Last night I checked my stats for my fan site.  I’d not done this since the last time we chatted about the stats.  So imagine how freaked out I was when I saw this (I updated it this morning)…

I couldn’t believe it.   I mean look at that - it’s only the 20th and I’ve doubled what I did in May.  I’m over the freakin’ moon.  I spazzed out.  My hubby didn’t know what was going on… and then he was like… “it’s your ##### site isn’t it!… hahahahaha”.  I told him to take a look and I mean whoa.  I’ve never had such a jump in stats … ever.

Now I was over the freakin’ moon.  OVER THE MOON!  So I took a peek at the daily stats and this is what I found:

Yesterday I had 291 unique visitors.  Look at the crazy numbers.  For the past 3 days I’ve had over 200 uniques.  That is totally awesome.  I mean, I can’t explain how long it took for this site to reach that many visitors a day.  I sat back and wondered why the big jump.  Maybe it has to do with the fact the search engines are now picking up the site.  My alexa rank has jumped from 8,000,000 down to around 1,400,000 in popularity.  That’s got to mean something right?

Then I was thinking about what I’ve added my site to.  I don’t think the 4 directories I added the site too matters that much for a bounce in the traffic… I think I’ve cracked a little secret… little known to me anyway - or maybe it never really was useful for my sites before now.  I went to Wikipedia.  I added my fan site to the page in Wikipedia.  Since adding the site I’ve had over 120 new visitors to the site from that link.  Not a lot… but way more than any other link so far coming in.

Maybe I’m a bit slow on the uptake, but Wikipedia might just be a great source for incoming visitors to your site.  Wouldn’t hurt to add your site - if it’s relevant to the page your listing on and has some good content to provide to the visitors.

So that’s the crazy happy day I’ve had

Popularity: 5% [?]

Well, alright I spoke too soon about my fan site.  Yikes.  Did a quick check of my stats for the keywords… and I almost started to cry:

I didn’t know what to think about the results.  I’d been doing so well up to this point.  I mean, only a couple days after putting the site live, I started to see keyword results.  I was ranking in the top 100 for those keywords.  So my next thought was that the site itself might have been down over the weekend?  Maybe?

I went to the site stats and this is what I got:

I have highlighted my big 100 unique visitors for the site and you can see that the site was increasing in visitors daily.  Then it starts to drop off on the 25th.  So I’m wondering if my time away from the computer = lack of updates = lack of visitors to the site?  Have I now entered the Google Sandbox?  Today I’ve counted 11 unique visitors to the site - it looks like I might have a chance here to start going back up?  Could it be that it is the Memorial Day weekend in the states… and everyone is out and enjoying the holiday rather than being on their computers?

So many things to throw into the equation.  I’m going to hold off doing anything crazy… unless the numbers don’t improve.  Right now I’m still going to focus on content for the site and do that for the rest of the week and see where it takes me.  If the numbers are still low by next Monday… I’m going to go through my options and figure out if I need to make a “Plan B”.

Popularity: 2% [?]

This past weekend has been so crazy for me - we moved and it’s been a shitload of packing, cleaning, unpacking… and unpacking some more.  I swear these boxes are reproducing while we sleep!  LOL.  All in all it’s been a great weekend - all things considered.

In the process of all this moving - I’ve not been near a computer.

I can say I’m glad to be on a computer right now, but it’s not ready where we are.  It’s so strange in a way at how dependent I’ve been to my sites, stats, and updates.  Wow.  The break has put it all into a weird perspective… heh.

I’m hoping to have everything in the new place up and running by the weekend.  I don’t know how much longer I can last without it

My fan site continues to do pretty darn well - I was telling Stu that the fan site is a totally new domain - shiny… new… car smell fresh!  I don’t know if so far I’ve lucked out with missing the Google sandbox (does that still exist?  It’s been a while since I’ve done anything with a “new” domain.).  It’s been up for almost a month now and I can say that I’ve doubled my Google income (which has been so terrible… I don’t want to talk about it!)… and with the increase - I am happy with it.  Onward and upward.  Next month I’m hoping to do even better - I’ve subscribed to a couple of forums that deal with the subject of my site.  Don’t want to spam - but I want to make my presence known and get some backlink love.

With trying to SEO my site and trying to get it up in the rankings - not so bad.  What I’m having some trouble with is the backlinks.  How does one go about getting backlinks without sounding like a spammer… or being ignored - because I do it to many who ask for link exchanges with me. (I’m so evil!).  But it’s true - either I forget, think about and forget it, or totally forget about the exchanges and they never happen.

I wonder if I’m going to have to spend some $$ on text link ads?  Something to ponder… for sure.

Popularity: 1% [?]

I’m having another ONE OF THOSE MOMENTS…. again. I think if I could summon up the courage to see just how many times this seems to happen to me. I’m having one of those “oh my shit, what am I going to do now?” moments.

The moment for me hit when I was reviewing what I had made over the past couple of months. Now I will admit in the past couple of months I’ve got more money coming in than I ever had before. Which in turned has spurred me on to think that yes, I’m doing the right thing and to carry on. But this month hasn’t brought in the cheques and it’s hard to stay focused. I’m always having a hard time staying focused (horray for lists). But it just seems so hard to be/keep myself motivated.

I’m seriously starting to sound like a broken record

So again… I’m working on a plan.

I have a website that I started back in 2006 and since that time I’ve set it up and just let it go. No SEO goodness, no marketing, nothing. I think there is a market out there, all based on one sale which brought me in over $25 alone. Now think if I could do that a couple of times a day… or once a day… and that only once a week - could net me a cheque at the end of the month.

Now that’s motivation!

So, I’m going to start writing articles, I’m actually going to take the time and do some damn research on keywords. I’m going to work my header tags into a frenzy and my meta tags won’t know what hit them. I’m going to write content - that ACTUALLY contain the keywords! OMG… this is making me dizzy!

I’m also going to track my results.

Which sadly I’m terrible at.

Hello Excel spreadsheet… here I come.

I’m also going to start small:

• I’m going to research keywords
• I’m going to start a blog for the site
• I’m going to start adding an article twice a week to start

I’m going to chart the traffic flow, I’m going to see if my keywords bring in more people to the site. I’m just testing the waters to see how it goes. I’m not sure about the competition - but this might be one of those where there isn’t “too much” competition… but that will come with research.

I guess this is my testing phase. If it works - whoohoo. If not I’ll be back at the drawing board thinking up different ways to bring the people to me … organically - mmmm - search engine goodness.

If all else fails I might give the world of PPC and landing pages a try on this site as well.

I’m looking forward to this little experiment. I’m more looking forward to keeping actual track of the progress. Only because I’ve never done that before. Seems like a no-brainer. But I’m just looking for the “easy” way… and so far it’s not be a complete disaster… but I wonder where I’d be if I’d actually done it this way.

So I’m off to find out.

Popularity: 3% [?]

Ah yes, I spent a total of maybe 2 hours on the computer this weekend, and to be totally honest - that felt really, really, REALLY nice. I can’t tell you how nice it felt - to feel like I “didn’t” have to be there in front of it. I was able to do things this past weekend that I had been putting off. Maybe it’s due to my re-prioritizing my life. Well, maybe just for this weekend, but damn it felt really nice.

In that two hour hour span tho, I did manage to get quite a bit done. I managed to kick things into gear because I’d made a list. You know me, I’m always SAYING that I will make a list or I have a list - and then proceed to lose it. But this time, I got a notebook! No more losing those little pieces of paper, no more sticky notes unless I put them in my notebook! See… I’m all excited about my notebook - but it’s taken me this long to do it. So I’m just excited to get my shit in order!!

… so anyway! back to what I did in my 2 hours in front of the computer. I took one of my older sites and gave it a facelift. I put a new template on it. I also made the content show - one per page. I took the index page and customized it to look more like a webpage and not so much like a blog. In the end I was quite pleased with it. I decided to work on this site (we’ll call MPP2006) because it’s made me money in the past - not tons, but more than 90% of my other sites, so who’s to argue with that. I’m hoping with the new look that I’ll be able to encorporate some more new content to the site. I was thinking of adding some Amazon links, but I’m hoping to find additional datafeeds to plug into the site - and make things automated and easier for me.

I worked on adding content to a couple of my sites and it was nice to sit there and start checking things off my list - as done. Finito. Fini. It was a really nice feeling and I felt like I could go on and tackle other things in my offline world and not feel like I was forgetting something in my online world - because I wrote things down… made it so much easier. Also if I think of something - I can just add it to my notebook. The whole notebook thing has beat everything electronic that I’ve used in the past to try to organize my life.

So whoo hoo… old school

Popularity: 2% [?]