These words are written in hesitation, almost agony.  For more then a month I have not had to think about this website.  It was a month of total bliss.  My mind was clean.  I ignored my traffic stats, I did not read other blogs, I did not add new content.  It was back to the good old days – before I had this website.  My mind was free to roam about anything and everything.

Time was my own.  Reading,  I was able to concentrate on what the donkey was saying to the turtle.  When I had a shower I was able to sing.  I ate slow and chewed all my food.  No rush and nothing pressing me.  No pressure to be at the computer doing something to the website.

I did not care about this website or about the online world.  It was great; but like the courting phase of a relationship, it must come to a end.  The fun stops and work begins – kisses and hugs become obligations and commitments.

So here I am, back at it.  Writing about the website.  Oh God, the agony.  With these words come all the attachments:  HTML, visitors, traffic, Adsense, comments, backups and that is just the technical aspect.  There is also the physiological damage – mental strain, sense of failure,  syphilis pushing a rock up a hill only to have it roll back again,  a slave to the website.  Back at it, back to having the website as a constant companion while I walk the streets, take a shower and sip my coffee.

Why do this?  Why put one self through it?  What is it all for?  The same reason destitute and repressed people left their homes, traveled the stormy seas, and landed on the beaches of the unknown called America.   A dream.  I do it in pursuit of a dream.  Pilgrims came to America to avoid suppression and start a new life on their own terms.  This website is in pursuit of a dream of living on my own terms.  To be free from the terms of my employee contract.  To be free from my 1 hour lunch break.  To be free from my boss’s mood swings.  Free to call time my own.  I have a dream.

Lots of people died on the journey to America.  And a lot more when they got there.  In their case failure turned the dream chaser to fertilizer.  Fortunately for me the worst that can happen is I spend a lot of time and money and end up with 20 megabytes of useless HTML.

I have spent a year on this website.  In terms of making money it was a complete waste.  I could of made a lot more with a lemonade stand setup beside a water fountain.  During the year I spent a lot of time thinking about the website – mental time that I will never get back.  Was it worth it?  Maybe if I spent that time thinking about something else, like building a perpetual motion machine, I would be a lot better off now.

But that was last year.  Who knows if it was for the best.  But I am not a crazed nut that pursues an impossible dream of turning dung into gold.  One more year is all that I will allow this website to suck out of me.  If nothing drastic happens within a year I will release myself from its grasp and be free to sing in the shower again.

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, Bitter and Pessimistic When I Wrote this

A couple months ago I stated that I was not going to create my own backlinks.  That I would wait till others backlink to me.  I was not going to shame myself by tooting my own horn, by begging for backlinks.  I was going to wait patiently until others backlink to me – let the website speak for itself.  But guess what – nobody has backlinked to me.  Four months have passed since this website went live and in that time no backlinks.  Nobody has been impressed enough to link to this site.  Surprised?  So am I.

So with a paper bag on my head I must admit defeat.  If I want backlinks then I will have to create them myself.  Climb to the rooftop of the tallest building and shout, “look at me!”.  How humiliating.

How to Create Backlinks – Article Submission

Article submission is the easiest way to create quality one way backlinks.  I signed up on ezinearticles.com and wrote 3 articles.  In each article I summarize one of the pages on this website. 

My method is simple.  I read a page from this website and then close the window.  Then I open my word processor and rewrite what I just read.  Same main points but new words.  The article version is shorter and more to the point.  The articles need to be at least 250 words.  My articles tend to be around 400 words and take about 30 minutes to write.  It is easy to do because it is not new material.  Just a summary of key points from this website.   At the end of the article I place one link to this site and one link specifically to the page being summarized.

The backlinks from this method are great because they are one way backlinks.  They link to you with out you having to link back to them – Google loves that.  Also, when you create the backlink you can use the keywords of your choosing for the anchor text.  This is good because Google uses the anchor text of a backlink to figure out what your page is about.

Get Your New Webpages Indexed Faster

Besides backlinks, another advantage of articles submission is that you can get your own webpages indexed faster by Google.  Normally for this website it takes up to a week before a new page is indexed by Google.  But if I create an article and backlink to the new page then the page gets indexed in under a day.  Here is how it works:   

1. I create a new page on my website
2. I write an article summarizing the new page
3. At the bottom of the article I link to the new page
4. My article gets published. Since ezinearticles.com is a popular site Google indexes the article within a hour.
5. While indexing the article Google notices the link to my new page. Google discovers that the page is not indexed yet.
6. My new page gets flagged by Google for immediate indexing

Besides getting backlinks creating articles is a great way to get new pages indexed.  For an example of one of the articles and the backlink have a look at my article Do Guest Posts on Other Blogs Really Bring Traffic.

How to Create Backlinks – Guest Posts

Guest posts are harder then article posts.  Creating articles is easy because unless you really screw up and do not follow the rules your article will be published.  Guest posts are much more difficult because they have a very selective gatekeeper – the blog owner.  It is up to their discretion whether your post gets published.  If he stubbed his toe just before reading your email requesting a guest post and therefore in a bad mood you could be denied just because his toe hurts.

You spend a few hours creating the perfect guest post specifically designed for a specific blog.  You send it to the blog owner and wait.  A few days later you get a rejection email.  ‘Sorry, but at this time I am not taking guest posts’, translation: your post was denied.  Now you need to decide what to do with the post.  Do you put it on your own blog or do you alter it and submit to another blog?  Either way time is wasted and the post is tainted by the stench of rejection.

Fortunately this did not happen to me.  I created a guest post and submitted it.  Within a few days it was approved and published.

What a great backlink.  A one way backlink from a popular blog back to my website.  Does not get better then that.  It was a great success – a perfect backlink.  The only problem was that nobody agreed with my post.  Not a single comment agreed, even the blog owner stepped in and stated that he does not agree.  But that is just a technicality, not really important.  Nobody agrees, I am wrong, I do not know what I am talking about etc…but I got my backlink.  By the way, I still think I am right, everybody else is wrong. If you want to disagree with me then see my guest post Put Time Into Your Guest Posts.

Organic Search Traffic Is Improving

The first couple months this website had backlinks, but they were all natural backlinks.  I frequented forums and made comments on blogs.  I did this not to create backlinks but simply because I wanted to be involved in the forums and blogs.   The backlinks came naturally, they came as a result of me simply participating in my niche.

For the last month I have been actively generating backlinks via articles and guest posts.  Again I can only assume that this is why my organic search traffic is continuing to improve.  It is still a small number but improving.  It seams that backlinks do work.  It is humiliating and pride must be swallowed but creating backlinks is a must to improve your organic traffic.

Organic Traffic For This Website

Forget your pride, ignore your shame, humiliate yourself – create your own backlinks.  Go out there and brag about how great your are.  Because if you don’t then who, besides your mother, will?

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used, Optimistic and Motivational, There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do

The first few months of being a webmaster are challenging. Especially psychologically. All new webmasters should be ready to deal with the following:

Silence

You pluck away for hours creating new content.  After reading it and re-reading it, adding sentences and deleting others.  Making sure every sentence flows gracefully from one to the next.  Creating perfection.  Finally it is done, your Saturday is spent, but it is done.  You post your creation online and wait. 

Nothing.  No comments.  No emails.  Like it was never written.  Like it does not exist.  Silence.  The tumbleweed rolling through a ghost town kind of silence.  The time spent trying to please the masses was for nothing.  There is nobody out there.  Like Robinson Caruso writing a beautiful story, putting it into a bottle, and throwing it out to sea.

As a new webmaster do not expect praise or feedback for your work.  Expect nothing.  Write it, post it, and then write another one. 

Zero

For the first few months expect to see a lot of the number 0.  Especially when it comes to revenue.  With so few visitors to your site, most of the time your revenue will be zero. 

Normally this means that once a day you are disappointed by seeing 0.  But you will see it more then once a day.  You will see it at least 10 times a day.  Because every free moment you have will be spent checking your revenue.  Waiting for the coffee to brew…good time to check the revenue.  A commercial on TV…good time to check the revenue.  Three o’clock in the morning coming out of the bathroom and walking past the computer…good time to check the revenue.

You will come to despise the zero.  Its size, font and color will be ingrained in your head.   $0.00.  As the revenue page is loading you will have a slight emotional high.  The expectation that maybe this time it will be some other number.  But the page loads and there it is.  $0.00.  You close the window and sigh.  For a   fleeting moment you consider the possibility that a mistake has been made.  Maybe the servers are not refreshing and the value is not being updated.  But your energy is drained – you do not care enough to do anything about it.  Acceptance comes at last – it is true. $0.00.  30 minutes later the process starts all over again.

The Unknown

Normally when you perform a task successfully the feedback is immediate.  The boss gives you a raise.  The teacher puts a big A on the test.  The dinner guests compliment your spicy spaghetti.  A website is different.  For the first few months you get no indication whether the website is good or not.  You think it is good – that is why you visit it so much.  But the real test is whether other people think it is good.  At the beginning there is no way to tell. 

For months you build with no feedback.  Similar to building a prototype machine.  Spend lots of time designing and assembling.  No way to test whether it will work.  You have to build it first.   Day in and day out you faithfully work on the prototype. Hoping that when it is complete it works.    Only then will you discover whether all that work was worth it or not.  If in the end  it works then it was time well spent.  If not, then you have to acknowledge that is was a waste of time.

Thomas Edison had the same problem.  He had no idea whether a filament exists that enables a light bulb to burn for days.  He just hoped there was.  His only option was to try as many different filaments as possible.  After trying the 500th filament he was no closer to the answer then he was after the 2nd filament.   No indication if he was on the right track or even if success is possible.  Days, weeks, months passed and he was no closer to finding out whether a filament exists.  No feedback.  Only the hope that one day he will find a working filament drove him to continue.

A webmaster must work the same way.  Not knowing whether what is being attempted will work.  Whether the website will become a success or not.  A webmaster’s motivation must simply be the hope that it will work. 
       

You Have No Idea What You Are Talking About

To have a informative website you need to know what your are doing.  You need to be a authority in the field.  But you are not.  You cannot be.  You just started your website.  Only when the website is a success and only after a few years can you claim to be an expert.  It is a catch-22.  You need to know what you are doing to become a success, but only by succeeding can you know what you are doing.

Fortunately the fact is that you do not need to know what you are doing.  You only need to appear like you know what you are doing.  All that matters is the audience believing that you have authority in your field.  It is an illusion that is not too difficult to produce.  Do your research and the audience can be convinced with ease.  Nobody will know that most of your information is coming from books and not your head. 

The real problem is that you actually do not know what you are doing.  This causes a confidence issue.  It is hard to wake up every morning with confidence in your efforts when you yourself know the truth – that you have no idea what you are doing.  Doubts begin to form about whether your website can work.  “How can I be a success, if I do know what I am talking about?”

The answer is that for all things new – for all things that where created first – like your website, the first person had no idea what they where doing either.  They were just bumbling along, making guesses, trying things.  But all along appearing to everybody else like the expert.  All creators need to sell the appearance of confidence and knowledge about their product.  And then if it works, and the product becomes a success, they become the true expert.  Just like your website.  When it becomes a success, after many years of writing about the topic and discussion, you too will be an expert.

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Bitter and Pessimistic When I Wrote this, What YOU Expect vs Reality

This site has been live for 42 days.  Everyday, first thing in the morning, I check the stats.  How many visitors?  What is the revenue?  I take these numbers and input them into the database.  Then I click a few more buttons and the website is updated with the latest information.

Traffic is Predictable – Most Of The Time

Most of the 42 days came with no surprises.  The number of visitors is either close to what it was the day before or a little higher.  The trend is definitely up.  At first it was around 4 visitors a day, then 10, then 40, and now it is around 50.  Without doing much, I get around 50 visitors. 

There was one surprising traffic day.  Feb 9, 2009.  Just before I went for lunch there was the usual 10 visitors.  All normal.  Then after a hour and a half, the waitress was slow, I checked my stats again. 88 visitors.  I hit the refresh again out of surprise.  Still there – 88 visitors.  I began to think to myself – the day has arrived.  People are finally appreciating my work. 

I almost rubbed off the F5 key (refresh) on my keyboard by pressing it so many times.  Every minute there appeared more visitors.  Something was going on.  So I checked where the traffic is coming from.  Reddit.  Reddit?  What is that?  I had no idea.  I opened the browser and went on the reddit website.  It is a website where people can post interesting things from the Internet.  Somebody posted my site.  Reddit users where checking out the site. 

I was so happy.  Thought all my problems were solved.  Now the snowball is rolling.  It can only get bigger. 

I was wrong.  By 3pm Prague time it had completed its cycle through reddit.  No  more new visitors.  My website became lost in the pile of millions of other websites on reddit.  Never to be found again.  It was there and then it was gone. The snowball broke apart after a couple rolls.

The next day traffic was back to normal.  The interesting thing is that revenue did not go up on that high traffic day.  It was less then the day before.  The doubling of traffic had no effect on revenue.  I thought traffic=revenue was a fundamental principle.  Guess not.

Revenue Has A Life Of Its Own

Revenue does not seem to have any kind of trend.  There can be 5 clicks or 3, sometimes  0.  It is all over the place.  A perfect example is on February 4 the revenue was $15.06.  Completely unexplained.  There was no increase in traffic, nor did I try something new.  For some reason, on that day a lot of people clicked on text ads.  I do not know why. 

Maybe there was a really good ad showing up.  One that attracted a lot of people to click on it.  Unfortunately, there is no way to tell which ad was clicked. 

All I can do is assume that it was a statistically improbable day.  On that day, it just so happened, that a lot of people who click on ads visited my website. 

That day I was too excited to care about why I was getting so many clickers.  Simply happy that I was getting them.  In a state of excitement made the following calculation: $15.06 * 30 days is $451.18 a month.  I am going to be rich.

Next day the revenue was $0.00.  The excitement quickly fell to sorrow and confusion. No clickers.  Not a single one.  The day after my greatest revenue day was a 0 revenue day.  Inconceivable.  I guess another statistically improbable day -  of all the visitors, none were clickers.  I flipped heads 10 times in a row.  Improbable, but possible.

It All Evens Out

Revenue seems to work on the law of large numbers.  Revenue can be $10 or $0 on any given day.  But in the long run – over many days it all evens out.  Daily revenue is unpredictable, but on average this website makes: 41 days divided by 89.69 – $2.18 a day.

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used

When you first start a website.  Do not monetize.  Do not put up any ads.  First get a steady traffic base and then put up ads.

That is the recommendation that you will hear often.  I heard it too.  But I did not do it that way.  From day one there have been ads on the website. 

Like B.F. Skinner’s piano playing pigeons, I need to be constantly rewarded to perform a task.  The pigeons learned to play a toy piano by being given a treat when they hit the correct key.  I make updates to the website when an ad is clicked.

For me to create the website, post on forums, answer emails, for months without gain would be very difficult.  Make an update to website, get a treat.  Make a another update, get another treat.  This is the way I operate.  Like a pigeon.

So I put three ad zones on the website on day one.  Graphic banner on the left, unit ad on the top, and text ad on the right.  The website has been up for 26 days with 517 visitors.  Here are the earnings results for the different ad zones:

• Left Banner Ad: $5.38
• Top Unit Ad: $2.50
• Right Text Ad: $15.83

You can see the text ad on the right is the clear winner.  The unit ad on  the top is far behind.  Time to get rid of it.

Too Many Ads Increases Bounce

Not only does it not make any money, it also makes the site look cluttered.  The home page looks messy  – smothered by ads.  This is a major turn off for a lot of visitors.  They think to themselves, “This guy is only concerned with making money.”  I am.  But the visitors should not know that.

The clutter of ads on the website might explain the high bounce rate.  Currently 50% of the visitors land on my homepage and without looking at any other pages they leave.  They come in, look at the mess, and leave.

So, I will remove the unit ad.  This will:

• Make the site look cleaner
• Decrease the bounce rate
• Increase revenue

How will removing an ad increase revenue?  By removing the ad, the page will be less cluttered.  The visitor will be more willing to look at the other pages instead of leaving.

More Page Views By Reducing Bounce

Lets guess that had the unit ad not been there from the beginning, the bounce rate would be 10% lower as a result.  10% of all my visitors would not have bounced off the site, instead they looked at more pages. 

• Total visitors is 517
• 10% of 517 is 51 visitors
• Average page views per visitor is 2.83

Therefore instead of these 51 visitor just seeing 1 page and bouncing off, they would see   2.83 pages.  51 * 2.83 =  147 pages.  Now all we have to do is subtract the 51 pages that the bouncers already saw and we have 96 additional page views.  96 more page views by reducing the bounce rate by 10%.

How Does That Translate Into Earnings?

• Total Page Views: 1445
• Total Revenue Ads (minus Unit Ad): $21.20
• Revenue/Page View: $0.0146

So we multiply 96 additional pages by $0.0146 and we have $1.40.  Because of that unit ad I lost $1.40 of revenue.  Does not sound like much until you consider that it represents a 6.6% of my total revenue.  Reduce the number of ads and increase revenue by 6.6%.

Today I removed the unit ad.  In a future post we will see whether the bounce rate has decreased and revenue/pageview increased.   It will.

About Revenue, Earnings, Money, What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do