're successful.

If your only goal in life is to survive and stay alive, as long as your heart is beating.....you're successful.

Success is less about achieving certain standards that society has defined as success (like being wealthy or getting a family) and more about meeting PERSONAL goals that brings happiness and satisfaction to your life.

 




Troy
 

so you think Jared or Melania are qualified?


I don't even think her (his) father (in law) is qualified....lol.

But they are certainly qualified to do the job he actually put them IN their positions to do.

The problem is............
What the PUBLIC thinks they should be doing in their positions and what HE actually put them in those positions to do may actually be totally different, lol.

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@Pioneer1, you are being coy. Do you believe that 45's family are qualified to do anything substantive in the West Wing of the White House?

 

Did you know that more than 40% of Harvard undergrads have a family member that attended the school, more than 30% have a parent that attended the school 30%!  Do you really think all of those legacy admits are more deserving to be admitted than all the Black kids who are not legacies and were rejected?

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