Shirin Delsooz

My Life Adventures and Thoughts

Thanks to the following people…

A HUGE thanks to my cousin Anahita. She has worked so hard to get my music out there. No strings attached and no questions asked! I owe any regonition to her and only her! When she comes to Canada, I will be sure to take her to all the VIP rooms in every nightclub that exists in Montreal! And also, thanks to Tam for her hardwork and support!

Thanks to Bibliotheque National for their uncensored and speedy (and free) internet connection. Thanks to you, I was able to manage my online marketing campaign without worrying about how much gigabytes were transferring had I was running it at home. This library is a modern and nice working space that is quiet and equipped with a cheerful staff! Who needs an office when there are libraries like bibliotheque national? And on this subject, if you ever want to come by, say hi (or even help), I can be usually found on the second floor. Honourable mention: Second cup. On Mondays the library is closed, and I need to transfer a lot of data, they were there. I sat in the cafe for hours just doing that for the low cost of green tea, at $1.88.

Thanks to my former employers. Had it not been for their pay, I wouldn’t have been able to pay for music lessons, instruments, and recording!

Thanks to Charles Moffat for his support and insight to the online marketing world. He also took some photos of me in my Toronto days. He never turned me down when I asked him a favour! Never! Charles Moffat is an artist and activist. Check out his website.

Thanks to Mirage. The motivational quotes are better than the silly ones I found on my app. He said “life decisions are far better reached on own merits”.

Thanks to Reza. His encouragement boosted my confidence during a low point in life. He introduced me to an awesome photographer and coordinated the whole thing.

Thanks to Mojtaba for taking the pictures!

Thanks to the gang at the Black Swan and Mullins in Toronto, Ontario. I love playing Irish tunes, and having all those laughs! They were always interested in the weird stories of my personal life! I truly feel at home there!

Thanks to my cousin Reza Y. for being my first facebook fan!

Thanks to Seratone Studio. Many sound engineers I have worked on in the past tried to find clever ways to screw me over for money, never answer my phone calls or emails, and were not friendly what-so-ever, and the recording studios were on the sketchy side. I thought it was a sound engineering thing, or just bad luck. But then I met Simon and my perception has changed. That being said, if you ever need a sound engineer, you should check out Seratone Studio in Montreal!!!

Thanks to all the musicians who participated in the project and their commitment and creative input!

Thanks to all my music teachers, Ed Bernard, Gretchen H., Patrick O., and David B. I also like to thank Emory Lester for his great mandolin workshop at Goderich Celtic Roots Festival 2010.

I’m sure I have forgotten others, so I will regularly update this post with many more thanks!

 

Must Have Music Apps for Android

I recently got an Android Nexus S, and one of the first things I did was search high and low for the best music apps. After downloading a few good ones and a few bad ones, I came to this conclusion. Here are my top five favourite music apps:

  1. Practice Makes Perfect. Slow down a song without losing pitch. Loop certain sections. Set to repeat. This has sharpened my ear to a level I never knew I could achieve!
  2. Perfect Ear. This app has many exercise to sharpen the ear. Decipher between minor and major, practice singing harmonies, and more.
  3. Musical Pro. Metronome, pitchpipe, all the basic tools for a musician.
  4. Jam Box. Any chord and any scale on guitar visually and audibly!
  5. gStrings. This app functions as a tuner. You can use it to tune your guitar (or mandolin, or violin).

 

My attempt at a viral website – One Year Review

Last summer, I decided to roll up my sleeves and throw myself in the trenches of online marketing. I started a website, funnyloveletters.com, a blog on real life sappy love letters. I figured with all the voyeurs in the world, the idea would instantly go viral. It kinda did, but there is still a long way to go and I learned a lot of lessons I thought I would share with other budding online entrepreneurs.

Could this be the beginning of a viral website?

My journey started in summer 2010, I was working towards a Google Analytics and AdWords certificate. I was well versed with SEO, and I also knew how to set up a website. I heard about the Google Advertising program (Adsense) and I had a friend who said he made an income off of it, so I decided that it was time to put what I know to the test. I just needed an idea!

The idea of a website with sappy letters came to me a few years earlier when I got a huge 5 page love letter from a guy I barely knew. At first it was creepy, then sad, but then funny. Wouldn’t it be funnier if other people read it? But would they? And how would I start this website? How much time will it take? When will I see a return? It was going to be a little bit of work, so I needed some compelling evidence to see if it was worth the trouble.

I did some keyword research and found that “funny love letters” had a pretty high search volume on Google. It is now listed as having 2400 searches per month!

The domain funnyloveletters.com was available. Having the keywords in the domain would make it easier to get to the number one spot. I originally wanted a more fitting name, “sappyloveletters.com”, but there were barely any Google searches for sappy love letters. And this project was more SEO oriented.

I also used the website awkwardfamilyphotos.com as a model. They post up awkward family photos submitted by users. If people were willing to post up embarassing pictures of their families, they would surely post up embarassing letters of people they don’t like? According to alexa.com, awkwardfamilyphotos.com has an obscene amount of traffic. They also got mainstream media attention from CNN, Time Magazine, Huffington Post and even The View.

I was convinced! So I bought funnyloveletters.com, and got to work. I used a diary themed template with wordpress, then posted the five page love letter. Then waited. I got a few letters by asking friends and posting ads on craigslist. At first, it was slow, but now its picking up. I didn’t push the idea onto my personal network and didn’t advertise, because I wanted to see if a viral idea could stand on its own legs.


Reaction

A few people became obsessed with funnyloveletters. They would spend hours on it, and visit the website daily. Some of my visits were coming from Facebook, so I could see that people were telling others about the website. I knew I must be getting on the right track. It seemed like people were entertained by the letters, especially the ones in the “Angry Love Letters” category that were getting the most hits. I had someone email me once to say that the website was thereputic for her.

126 visitors spent at least 30 minutes on the website.

SEO

As I got more letters, more visits, more facebook “likes”, I was climbing up the Google charts. In just a few months, funnyloveletters.com became number one on Google for searches on “funny love letters”. It can also be found on the first page for searches on “love letters”. This is very important since I depend on Google, and only Google for all my traffic! And for all those self-claimed SEO’s who think its all about the back links, this website result proves otherwise! I had no back links for funnyloveletters.com whatsoever, other than a meagre mention on my personal blog. My hypothesis is that the website became number one because:

  • the keywords were in the domain
  • the bounce rate was very low
  • people were sharing the website on social media networks
  • because the ad to content ratio was low
  • the website was regularly updated on a weekly basis
  • the website had original content
  • the website had a lot of content

Money

There is no money to be made off of Adsense, I made a total of $7.70 this year. That’s pretty low considering that I brought 15,082 visitors to see their ads! The online consensus seems to be that only 1% of visitors click on ads. So how does my friend make money off of Adsense? His network of websites combined has 120,000 visits PER DAY. He makes it a full time job to write blog posts. I don’t know if I want to commit more than a few hours per month.

The Future

For the website to continue its success, a lot of work needs to be done. It needs to be a full time job. To monetize this website, I need two things:

1. Sell merchandise

2. Get more visitors
To achieve this goal, I need to go the full nine yards with marketing. I have a massive to-do list to get through:

  • FLL needs to rebrand
  • get a new professional design
  • set up an online store and products
  • advertise
  • beg journalists to cover the story
  • beg the public for more letters!

It’s a bit overwhelming for just one person, but when I see the growing numbers, I think it just might be worth it! I can’t lose momentum now!

Persian Gypsy Music

I recently went to Iran and had the rather unexpected pleasure of listening to the gypsy kids playing music on the streets. I could never find a recording of this music in any store, so I recorded it with my camera.

I have more footage that I will upload on youtube in the coming weeks.