Popularity: 4% [?]

Yes, with my fan site #4. It isn’t even for the usual reasons either. It’s like I just don’t feel like I can leave it alone. I haven’t had a static website in such a long time - I don’t even think it “wise” to have a static website that isn’t updated often. So here I’m sitting with a static fan site. It’s suppose to be low-maintenance. I KNOW THAT. It’s just really hard after years of “you must have content… lots of content… all the freakin’ time” and then switch it to - “Meh, I’ll do it when I want… or not.” It’s just hard.

So I’m getting antsy.

Monty mentioned that I’m still ranking well for the keywords. I’m just having a hard time not wanting to fiddle with it. There are still a few things I need to add to the site - but other than that I’m leaving it alone. We’ll see. Call it a test of endurance. LOL.

But I’m now going to start on Fan Site #5. I think this too will be pretty low-maintenance. I’m hoping to see better returns on my Adsense with this one. I do get pretty decent clicks on my other sites - but I think just the topic isn’t so awesome for advertisers bidding - they’re low… and some days when I’m getting over $2 for over 20 clicks. I just don’t like those numbers… I feel they should be higher. So maybe a bit of a fan switch is in order. Call it “testing, testing, testing”.

This fan site isn’t for the run-of-the-mill fan sites out there. It’s not like you’ll see this celebrity on Perez Hilton or Pink is the New Blog anytime soon. So it’s another twist to this game I’m playing. I took this idea from Facebook, if you can believe that. I was shocked that there was this fan base - there were plenty of signups for this person. But I wouldn’t have ever thought… not in a million years - so I’m taking that… and running with it right now.

Popularity: 5% [?]

They all came crashing down. I put up my fan site #4 and submitted it to multiple social sites like Digg, Technorati, Stumbleupon, Tumblr - and I had moderate first day success - as I gushed about on Friday.

On friday I had honestly thought I’d tapped into something most excellent and I really wished at that time I’d done what I’d done for my other 3 fan sites. Guess what - no more jubilation for this girl. The house of cards has come crashing down around me. I’m pumping my fist madly in the air and giving the finger to the monitor where I’m currently looking at my site stats.

I knew this would happen.

… and it did. But you know, I was just “hoping” this time would be a bit different. I think my fan site #4 has nose-dived into never never land. Actually all my fan sites have nose-dived. I’m wondering if it has anything to do with the Google PR update? Are they tweaking the algorithm again? See - this is what happens when I’ve got one search engine that’s sending me most of my traffic. Maybe it’s a weekend thing too - I always see a decline in hits on the weekend.

It could be so many things. I ‘m going to ride out the slump - keep doing what I’ve always done. I’m going back to adding more content to the site. I’m having a hell of a time leaving fan site #4 as a mostly static site too. I guess I’ve got WordPress engrained in my system and I have the mantra “content, content, content” rolling through my head - that to rank you need new content. I mean, what do people do with static sites? How to they ever hope to compete?

Other rants for another day….

Either way - this weekend has SUCKED for search results = clicks = money honey for yours truely. I’m hoping this week it picks up. I’m wondering once a sites gone through all that submission stuff to those networks if that’s it. No more link love for you - I’ve always had a hard time with the backlinks sort of thing. What do you do to get the link love?

Popularity: 9% [?]

Yes, I’m giving an update right now. I’m ecstatic at what’s happened… and I’m hoping it sticks I put the site up last night. I put google analytics on the site to watch any trends that might happen. This is a test - a new design - an inspired idea.

So I just checked to see if it has shown up in the search engines.

… and yes it has.

It’s listed for “celebrity name” and “biography” - as #4. Look at who it’s listed under - the imdb.com site and tv.com. I have to say that’s freakin’ cool.

 I’m also listed as #2 for “celebrity name” for this site as well in Google.

I’m hoping the quick recognition of the site is due to my stumbling, digging and all that jazz… and hopefully the 1 backlink I’ve got for it helped as well.

Now to see if it sticks!

Popularity: 5% [?]

Oh yeah baby… I bought another domain for a fan site… I love making them… and what the hell.  I even bought Fan Site #5’s domain name with it.  I think I’m addicted to celebrities

With Fan Site #4 I’m taking a different approach.  You could even say it’s a laid back approach to building up a site.  I’ll let you in on why I’ve changed things a bit with this one.

I was checking out new sites for sale at SitePoint.com yesterday morning.  I found a fan site.  So of course I’m curious about how they’ve done it - because it was bringing in $150-$200 dollars from Adsense per month.  Not a bad start I thought and they were looking for close to $1000 to sell it.  Ok - now I’m very interested.

I checked out the site…

I have to say that I was shocked.  It really didn’t have much content.  Actually it had one page of written content - the biography.  All other pages were photos and videos of the celebrity.  There were 11 pages all together.

My interest was peaked.  I mean - the owner said it was a low maintenance site, steady traffic, and made that much a month.  I’m all over the whole low maintenance part.  The site has a PR3 and there is potential.  Even if it just sits there being a nice passive income.  Nice deal.  The owner then put up the actual screenshots of the income and traffic.  I could only imagine making that with my sites.  I mean what did he do to make this site take off?

Was it the celebrity in question?  Did it not have a lot of competition?   The money coming in was purely from an Adsense block placed smack dab in the middle of the page.  You couldn’t miss it.  Income = Ad placement.  See I have such a hard time making sites like that because I don’t think they look overly nice.  But maybe I need to change it up a bit in my mind if I’m going to improve my Adsense earnings on my other fan sites.  Something to definitely keep in mind.

So, I’m looking at the fan site - not a lot of written content… where is the traffic coming from?

The author of the site said he submitted the site to social linking sites - technorati, digg, reddit, etc.  Organic traffic.  A few links for various sites.  When I did a backlink check there were 2 backlinks - one relating back to the site and another from a PR3 site.

Interesting.

Why?

Because I could do this.  I now have a bit more information in my arsenal to use to promote Fan Site #4.  I decided to take a different approach to this one and instead of using WordPress I went ahead and used 19pages.com - super simple to setup and super fast to produce the pages I needed to make Fan Site #4.   I wasn’t looking for complicated.  I just needed a few pages to give it a whirl.

So what I’ve done for fan site #4 - Content = Biography of Celebrity.  Images/Video = Just added them to additional pages.  1 Video per page and I’ll have about 5-6 photos on a page depending on their size.  A big-ass block of Adsense smack-dab in the middle top of fold and some link adsense just under the header. Then I let this baby go.

I went to Technorati, Digg, Reddit, etc.  I’ve submitted the site to them.  We’ll see if I get any traffic from them.  Some would be nice.  Steady would be even better… but I don’t think that’s how it works with those things.  So I’m hoping I’ll get visitors… get some organic traffic and I’m working on getting a few backlinks from sites.

I’ll keep you posted on Fan Site #4.

I’m excited… because it’s a twist on the usual.

Popularity: 3% [?]