I finally got one of my sites Dugg. I’ve had sites get traffic spikes from sites like Reddit, but Digg is a whole new ballgame. It didn’t go as well as it could have, because I thought I was prepared, but I was wrong. Here are some things you need to know if your site hits the front page of Digg.

If it hits Digg, it may hit Reddit and other sites capable of sending 20k … READ MORE

Posted in Hosting, Traffic 4 Comments »

I’ve been busy! Project B-2 Bomber went through a “perfect storm” of traffic. I had 4 all-time record breaking days in a row - meaning, every day broke a whole new record for single day unique visitors.

Day 1: one post gets picked up by a blogger whose link sends hundreds.
Day 2: same post gets picked up by a number of smaller bloggers, who collectively send hundreds more.
Day 3: same post, plus several others, including … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic 5 Comments »

I just don’t get it. Alexa’s new ranking system is even further off than the old one, and we have Quantcast which does a far better job tracking accurate visitor counts and even sorting out demographics (it’s connected to Neilsen, who does the TV ratings in the US, which is the direction web stats have got to go).

I look at my sites on Alexa. Now, whether you love or hate AwStats, it has to be … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic No Comments »

I checked my stats this morning and got some exciting news: Project Mai Tai looks like it may get double the number of visitors this month that it got in April. Memorial weekend may take a dent out of that - Mother’s Day did - but it’s still a lot of growth.

Project B-2 Bomber has suddenly hit a tipping point - it had been stuck around 13k to 15k since late 2007. This … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic No Comments »

For the past few months, I’ve let Project B-2 Bomber coast. It was clear to me it wasn’t going to become a big earner in the foreseeable future, so why keep putting in the effort to build it?

As a result of this coasting, six weeks went by during which my team and I posted maybe 6 articles. Traffic dwindled.

Then we had a spat of several posts in one weekend, and the response from the … READ MORE

Posted in Blogging, Traffic No Comments »

I have a new method of site promotion: write stuff, and wait for people to link to it.

Marketing theory says you can’t do that. I say when you’ve got a small base of readers already linking to you, you can. It might not be the quickest method, but:

Two months ago, I bought three ads for Project Mai Tai. They brought in a combined approximate 150 visitors.
During the same two months, I got natural links … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic No Comments »

I was pleasantly surprised to receive this recommendation on EntreCard from ChickenSoupForYourSoul:

A very informative blog. in addition you will never regret about advertising in this blog. I have generated 65 new visitor by placing my EntreCard here. Way to go

I never really tried to guess how many new visitors this site could send you from a sidebar ad placed near the bottom, but my guess would have been less than 65. … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic No Comments »

A few months ago, I wrote about my BlogHer earnings, and how far off the pageviews according to AwStats were from what BlogHer calculates, which resulted in around $200 of actual earnings for over 341k pageviews (according to AwStats). Of course, no stats package is 100% accurate (it’s a matter of opinion what counts as a real visitor), and not every pageview AwStats records even allows the ad to fully load.

So for the two … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic No Comments »

I’ve decided to set up an advertising budget each month and start promoting my sites through methods other than SEO and free forms of promotion. The question is: how? Where? This is a whole new skill I have to learn.

I think I’m going to start by advertising on relevant sites, buying (no-followed or Javascripted) text link or graphic ads from them. I’ve had very good luck doing it this way once or twice, and never … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic 2 Comments »

Go check and see if it’s become a featured page that’s now getting a handful of clicks every week. That’s what I just found out with one of my lenses. I haven’t touched it in over a year, and yet it’s getting visited. And featured. And potentially sending a dribble of traffic to the site I built it to promote.

Looks like it’s time to start updating that thing once a week. Shoot, once a month … READ MORE

Posted in Traffic 2 Comments »