Toen ik dit deed vorig jaar het werd vrij goed ontvangen. Zo hier ben ik, een later jaar, opnieuw doend het. Aangezien gebruikelijk ik vrij veel elke statistiek over deze plaats (behalve specifieke financiële details), en wat nog belangrijker is zal delen, alles heb ik (de hoogtepunten hoe dan ook) in vorig jaar geleerd.
Ik ga opnieuw met het zelfde formaat, om de zelfde reden (ik ben lui). Sprekend van lui, heb ik deze post in mijn ontwerpen gehad die sinds het begin van Augustus wachten worden gebeëindigd - het daadwerkelijke 2 jaarteken.
Wat ik heb gedaan
Stats
Hier is een overzicht van de statistieken voor Eenvoudige Hulp van vorig jaar. Zelfs daarna 2 jaar, kan ik niet gaan een dag zonder Google Analytics te controleren.
- Bezoeken en Pageviews - 08/01/07 - 07/31/08
Zoals de grafiek hieronder illustreert, was er een significante daling in het midden van Dec. 07. Ik was vrij ziek, en de plaats daalde 2.5 dagen. Zulke is het leven.
Tegen Maand
Alles bij elkaar ben ik pleased met de groei in vergelijking met het eerste jaar (1.104.495 bezoeken, 1.756.518 paginameningen). Één van de dingen die ik heb willen om dit jaar verhogen was het aantal paginameningen per bezoek, dat ik - lichtjes. Vorig jaar was het 1.59 paginameningen per bezoek, dit jaar het aan 1.72 groeide. Ik schrijf dit aan 2 volledige plaatsherontwerpen en het gebruik van toe Verwante Posten plugin (en Verwante Posten voor uw Voer plugin).
- De bronnen van het verkeer - 08/01/07 - 07/31/08
- Traffic sources - 08/01/07 - 07/31/08
- Top Content - 08/01/07 - 07/31/08
- How to convert .flac files to .mp3 using Windows
- 10 Alternatives to iTunes for Managing your iPod
- How to use your PC and Webcam as a motion-detecting and recording security camera
- 15 Windows Explorer alternatives compared and reviewed
- How to completely wipe all the data from your hard drive
Gelijkaardig aan vorig jaar, onderzoek blijft mijn #1 bron van verkeer. Veruit.
Één eerder significante verandering is dat tijdens het Eenvoudige eerste jaar van de Hulp, het op de voorpagina van Digg.com was 16 keer. In het tweede jaar - niet eens. Dit schrijf ik aan twee dingen toe - 1) ik hield „op schrijvend voor digg“ en 2) het zijn een moeilijker om op de voorpagina nu te worden. Één van mijn dwaze doelstellingen in mijn eerste jaar moest op de digg.com voorpagina tweemaal in één dag worden. The second time I accomplished that goal, my previous hosting provider told me in no uncertain terms that Simple Help had to move. It was at that point I went from shared hosting to a dedicated server.
Last year, digg was my #2 source of traffic, this year, it’s #8. Which is kind of interesting in and of itself - a lot of people will claim that digg has no long-tail. Not entirely true.
You’ll also note that images.google.com is my 6th highest source of traffic. If that’s not a glaring hint as to why you should use the alt and title tags, I’m not sure what is.
Once again, Google reigns supreme.
My 5 most popular posts in the last year were:
Only one of those posts (How to completely wipe all of the data from your hard drive) did I actually write in the last year. The other four are from the first year. Also noteworthy is that my most popular post, accounts for almost 10% of my traffic. That’s one post out of six hundred.
What I’ve Learned
SEO
If I had to guess, I’d say there are a billion sites on SEO (search engine optimization). There should be a new rule - if your site doesn’t get a couple of hundred thousand visits via search engines, per month, you can’t start or run an SEO site. My suggestion? Review some of the tips on one established SEO site (say Matt Cutts or the seomoz blog), implement those tips, and then stop. The time that some bloggers spend reviewing SEO “tips and tricks” never ceases to amaze me. Use that time to write an article instead. No matter how “SEO friendly” your site is, if you don’t have content, no one’s going to come. Besides, most SEO sites just take content they found on another SEO site, re-word it (the ones that aren’t totally lazy) and publish it. Do you really need to read the same 10 tips 50 times?
Find a Mentor
Without question, my absolute #1 suggestion is to find someone already established in your niche, and befriend them. I cannot possible emphasize this enough. The How-To Geek writes PC tutorials, just like I do (though he has a more heavy emphasis on Vista), and has shared countless tips with me. Without question, Simple Help would not be nearly as popular as it is today without him. The hard part is, of course, finding someone that’s willing to share information with you. I’ve been unbelievably fortunate.
Your Niche is Different
Similar to the SEO rant (above), do not waste your time reading “pro blogging” web sites. Here’s why - they generally offer suggestions that may not even apply to you. A blog that focuses on collecting coins has a completely different audience than a blog that focuses on photography. The differences can be in gender, age group, geographic location - the list is endless. What applies to one site does not necessarily apply to another. Again, find someone successful in your specific niche, and find out what has worked for them and what hasn’t. You’ll find that information way more valuable than what you would on a “pro blogging” web site.
RSS subscribers don’t matter
This one might be a tiny bit controversial. For my site - a computer tutorial blog - RSS subscribers don’t matter, at all. Remember - your niche is different. Everywhere you go you’ll read about how to increase your RSS subscriber count. Take a step back and ask yourself - “for my site, does the number of RSS subscribers matter?” Here’s an example. Darren Rowse, of ProBlogger.net, has 47,189 RSS subscribers (as I write this, Aug. 23rd, 2008). I have 3,227. He has 14 times (plus) more RSS subscribers than I do. However, in the last 30 days, problogger.net has had 767,118 page views (according to SiteMeter. Over the same period of time, Simple Help has had 796,178 page views. Slightly more page views, 14x fewer RSS subscribers. So before you spend too much time trying to increase your RSS readership, ask yourself, does it really matter for my blog?
Social networks are a waste of time
What the heck, another controversial one. I publish my posts via Twitter, I have a MyBlogLog page, FaceBook page (two actually), FriendFeed account, Last.FM… you name it, I have a page or account on that service. Not a single one of them drives any significant traffic to my site. StumbleUpon is an exception, and I’m not sure if it even counts as a social network. But again - consider your sites topic. If you write about FaceBook apps, you may get a tonne of traffic by creating a FaceBook group.
Advertising
Here’s my experience with advertising. When your site becomes popular, advertisers find you. They’ll even bid against each other. Until then, stick with AdSense, Kontera, Tribal Fusion - whatever.
Write more content, then some more, then some more
Just write more. Not everything will be popular, in fact most of it probably won’t. But the more content you have, the more it’ll show up in Google, and the more visitors you’ll get. Also, if you write something that you think is absolutely terrific, and the visitors don’t immediately flood your site - don’t stress. I’ve had things that I wrote months and months ago all of the sudden become hugely popular on StumbleUpon, or show up on a very popular blog - driving that traffic you hoped for.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Congratulations on the very impressive growth! But you’ve revealed nothing about your earnings
And why the theme change?
Congratulation on reaching your second year!
As I read this post, I can’t help nodding my head on every single point you said. My blog is somewhat similar to yours and is reaching its first anniversary this Nov, but looking at my statistics compared to yours, I guess that I still have a lot more to catch up.
Just write more. Not everything will be popular, in fact most of it probably won?t. But the more content you have, the more it?ll show up in Google, and the more visitors you?ll get. Also, if you write something that you think is absolutely terrific, and the visitors don?t immediately flood your site - don?t stress. I?ve had things that I wrote months and months ago all of the sudden become hugely popular on StumbleUpon, or show up on a very popular blog - driving that traffic you hoped for.
I fully agree on this one.
Congratulations on completing your second year, the growth is definitely impressive.
I agree with many of your suggestions and would like to add that even I don’t advice people to rely more on blogging tips once they have got a foothold, those tips are generally around increasing traffic, subscribers et all, what one should focus is the content that would drive more traffic to a blog.
Congrats! I can see your site is growing rapidly. Keep up the good work!
Really liked the article and I totally agree with you, with on everything. Especially the part about mentor, I cannot stress enough how this helped me.
Although subscribers don’t mean anything to you , you just got one
cheers!
Your web page doesn’t correctly work in safari browser
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