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Today is the second working day of 2011, and our entrepreneurial project Nanjing Car Network ( www.njcw.com ) has also successfully undergone a large-scale revision. From the original rough page design to the new page design of the new program platform, the user experience has been greatly improved. We have taken many detours and made mistakes, both big and small. Fortunately, we have corrected them all. The weather in Nanjing has been going well recently, but the weather has occasionally been a bit temperamental. Sitting in the office, looking back on what I have done before, I can’t help but feel a lot of emotion. Thank you to the team, thank you to your partners, and thank you to yourself for your persistence.
Yesterday, I studied the car websites in each place and found that they are all good and bad, big and small, and some are making the same mistakes we have made. Some have some income, but it can be easily discovered that those incomes are not very easy. Therefore, I modified some of the previous summaries and added some internal data reports within the team. Share it with everyone. After all, as a local car portal, as long as you are not in the same city as me, we are all brothers and sisters. Consider the past 2010 as a new starting point. I wish everyone all the best in 2011.
Since it is a sharing of operating experience of a local automobile website, the article naturally has two parts: first, website operation and maintenance; second, market operation. This article will be very long, but every sentence is written with great care. I hope it can inspire webmasters in need. At least, you can stop jumping into the pitfalls we jumped over.
Website operation and maintenance
1. Server aspect
Nanjing Chewang has suffered a lot in terms of server architecture. At the beginning, we placed all files on one server, including pictures, databases, and static pages. This caused great difficulties for our subsequent maintenance. A large amount of bandwidth was occupied by hundreds of thousands of pictures, and the disk load was also very heavy, and the database reading and writing were very slow. Generating static once will take a long time, and if the traffic is slightly larger, catastrophic events will occur.
Later, we separated the image files, separated all images, JS, etc. to another host, and placed the website program, database, and website static pages on another server. The disk burden is reduced and the bandwidth is sufficient. Then another problem occurred: the attachment server was down. Although the website could still be opened, all the pictures were down. In this case, what is the point of having the website accessible?
Our current plan is: three servers, one database, and two web servers, each of which stores all attachment files, website static pages, and website programs. The two webs synchronize with each other and serve as backups for each other. If one machine fails, the other one will automatically take over. The possibility of two servers going down at the same time is basically zero. The automatically replenished backup server bought us some time to deal with the problem.
2. Website procedures
Initially, we used some "open source" CMS secondary development, and the project progressed quickly. The CMS + our self-written car model system looked very good on the front end of the website, just like other car portals, and there was nothing unpleasant about it.
However, as the functions increased, we found that this secondary development model was a disaster!
At the beginning, articles only need to be associated with car models, so we only need to add a car model field to other people's CMS system article tables to match car models. Not many changes, and we’re happy with it. Later, we needed to call some vehicle model configurations into the article, which was very painful. Although we can query the data we want at one time with a slightly complex SQL statement without affecting the realization of the function, the secondary development of CMS Disadvantages also began to appear. At that time, I was very unsure. I had just developed a few small functions, and performance bottlenecks began to slowly emerge. How would I live in the future?
As expected, relatively large functions were subsequently developed, such as business homepages, car galleries, news topics, car enthusiast communities, and so on. We found that the secondary development of CMS has made us very painful. Although it is not difficult to implement the code, adding fields to the original database and matching the data of our own developed functions to each other, after doing this too much, maintenance is really a disaster.
To give an example: match and display the merchant's preferential information on the merchant page, display it by car model, and also display the pictures and configurations of these car models. It is not difficult to implement the code, but the database query operation makes people want to cry. Just the interconnection of various tables will give programmers a headache for a long time.
After the self-developed system and the original CMS article system were too complicated with each other, we found that this website was inseparable from the programmers who were responsible for the website program from the beginning. We were kidnapped by him, and even he himself was kidnapped by the website program. I don’t know where it has been modified, and I don’t know where else problems may occur if this is modified. In short, when you want to continue to develop some functions later. We found that we could no longer intervene.
Therefore, this revision of Nanjing Car Network includes the recoding of the entire website program. Although we are heartbroken and have lost the weight of our previous website, in order to survive in an increasingly competitive environment, we can only cut the knot quickly. Long-term pain is worse than short-term pain.
The website program has been rewritten, and the database has been reasonably planned based on previous experience and needs. The entire program has been greatly improved compared to before. Although it cannot be reflected on the front-end page, the essence has changed and our development efficiency is higher. Now, maintenance is easier. When the program becomes robust, problems can be controlled.
3. Daily maintenance
There is one most important principle in the daily maintenance of Nanjing Car Network. All team members must work according to the documents. Things must be documented before they can be implemented. If a problem occurs, update the document first, then communicate it in a unified manner, and then modify it. Although this way of doing things will be troublesome, it can effectively eliminate low-level mistakes. Continuously updated documentation also makes training new employees easier.
For example, in the editing work of Nanjing Car Network, we correspond to the form on the backend article page. For each box that requires manual input, we write down the requirements, such as title length, how to fill in keywords, how to match the car model, how to modify the content, image size, The requirements were made one by one and so on. In this way, when a new employee first arrives, this document will be handed to him directly. After reading it and familiarizing himself with the backend, he will basically know how to publish the article. If the front desk has specific requirements for the article, then update the document and hold a meeting for unified training.
As mentioned above, our working model is guided by the documentation system. Now we will explain in detail how each part of daily maintenance is performed. For local automobile portals, daily maintenance is mainly divided into three parts. a. Local car discount information. b. Car news, shopping guide reviews. c. Vehicle model data and vehicle model pictures. d. Other trivial matters.
a. Local car discount information
We do not use any tricks in this area. We have market editors who are responsible for outbound collection. They regularly go to 4S store dealers to get the latest discount information and come back to edit and publish it. There are more than 200 4S stores in Nanjing. Some of them send discount information through QQ and email. Most of them go to actual photos and get the discount information sheet. Come back to organize and publish.
b. Automobile news, shopping guide
This aspect is not very important for localized automobile websites. We collected several major automobile portals and then edited them according to pseudo-original documents. The daily collection volume will not be very large, about 25 articles. Not many people actually read this part of the content. The reason why we still do this is because on the one hand, it will improve the website data to a certain extent. On the other hand, the amount of updates is an important criterion for the weight of the website. Click here to download the pseudo-original document.
c. Vehicle model data and vehicle model pictures
The vehicle model database of Nanjing Auto Network is comprehensive, integrating data from several automobile portal websites. Collect it with a program and compare. Then we manually organize it according to our car model data specifications, including the unification of car model names, correction of car model configuration parameters, etc. If we can find the original high-definition, non-watermarked pictures of car models online, we will use them. If we can’t find them, we will go to the store to take them. Although the workload is huge, for car websites, car model pictures are very important.
d.Other trivial matters
Website maintenance involves many small things, such as deleting forum posts, deleting spam comments, manually configuring the headline column on the home page, channel page, etc. This all requires a reasonable division of labor among the team. It's all little things.
Generally speaking, in terms of daily editing, we require daily summary reports. After all, editorial content is the foundation of a website. The colleague in charge of the editorial team was very attentive and used a report to explain all the situations of the day.
4. Promotion and optimization
In terms of website promotion and optimization, we have not done much specifically. Usually, the information collected by the market editor is enough to get the traffic of local searches for car models and discounts. The conversion rate of this part of traffic is very high, which can help a lot in subsequent business aspects. Share the statistical pictures of the bus station made by a friend in Suzhou:
It can be roughly seen that most users search for relatively long-tail combination words. We just need to pay a little attention to the car model page. There is no such thing as building a lot of external links. Of course, this article functions as a soft article. But you have to believe that its original intention is to share experiences.
Generally speaking, the important things for local automobile portals are 1. Accurate and timely local information. 2. Local business activities. Optimization does not require much effort. The gain outweighs the loss. Make three or four vocabulary words well. for example. Nanjing Car Network, Nanjing Car Network, and Nanjing Car Club are enough. Of course the name of your website should come first.
Summary of website operation and maintenance. In fact, website operation and maintenance is mainly divided into two aspects, one is the technical aspect, and the other is the content aspect. For local car portals, more important is local car market information. Website technology is the bottleneck of development, which must be overcome first. Then the most important thing is the construction of content. Content is important both to users and search engines.
The above are some experiences of Nanjing Car Network in website operation and maintenance. I hope it will be helpful to fellow webmasters. This is good for itself, but it does not mean that you can make money. Just a better start. For local automobile portals, the important thing is the integration of local resources. Launch products that benefit car dealers. Although hard advertising can also make money without technical investment, it is difficult to make money! Nanjing Car Network’s positioning in the market has always been to let dealers make money and share some of it with us. So a lot of effort has been invested in developing some products that are truly useful to dealers. The effect is also good. We will talk more about the local car portal’s experience in commercial operations tomorrow.
After talking so much, I finally vented half of my unhappiness from last year. It's very superficial, please don't take pictures. Hope you can give me some advice. Thanks.
Thanks to Nanjing Car Network for your contribution