Which theme is used for Girls Chase?

[lux7]

I am banging my head against a wall to find a good theme and since Girls Chase looks pretty cool... Does anyone know which theme is being used?

 

[Chase]

Lux-

It's a custom theme! You'll never find it in a theme shop. We get asked about it not infrequently.

We used the Drupal Abarre theme until early 2013. I designed our 2013 theme myself on a Zen base, with Abarre elements and a heavy influence in the layout from NYTimes.com and CNN.com, plus a few other sites. Brought in a professional design team in 2016 for our redesign, which incorporated a lot of the 2013 layout but a newer, sleeker custom design.

Our designer's pretty good. He's themed the membership site we'll use (still on GC) to deliver my upcoming course, and the product vendor was impressed with how he laid out the sidebar navigation (which didn't exist in the product before we built it). Sleek looking collapsible navigation that'll make navigating the volumes of books, videos, and bonuses a lot easier.

One of the pieces of advice I've long heard is once your site reaches a certain point, very important to invest in a custom design. A custom theme is as much a part of your site's identity and memorability as anything else. If you're the only site that looks that way, people remember you.

On finding a good theme, keep this in mind: your layout is going to have a big impact on what your site looks like. Oftentimes, the look of a site in the mockup version is nothing like what your site will look like once you have that theme on it, assuming your layout is different from the mockup. That means some themes that look great will look awful on your site, and some themes that look meh will look pretty good. Worth playing around with themes a bit to find one that suits you, if you're kicking off a new site and using free themes.

Chase

 

[lux7]

Nice job Chase, looks sleek as F .

Just throwing it out there, no idea of how feasible / marketable it is: but you might even consider of offering it on sales now.

BTW, did you learn the ropes of webpublishing yourself at the beginning through toil and sweat or you did you hire someone right away while you focused on the content (and if you'd suggest the same of what you've done or not) ?


P.S. looking forward to the new products.

 

[Chase]

BTW, did you learn the ropes of webpublishing yourself at the beginning through toil and sweat or you did you hire someone right away while you focused on the content (and if you'd suggest the same of what you've done or not) ?

The former. Although I wouldn't necessarily recommend it. All my friends who devoted a year or so to studying Internet marketing before they delved into it were making more money in 6 months to a year than I am 6 years in. And folks who go in with funding / venture backing and are able to hire dedicated marketers, etc., tend to get off the ground much, much faster than GC has. I've seen guys sell their web publishing businesses at 20x multiples of what I could likely get for GC, in a fraction of the time, because they started out with dedicated teams and it wasn't one guy trying to do almost everything for the first however many years.

I took the blockhead approach to building a business...! It has been interesting, though. And I should have little trouble finding funding for future ventures at this point, since I know how to do pretty much everything in a web-based business, including a number of high demand, high specialization aspects (copywriting, conversions optimization, media buying, email systems handling, etc.).

Still gotta get this one where I want it to before I look at doing other things, though.

Chase

 

[Seppuku]

Chase,

How about the pictures in your articles? They seem always very highly on point with the article.

So much on point, that I am wondering sometimes if you're hiring some models for a dedicated photo-shoot that will match the needs of the article.

Or do you somehow "buy" the pictures you need from an internet picture database? If yes, which one? Because it's likely a very good database.

I'm really curious to hear!

Seppuku

 

[lux7]

All my friends who devoted a year or so to studying Internet marketing before they delved into it were making more money in 6 months to a year than I am 6 years in. And folks who go in with funding / venture backing and are able to hire dedicated marketers, etc., tend to get off the ground much, much faster than GC has. I've seen guys sell their web publishing businesses at 20x multiples of what I could likely get for GC, in a fraction of the time, because they started out with dedicated teams and it wasn't one guy trying to do almost everything for the first however many years.

Wow, you mean like a year off doing nothing but studying ?
Seems like a risk in itself in case their idea wouldn't work after -albeit they'd keep what they learned for years of course- and going against what the current phylosophy: minimal viable product and gauge the market quickly.

Also, just thinking aloud, maybe there's also the factor it was a different field with a broader appeal and/or an easier market? I remember you Chase once saying that if you had picked a different topic / industry you'd be far ahead now.

 

[Chase]

@ Seppuku-

We usually use Fotolia for images. Great database; tons of images. They get enough new images that we usually don't run out.

Sometimes we'll combine a few images for ours - e.g., the first image in my new bad night at the bar post comes from a couple of different images stitched together. Most times you can find what you want ready-made, however.


@ Lux-

Guys I know who studied did it concurrent with other things they were doing. e.g., Ricardus wrote articles for GC while also doing M&A work. But spent a great deal of time studying Internet marketing and figuring out what his niche would be. Started building his business, and only once he got closer to launch did he retire from there and here.

A mutual friend of Ricardus's and mine studied IM while being a student in university, and launched a business tailored to what he knew (also while still in university). And we had another GC writer who was writing for the site while he studied IM, and eventually launched his own business, then moved to full-time copywriting.

Market is definitely a factor. Part of the reason the second GC writer was not as successful at his business as Ricardus was because he selected an offer with much less demand, in a much tougher market (we warned him off this, but he was pretty set on going for the offer and market he went for). Ricardus chose his very carefully. I fell into mine. Though to be fair, there are a few businesses in dating advice that are much bigger than GC is, revenues-wise. And I had other businesses in other niches, all of which I cut loose at one point or another. Dating isn't the best niche, but it isn't the worst, either. Sort of a middle class niche, all things considered.

Anyway, I think we can do some good things with the new course we'll bring out, and then hopefully get something of a product factory together to bring products to market from guys like Hector, Alek, etc. There's opportunity here, it's just a little harder to get at.

Chase

 

[lux7]

Interesting.

I had never thought of Girlschase as in the "dating" category actually, always thought the dating category was more about "find a partner" rather than "get better at finding a partner". The former would be Tinder, speedating events, eHarmony etc., the latter would be a subset of the self improvement category.

Anyway, you've already been doing great things since many years Chase, glad I stumbled upon this website a few years back. And would be honored to cross paths with the GC guys in the future either in person or business-wise.

 

[lux7]

Oh, BTW, found this list about top searched blog topics and was super surprised neither dating nor self improvement even crack the list :

https://blogambitions.com/blogs-with-highest-searches/

 

[Chase]

Yeah, from an IM perspective it's typically more in the self-improvement niche. If you say "dating" to IMers or affiliate marketers they think you mean Match.com.

However, within the dating advice space, it's just easier to call it dating than, say, "self-improvement focused on dating/pickup/self-actualization as a man" or some such

I wouldn't worry too much about the "most searched for blogs" list. Most people search for specific terms, rather than blog types. e.g., the top blog search on that list - fashion blogs - gets 14,800 searches per month. Those searchers will, of course, be spread out across a variety of blogs. Girls Chase receives around 1.1 million visits per month, which is about 75x the number of people searching for fashion blogs.

The thing to ask yourself when selecting a niche is, "Is this a topic lots of people are interested in?" The big 3 in IM are health, wealth, and relationships; anything in those 3 niches tends to perform well, and if you have top notch advice, will do great. The #1 man-oriented book on Amazon, for instance, is in neither fashion nor dating, but fitness... a book called Bigger, Stronger, Leaner: The Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body. And most guys after finding success in dating or health eventually switch over to wealth (case in point: David DeAngelo / Eben Pagan); much easier to sell someone a $2,000 product if he expects to make $100,000 in short order after buying it.

Chase

 

[readjusting]

Health, wealth, relationship.

Let's say relationship for example.
If I'm in a traditional relationship, and if I want to fix my relationship problem, I'm going to look up a traditional dating site. I doubt it will work in long term.
Girlschase works in pick up, and as other member mentions here, it works in a relationship.
Girlschase is contrarian.
Obviously I need to put the effort in. But if I put the effort in the sense of "traditional dating site," like flowers and gifts, it won't work in long term.

For other 2 areas, health/wealth.
Is the traditional way works? Or some contrarian way.

 

[readjusting]

Btw, just my opinion, but the health, wealth, relationship I kinda understand why they're big 3.

This day and age, you can get anything. Food is cheap, water is free, information you can Google it, you can go anywhere with the airplane.

Except those 3.
Health: The key to good health is "eat healthy and exercise." But really how many people follow that?
Wealth: It's complex. Really if there's an easy way to make money, everyone would do it.
Relationship: The solution is being sexy. It's complex and takes a lot of work.

Put it another way, you have to get health/wealth/relationship by yourself, there's no way other people can do it for you. So many people will want it but cannot get it, and paying money to get a shortcut.
But even the best shortcut requires work.

 

[lux7]

Yeah, from an IM perspective it's typically more in the self-improvement niche. If you say "dating" to IMers or affiliate marketers they think you mean Match.com.

However, within the dating advice space, it's just easier to call it dating than, say, "self-improvement focused on dating/pickup/self-actualization as a man" or some such

I wouldn't worry too much about the "most searched for blogs" list. Most people search for specific terms, rather than blog types. e.g., the top blog search on that list - fashion blogs - gets 14,800 searches per month. Those searchers will, of course, be spread out across a variety of blogs. Girls Chase receives around 1.1 million visits per month, which is about 75x the number of people searching for fashion blogs.

The thing to ask yourself when selecting a niche is, "Is this a topic lots of people are interested in?" The big 3 in IM are health, wealth, and relationships; anything in those 3 niches tends to perform well, and if you have top notch advice, will do great. The #1 man-oriented book on Amazon, for instance, is in neither fashion nor dating, but fitness... a book called Bigger, Stronger, Leaner: The Science of Building the Ultimate Male Body. And most guys after finding success in dating or health eventually switch over to wealth (case in point: David DeAngelo / Eben Pagan); much easier to sell someone a $2,000 product if he expects to make $100,000 in short order after buying it.

Chase

Yeah, that makes sense, wasn't thinking "blog" was part of the keyword.

Congratulations on the 7 figures visits, that's a huge number there, I remember some years ago reading a message reply from you under an article and talking about the difficulties of monetization and saying something like "(..) if it'll go down, I'll go down with a fight like I've always done" and thinking "God hope Chase makes it, a man with so much insight gotta find a way to make it".

I seem to pick up you also had some other businesses on the side or are you fully focusing on Girlschase (and if you think it's better to give undivided attention to one thing or spread your eggs in more baskets ) ?

 

[Chase]

@ CKTC-

Funny thing about contrariness. There is something worthwhile in pretty much every message or system. But once a message/system gets coopted by the mainstream establishment of ANY era or civilization, it becomes watered down to the lowest common denominator and loses most of its value. Becomes a system of meaningless platitudes, contradictory positions, etc.

Confucianism is an example of this. Or Christianity. Or Buddhism. These systems were highly contrary at the times and places of their origins. Their founders were contrary men. But by the time they were finally adopted en masse, they were quickly watered down, and warped in many ways that robbed them of much of their most important tenets. Often by later followers twisting the meaning of tenets to mean something different or opposite what it originally dead.

In Confucianism, this was done by the Legalists, who turned a flexible system about prioritizing harmony into a rigid one of following one’s superiors with blind loyalty. In Christianity it was done by the Church, which is arguably more a product of St. Paul than Christ; Paul contradicts Christ numerous times in the New Testament, with the Church usually siding with Paul over Christ.

Generally speaking, stuff that is “contrary” often is because it is focused on combatting orthodoxy; and as a rule, orthodoxy typically consists of once-contrary ideas that have been stripped of much of what made them valuable as they were chewed up, watered down, and adopted by the mainstream.

Thus, my general advice when you look for a new method in something (whether health, or relationships, or wealth, or whatever) is to look for something that makes you say, “Huh. That goes against everything I usually hear. But it FEELS intuitively correct. Maybe I should try that out.”

(the exception to the contrariness/orthodoxy rule is something like [modern] medicine, where best practices are the result of constant trial and improvement, and are based on what is empirically most effective in arenas where a few things [like certain medications or surgeries] work significantly better than many other things. When an area is less based on immediate results and real world empiricism, orthodoxy with low individual utility but high rulership utility tends to take over. That said, even medicine has historically been prey to the contrariness/orthodoxy rule; our age right now is one of the rare ages, akin to Rome at the time of Galen, where medicine is more focused on results and less on orthodoxy)

Also, good points on the difficulty/complexity of health/wealth/relationships. Typically the more complex or more difficult a specific learning area is, the more opportunity there is in information products. For instance, much more money to be made teaching spoken languages like French or Japanese than there is teaching computer languages like PHP or Rails. Pimsleur, the leading language-learning company, is a 9-figure business, I believe (owned by Simon & Schuster, which in turn is owned by CBS… so hard to get an exact figure); I don’t think there’s anything close to that in the “learn computer programming” niche. And as we’d expect to find, it’s far easier to self-teach computer languages with just free tools on the Internet; human languages are more complex, and harder to stick to a learning plan with, generally.


@ Lux-

Yeah, there were a few rough stretches in GC history. I am grateful to have had your hopes and prayers!

I had a bunch of businesses open in 2011 and 2012. At several points I had four businesses running concurrently. I had six or seven businesses I tried my hand at total in about a 2.5 year period. In the middle of 2012, I’d lost a bunch of money, was deep in debt, and nothing was profitable. So I start cutting and pulling the plugs on businesses.

I came close to pulling out of Girls Chase then (I would’ve just stopped adding content, slashed costs, and it would’ve provided whatever residual income it would’ve until it died, got buried in search, and people stopped coming). Only had two businesses left; GC had revenue, but was still in the red. I took about 2 months trying out everything imaginable, and to my surprise managed to double revenues. Was finally able to start paying myself. Within about a year we’d doubled revenues again. And it kept going up.

We hit another rough patch in early 2015. I tried to bring on a bunch more writers and step back from writing myself, but the business collapsed; revenues fell by half in 3 months, while costs (due to all the extra writers!) were the highest they’d been. Suddenly we were in the red again.

So I cut a bunch of people, cut a bunch of costs, came back to writing myself, and revenues rebounded a bit... but even still did not fully recover.

Income kind of slowly declined for almost 2 years after that, back down to about half of what it used to be. I did a bunch of cutting & budgeting so was still able to pay myself and pay for biz dev (like our new course, and improvements to the site), but we were packing on business debt. We hit some “lowest revenue in 3 or 4 years” marks in 2015 and 2016. I might’ve made that comment you referenced then.

I spent pretty much September last year through February this year doing nothing but conversions optimization. And increased revenues to about 240% of what they were throughout 2016. So we’re basically back to where we were in 2014 or a little bit better, after a ton of work by me.

Incidentally, a bunch of other guys in pickup / dating advice / etc. were hashing about how 2015/6 were really bad years and their revenues fell by a lot. So it was not just us. I have a few theories on why this happened to the industry overall, but at this point my concern isn’t the industry… It’s GC. And we’re back to doing okay again, so that’s all that matters.

Anyway, One Date’s almost out, and I’m 98% certain that’s going to be a major game changer for the business. I’ll finally have an offer that should be cold traffic profitable, which means we can scale revenues, as well as have something to really pitch affiliates.

As for “should you work on multiple businesses at once”… general advice in the startup world is “no.” I’d heard this plenty before getting involved with multiple businesses. I’d also heard how once you start seeing a little entrepreneurial success, it is hard to RESIST getting sucked into multiple businesses. Hearing this / knowing this still didn’t dissuade me. At this point, I’m not really sure what’s better. I’d say it’s short-term worse to be in multiple businesses, but probably long-term better.

Short-term, you’re too scattered to do much good. None of your businesses gets full commitment, everyone you work with will be pissed off you aren’t giving it 100%, and you’ll constantly be burning out. Long-term, you’ll have a bunch of synergistic ideas across the various businesses, you’ll learn lessons at one business it might’ve taken you years to learn at the other, and you’ll be so plugged into entrepreneurship with the demands of multiple businesses that it’ll be all you do. And you improve fastest at what you do most.

So I guess maybe I’d say so long as you won’t starve to death, and don’t mind spending a few years on lessons, maybe try doing the multiple business thing for a while. It will sort itself out organically, since sooner or later you’ll tire of running around like a chicken without a head and decide it’s time to slash the stuff that isn’t working and focus on the stuff that is. Meantime, you’ll learn a lot.

Of course, the downside is if you’re drowning under a mountain of debt and in danger of going under, you may find yourself constantly fighting back panic, like I was for a good two years.

Though even that has an upside. I was the biggest worrywart as a kid… It’s pretty hard to stress me out now though. Though maybe I’m still just shellshocked from 2011/2

Chase

 

[ProblemSolving]

In Christianity it was done by the Church, which is arguably more a product of St. Paul than Christ; Paul contradicts Christ numerous times in the New Testament, with the Church usually siding with Paul over Christ.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but this topic was always VERY interesting to me. If you read the Bible in the it's original language, Hebrew and Greek (Just use a Strong's concordance to look up the words), you will notice that it is VERY different from the English translations that you read today. The Bible actually has some pretty damn liberal views on sex when you read it in it's original languages. But where did the the idea of the Bible being "anti-sex" come from? It didn't come from Paul. It came from St. Augustine who had extreme views against women and sex. His theology spread throughout Catholicism and Protestantism. I'll give you one such example of the hundreds of the translations that take liberties to make the text anti-sex, when it wasn't originally.

Jesus said:
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart". Mat 5:28

Conventional Christians love to use this verse because it APPEARS to be so cut and dry, "If you look lustfully at a woman, it's like committing adultery." Wow, pretty heavy stuff right? But look this verse up in a Greek concordance, what does it ACTUALLY say?

First, the Greek word for "woman" is translated as "wife" 50% of the time, so how do you know whether to use "wife" or "woman" here?

You have to look at the context. Jesus is talking about adultery (sex with someone's spouse) and only married people can commit adultery, so he is clearly referring to "wife" and not "woman". Furthermore, Jesus is quoting the 10th commandment from the old testament, "Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife."

In addition, the word "lustfully", actually means "desire" in original Greek - as in there are no negative connotations to the word.

So when you read that same verse in the original Greek it reads:

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a wife and desires her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart". Mat 5:28

In other words, "If you are plotting to steal a man's wife, it's like committing adultery with her in your heart."

The translation of the English Bible today is full of such theology, taking liberties with the text to give it an anti-sex spin.

Don't even get me started on the word "fornication". If you go down that rabbit hole, you will see that it had nothing to do with sex outside of marriage in the ancient Greek. It's fascinating stuff when you start to look behind the curtain.

 

[lux7]

@ Lux-

Yeah, there were a few rough stretches in GC history. I am grateful to have had your hopes and prayers!

(...)

Though even that has an upside. I was the biggest worrywart as a kid… It’s pretty hard to stress me out now though. Though maybe I’m still just shellshocked from 2011/2

Chase

Wow, cool story Chase, thanks for sharing.

Did you have to get some external funding like VC to pay yourself a salary (guess it was too early stage back then for banks) ?

 

[Rain]

In Christianity it was done by the Church, which is arguably more a product of St. Paul than Christ; Paul contradicts Christ numerous times in the New Testament, with the Church usually siding with Paul over Christ.

I don't mean to hijack this thread, but this topic was always VERY interesting to me. If you read the Bible in the it's original language, Hebrew and Greek (Just use a Strong's concordance to look up the words), you will notice that it is VERY different from the English translations that you read today. The Bible actually has some pretty damn liberal views on sex when you read it in it's original languages. But where did the the idea of the Bible being "anti-sex" come from? It didn't come from Paul. It came from St. Augustine who had extreme views against women and sex. His theology spread throughout Catholicism and Protestantism. I'll give you one such example of the hundreds of the translations that take liberties to make the text anti-sex, when it wasn't originally.

Jesus said:
"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart". Mat 5:28

Conventional Christians love to use this verse because it APPEARS to be so cut and dry, "If you look lustfully at a woman, it's like committing adultery." Wow, pretty heavy stuff right? But look this verse up in a Greek concordance, what does it ACTUALLY say?

First, the Greek word for "woman" is translated as "wife" 50% of the time, so how do you know whether to use "wife" or "woman" here?

You have to look at the context. Jesus is talking about adultery (sex with someone's spouse) and only married people can commit adultery, so he is clearly referring to "wife" and not "woman". Furthermore, Jesus is quoting the 10th commandment from the old testament, "Thou shall not covet thy neighbors wife."

In addition, the word "lustfully", actually means "desire" in original Greek - as in there are no negative connotations to the word.

So when you read that same verse in the original Greek it reads:

"But I tell you that anyone who looks at a wife and desires her, has already committed adultery with her in his heart". Mat 5:28

In other words, "If you are plotting to steal a man's wife, it's like committing adultery with her in your heart."

The translation of the English Bible today is full of such theology, taking liberties with the text to give it an anti-sex spin.

Don't even get me started on the word "fornication". If you go down that rabbit hole, you will see that it had nothing to do with sex outside of marriage in the ancient Greek. It's fascinating stuff when you start to look behind the curtain.

What you wrote is interesting because I was raised as a Protestant. Sex before marriage is wrong is what is taught in Christian schools. Something that I still think about a few things is, Jesus died, and then rose again 3days later. Did some of his disciples have really horrible deaths for saying Jesus was alive again? They must have seen Jesus alive to say those things though and suffer for it? I'm afraid of death myself, but I think its more than the normal 'well no more hookups or tv' , it's also what if heaven and hell are real etc.

 

[ProblemSolving]

Hey Rain,

Check your PMs