TypeCarl

Introducing MCAT45.com

Wow… I really haven’t posted in like 7-8 days. All I have to say is shame on me. However, I wasn’t sitting around doing nothing. I’ve been trying to juggle one too many things. One of those things was mcat45.com. It’s a site for people who are taking the MCAT exam to get help and study our super duper prep guide.

Most of the wesbites I’ve created have been affiliate marketing based. I wouldn’t call any of those websites “real” as I don’t exactly own them. However, this one is different. A lot of hours were put in it, and it feels like a real website. A website that will have real value to people.

I really like that.

The most time intensive part is that we’re trying to condense 4 years of science in college into 150 pages or so. We’re not completely finished with our MCAT prep guide, but it’s getting there. We think it’s better than other MCAT resources because its less cluttered by taking out unncessary words and information. However, our main focus is to now build a vibrant community of students who are taking or have taken the MCAT.

Since a great deal of you are internet marketers, I’ll let you know about the inner workings. The site is built around Drupal. It’s a great CMS (content management system). This was actually a tough choice for me because there are some great ones out there. It essentially came down to Drupal or Joomla. Drupal won out because it was better at CEO out of the box as well as it is known to scale very well. Some major websites use Drupal.

The biggest drawback to Drupal is that the learning curve is a little steeper. However, it’s really not that bad if you consider yourself computer savvy. If not, I’d probably head over to Joomla. It’s a tad easier.

I customized a theme that was available on Drupal’s website. I tried to keep the design simple and give a little bit of that modern design. I’m still a novice in the way that it still takes me awhile to manifest what I see in my head.

Maybe in the future I can plug something into my head.

Everything you see on the website is Drupal with extra modules. For example, I was able to create custom fields so users could submit requests for tutoring. The amazing part is that I had to know absolutely no code to do it. It was suprisingly easy.

The only gripe I have is that there are a ton of updates coming out, and I know it will be a pain to keep up with them because the modules have to keep up too. We’ll see how it goes.

Overall, I’m happy with the site. We are still working on content, but we have shifted a lot of our effort into marketing. I’m putting my knowledge to the test with this. Currently, I’m working on getting the website indexed.

Let me know what you guys think. I’ve love the feedback.

Carl Zetterlund

P.S. I promise to post on a more consistent basis! (how many times have I said this now?)