Introduction

Photodesigners.Net is proud to present this great interview with Enrique Flouret, creator and administrator of the popular directory of tutorials Photoshop Roadmap. Enrique shared with us his experience and many interesting things about his work on the web.

This is an interview that you can not lose, you’ll find direct advice from a person who has experienced the success of a blog in itself. I have no more than leave you with this fascinating interview.

Esta entrevista también está disponible en español.

Pd: Tell us a little about you, Where are you from? And what do you do?
EF: I was born 45 years ago in the city of Rosario, province of Santa Fe, República Argentina. I am an architect who devoted his entire professional life to the chart. For 9 years exclusively to the Web. Today I can say I am a kind of Hunter Resources on the Internet.

Pd: In addition to Photoshop, How is the software you use?
EF: 90% of my business is online and for that I use Firefox. For layout and design, Photoshop and Dreamweaver. To post, WordPress installed on my dedicated server. Statistics for Google Analytics, Woopra (which I have on standby for now) and a script that I programmed. The drive from Gmail as email and documents from Google Docs and I am installing the Open Office.

The RSS is the drive from Firefox, Google Reader and BlogBridge (desktop application). I used Twitter to Hootsuite until recently, but replace it with a combo and Bit.ly Tweetdeck. I use Skype to communicate very little because I do not like to chat at all. A few days ago I discovered Last.fm and I am so fascinated that I have already subscribed annually. All this covers about all my daily activities.

A few months after I came to join the statistics of Photoshop Roadmap and saw that the site had many visitors. Then I decided to redesign and joined tutorials written by other authors grouped into many categories. I also started to do some SEO and the site continued to grow.

The year was 2001 and I was already using any type of link baiting tactics, but by then I did not know that term. And because of that, and in one day, I received two emails that made me realize the value of the site. The first was asking AutoFX my postal address for sending a copy of its new software DreamSuite to post a review. The second email was from the publisher Friends Of Ed for sending me a copy of the new book Masters Of Photoshop to post an evaluation.

Over time the site grew in content, the visitors were still arriving and advertisers were numerous. Due to the age of the site, enjoyed great popularity and could leave it on autopilot while I concentrated on other projects. In 2006, a little late, I started to write my own articles and to publish them with comfort was that I added a blog site. There, I discovered the huge amount of traffic that can bring social networks and blogs important.

That’s why the path they are taking all webmasters are increasingly based on social networks and less on SEO (which is very important but slower).

Enrique Flouret, Photoshop Roadmap.

Pd: Please tell us a story that has happened to you with Photoshop Roadmap.
EF: During the last months of 2007 I published a series of lists of Photoshop tutorials. The lists were published: The best 80 Photoshop Effects on the web, 100 Awesome High Resolution Photoshop Brushes and 70 Horror, Blood and Gore Photoshop Effects and Brushes, these lists were so successful that literally doubled my traffic. And I’m talking about duplicating a daily traffic of 30,000 pageviews. I believe unequivocally that I was one of the first to publish lists of resources for Photoshop. Very important to mention these three lists: Digg (two of them arrived at the homepage), Lifehacker, Delicious, BoingBoing, Drawn.ca, RConversation, and hundreds of blogs around the world. Every time I mentioned in one of these blogs, I spent the day refreshing the statistics and moderating comments. It was incredible to see every minute appeared as a blog or a site that I link with popular on Digg or mentioned in Lifehacker, for example. Now there are so many lists of resources and the large sites do not publish. That is over. However, the benefits were incredible. Almost two years of publication of these lists, so many links that I got first in keywords like “photoshop text effects” “photoshop effects” “high resolution brushes” Photoshop horror effects “and many other variants of the same keywords, keywords and other languages. All this with three articles. That’s why the path they are taking all webmasters are increasingly based on social networks and less on SEO (which is very important but slower). And finally, I would add that in the last two years, the site that sent me the most traffic after Google was StumbleUpon. A marvel. I must also thank Eric PhotoshopSupport.com because of their references were to kick the bulk of these articles.

I also have an anecdote from my site Creative Closeup. When I wrote the note Home Decor for Absolute Geeks I made a comment saying that readers should buy these products while they were unmarried because no sane person would accept in the home. Nonsense that seemed like a pretty close to the introduction of the article.

The article became very popular in Reddit, StumbleUpon and many blogs. Tens of thousands of hits and hundreds of positive feedback. But some visitors felt that my joke was sexist and uncalled for. While it seemed a bit exaggerated considering a sexist joke innocent, I learned that if I write in another language, I have to keep in mind that humor is not global and it is funny in my country or my city is not for others. And that must be respected.

Pd: As you, What kind of tutorials are the most popular?
EF: First list of tutorials. But if we do not consider this as a tutorial, then I think (in any order) text effects, photo effects and photo retouching. Visitors are turning directly to what is basic, or what is spectacular and effective. It is also important to try that tutorial does not involve other application, except that the central objective of the tutorial is the integration between two applications.

Pd:. Besides Photoshop Roadmap, do you have more websites or blogs?
EF: Photoshop Roadmap: (2,800,000 pageviews and 860,000 visitors per month) is my site more popular and has almost 10 years of age.
Creative Closeup: (180,000 visitors and 100,000 pageviews a month) is my favorite site, if I could devote to it only. It is a blog of lists with the emphasis on design. I recommend that you visit because it is very interesting.
Photoshop Mosaic: (126,000 pageviews and 38,000 visits a month) is a light version of Photoshop Roadmap. Has the same content but displayed a more interesting and fun. Soon I will improve a little.
Photoshop Latino: (8000 visits and 18,500 pageviews a month) was born as a need to convey my experience of Photoshop Roadmap towards the Spanish-speaking audience. Still very slow going, but I’m happy with the results and the level of the site.
PlaylandStation: (9000 visits and 13,000 pageviews a month) is less important that I, for months not write anything, but after Creative Closeup, is I like most. It’s a blog with an emphasis on games and toys. There is little, but there are a couple of very interesting articles. It also need some adjustments.

Pd: What are some of your favorite blogs? Those who frequent.
EF: To write my lists and tutorials, visit many blogs, but I do not follow any special. Perhaps the most visited are Abduzeedo, PSDTuts, Photoshop Essentials, PSHero, PSDFan, Obsidian Dawn, Smashing Magazine, Photoshop Support, and many more. To promote I get in touch with popular bloggers and friends like Eric from PhotoshopSupport, Diego from DiegoMattei, Adan from Blog Vecindad Gráfica, Alvy from Microsiervos and from now on, my good friend Samuel Bran .

Pd: Do you think there are blogs in Spanish with the level of Bittbox, Abduzeedo or ThinkDesign?
EF: Beyond the undeniable quality of these blogs, I think it is a matter of exposure. Blogs like yours, PSDCreativo, Vecindad Gráfica or DiegoMattei may not have much difference in the level of content Bittbox or Abduzeedo. The difference is in the overwhelming traffic and popularity.
At its inception, Abduzeedo had a few blog entries and renewed very slowly. But a couple of published tutorials that revolutionized the scene of Photoshop because it focused on different techniques, never before seen, especially in jobs with an impeccable design.
BittBox blog was not a very big, but began offering freebies for high quality and very well presented.
PSDTuts was a site with 4 or five good tutorial but very distant from the empire that is now.
When all this began to circulate in Digg, StumbleUpon, Lifehacker, John Nack, and several other blogs Photojojo important, had an explosion of traffic and popularity so great that from this situation, these bloggers put his arms around genius and creativity that received immediate response.
Needless to mention Brusheezy. He was one of the first and is now maintained as a market leader in overcrowded freebies. All this meant that all blogs and websites after birth, would follow the same path. But I think it is unattainable in terms of popularity.

Pd: What is your opinion on the blogosphere of graphic design in Spanish?
EF: It’s a hard question because I do not know too much Spanish-speaking blogosphere. But as I said in the previous question, in that a site receives a significant amount of traffic, a blogger can not devote full time to generate high quality content every day.

It is not the same receiving 300 or 500 visits per day to receive 30,000 visits a day that you got to keep happy with a lot of new information and high level. A Canadian friend of mine who owns a site of great Photoshop tutorials, the year of publishing his site, already had over a million page views a month and all that traffic just Google, directories and lists. Never been on social networks. If there are in Spanish the same opportunities for promotion than in English, there is no doubt that we would have sites or blogs at or above the most popular in English.

An article that goes to the homepage of Menéame can not bring a lot of traffic over 8000 visitors a day, and you know what it costs to put an item in the design of home Menéame.

But a popular note on Digg or Reddit, you can bring some 30,000 visitors in one day and a great exposure to the rest of the world. To give an example, last month, someone published a link to a note from my other blog, Creative Closeup on the forum I AM BORED. Thanks to that, 12,000 people visited my site in one day, and almost 27,000 hits a month and a half. And I had never in life heard of this forum!.

Perhaps readers of this story will be much heavier than refer to my site statistics, but it is not my intention to make a self-promotion, but to show how powerful are the social networks in general.

Returning to your question, I apologize but I do not know too much in the blogosphere Castilian. But I can assure you is that I have crossed with Spanish-language pages in a design position in the results of my searches for resources. I guess that also lack the decision to join some kind of an arm and mega structure is that of TutsPlus and can do a bit of strength. I do not know, it is just an idea.

Pd: What advice would you give someone who is about to launch his blog design?
EF: Look, I am a practical person. Never will you hear from me tips such as “Do what your heart tells you.” These tips are valid for other situations in life.

For a site on the basis that we are doing something we love and good. It’s something basic and obvious, and that does not work at all.

From that premise, I focus on getting traffic. I am very insistent with the theme, but with 300 visits per day take weeks or months to know if something works (advertising, tutorial topics, types of downloads) with 30,000 visits a day you do you have any test results almost immediately. This is much easier to make decisions, How to achieve that? Trying to engage in any place which is massive. DIGGER, Reddit and StumbleUpon are discarded perhaps because of language, but there are many sites. Menéame, fresqui, Taringa, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, posting comments on blogs interesting move, arming groups and promotions, contact bloggers asking important but not an exchange of links only, but to introduce and display your content. RConversation I did with a couple of my articles and published. They are very cool and very friendly people.

If your content is clearly exclusive downloads, and not collected from other webmasters, then you have a bit more potential in the diffusion. In my case, Photoshop Roadmap, downloads can publish in any language while understanding how to download and obviously will not be copied. Anyway, it would be too long to give examples of promotion here, but the recommendation is to focus on getting traffic and links. Heavy traffic and many links. All without spam and good content.

Final Words

I hope you enjoyed as much as I do this interview, Enrique is a professional with experience in the Internet world and mostly in the world of creative blogs, so consider his ideas and opinions very highly recommended.