Name of your website?Dexter's Discoveries
Your name?
Rebecca Haden
Your Location (city, etc)
Fayetteville, AR
Please give us a short summary of your website?
A daily blog of lesson plans, links, and ideas for teachers.
What inspired you to launch your own website?
As manager of The Education Station, Northwest Arkansas's teacher store, I shared the frustration of local teachers who needed materials for Arkansas history and other topics in the state frameworks. Since we are a small state, there are few things available. I decided to provide lesson plans for all the state frameworks. In fact, we have visitors from all over the world, but I still write for Arkansas teachers.
When did you launch your first website, and what was it?
My first website was a personal blog I started in the early 1990s. My daughter persuaded me to join her in doing this so we could keep up with each other while she was away at school.
How did you decide on a name for your website?
Dexter was the store dog at The Education Station until his recent death from cancer. We realized that he was the most popular member of the staff, so we decided to name the blog after him.
What makes it different from other, similar offerings?
I don't think there are any similar offerings. Having a daily lesson plan blog is unusual enough to begin with. Having one that covers the state frameworks is, I believe, unique.
What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?)
I just want the blog to be a useful tool for teachers. Eventually, we'll cover all the frameworks, but I suppose they'll change again and there will always be more to write about.
How does your investment of time and money balance against your success?
The Education Station sponsors the blog, in the sense that I write it during my working hours. We find it pretty thrilling that people from all over the world come to visit, but we are glad that a large proportion of visitors are our customers. And certainly, we are glad that so many of the blog's visitors also go to see the catalog! The blog is the second biggest source of traffic to our store catalog website, after Google.
If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site?
Hmmm.... I don't know the answer to that. My area of expertise is curriculum design, not web design, so I might have to hire someone to come up with ways to spend a development budget.
If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand?
We have had a couple of surprising spikes, such as on February 28th and 29th when people suddenly realized they needed Leap Day lesson plans. It was fun to watch the numbers going up, but there were no consequences to us. That day, we sort of wished we had been selling something ;-)
What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with?
None.
What has been your biggest challenge?
I always like a good challenge. Finding websites on Arkansas to link to is the most difficult thing, but I keep finding new resources!
What method has been most successful for promoting your website?
We use it for handouts for our workshops, but most of our traffic is organic search. We're in the top few results at Google for a surprising number of topics.
How has running your website differed from your expectations?
I was surprised that so many international visitors come to the site.
How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity?
The site has been up for a couple of years, and very active for a year or so. I enjoy it!
What is your website address?
Dexter's Discoveries
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