Mes: mayo 2011

It has been over two years since SurfScience.com started.  Every so often we like to take a look at where things are and where they should be headed.  Today I’d like to share some of this process with you.

One of the big questions we ask ourselves is what areas of surfing we should focus our efforts on.  Should it be surfboard design?  Surfing tips?  Interviews? Product reviews?

We try to focus on things that are useful to the average surfer instead of talking about what the pro surfers are up to.  While that sort of celebrity stuff is great fun, we believe that you care more about things that will actually impact your surfing.  Things you can apply in the water tomorrow to surf better and have more fun.

I recently took a look at the words that appeared most recently on our site.  I ran a big crawl of our entire site and came up with the most used terms.  (Other than plain English terms)  Here is a nice keyword cloud to show what our focus has been so far.

Surfboards – if you had to describe SurfScience.com in one word it would be “surfboard”.  Basically 90% of our website is devoted to surfboards.  And that is how it should be.  Surfers really only need two things – waves and surfboards.  We’ve got half of it covered.

Over the years we’ve pulled together a lot of great info about surfboards including articles about board design, interviews about emerging technology and a surfboard directory with information on over 1,500 surfboard models.  That is a lot of surfboard stuff!

But its always good to check what your audience is looking for.  So I also ran a crawl on all of the words our readers have typed into the search box.  This next picture is a keyword cloud of things that our readers would like SurfScience.com to have information on.

Surfbaords – that is what our readers are looking for.  But not just generic information – they want to know about specific types of surfboards.  They want to know about big name surfboard models and shapers. Our readers want to have a place where they can learn about the surfboards they are thinking of buying.  So that is where we are going to focus our efforts over the next few months.

Along with the Board Rack, Board Match and Best Surfboards for 2011 – we will soon be releasing new features to allow you to research, compare and review surfboard models.  We hear you loud an clear.  More information about surfboards.  Got it!

Buying a surfboard is a big decision.  We are here to help you choose wisely.  Can’t wait to see whats next.

Source: Surfscience

A surfboard will perform the same regardless of its paint job.  But when your board looks sweet, you probably ride a bit better just because of the confidence boost.

There is no doubt about it, surfers love how their boards look.  Many surfboards sell because of sweet artwork.  Look at …Lost Surfboards.  Sure the boards are great, but would they be nearly as popular if it weren’t for the cool art on every board?

Even pop-out manufacturers are putting cool designs on their boards.

I took a look at the surfboards that are most viewed in the SurfScience.com Board Rack and just like you might have guessed, the boards that look the coolest get the most clicks.  No one wants a plain white board.

So lets say you want a custom painted surfboard, how do you go about getting one?

Its is actually pretty easy.  I was recently at Stewart Surfboards talking with Bill about his new surfboard model, the Fartknocker.  It is a small wave board designed to get speed even when the waves aren’t great.

I decided on the board size I wanted, and had a cool idea for the art I wanted.  The Polish Eagle!  (I am Polish, which might have had something to do with this April Fools Joke)

The graphics guy at Stewart let me know that if I could find a high quality vector image, it would make the art that much better.  This was made possible by wikipedia.  Right on the article about the Polish Eagle there was a huge image.

Here is a close up of the eagle.  You can see it is pretty freaking detailed.  Both the front and back of the surfboard have a fade from red to white.  The Polish flag is red & white and the fade was a nice touch.

Source: Surfscience