When I started creating the website I gave myself a full week to create the initial content. The goal was 15 pages.   The procedure was simple.  Wake up early in the morning. Do research.  Stare at a blank page of OpenOffice Writer and then begin writing.

What emerged was 15 hogpog pages.  They are all about ‘Starting a Website’.  The standard stuff:

• Registering a Domain Name
• Getting a Web Host Service
• Making Money with Ads
• Making Money with Affiliates
• …and so on

They are placed on a page called ‘Information’.  Here is what it looks like:

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Unfortunately, the page is all wrong.  It does not target a specific audience.

Who Visits The Site:

Three types of  Internet users:

1. Do not care about creating a website
2. Have a website and want to see if they can get tips to make theirs better
3. Want to create a website and make money online but do not know how to start

Type 1 – Do Not Visit Website

Most Internet users are type 1.  They are spectators.  They use the Internet for information and entertainment.  They are not interested in creating a website or making money online.  Even though these are the most abundant users on the Internet they do not visit my site.  They are not lured by the question, ‘How This Website Makes Money’.  Most of them will never visit my site.  So I do not care about them.

Because of the way I market the website, most of the visitors are type 2 and 3.

Type 2 – Visit Website, I Have Nothing To Teach Them

Visitor type 2 want to know how the website is doing so that they can compare their stats with mine.  Then either laugh at me, think I am fudging the numbers, or possibly get inspired.  Since my website is new and I know very little about making money online, they know more then I do.  I cannot help them.

Type 3 – Visit Website, Lots of Them, I can Teach Them

Visitor type number 3 is the one that concerns me most.  They are ones I can help.  I know how to create a website.  The proof is the site itself.  I have something to offer them – to teach how to create a money making website.

They are the most abundant.  There is a Type 3 visitor born every minute – it is so easy to become one.  You are type 1 and then you realize that ‘Hey I could do this…I could make money online.’  Every type 1 has the potential to become a type 3.  They aspire to be a webmaster but just do not know how.  Where to start?  What is a domain name?  How much can be made?  These are questions I know the answers to. 

Lots of them and looking for information.  Here I am, ready to help.  Just need to make sure that they realize that I can help.

Fixing The Information Page

The problem with my current ‘Information’ page is that it does not focus on the type 3 visitor.  Visitor Bob is looking at the information page and is unsure if it is relevant.  If Bob is type 2 then he will click on a few pages and say to himself, “I know all this stuff.  Bye”.  If Bob is type 3 then he looks at the page and says to himself, “Domain names? Affiliates?  What is that?  I want to create a website…does this page teach me how?  Probably not.  Bye.”

The information page needs to be revamped.  It needs to clearly target type 3.  The visitor that needs the most help.  The visitor I can help the most.

The first step will be to change the name.  Instead of ‘Information’ it will be renamed to ‘Learn How’.  This is so obvious.  The website is called how this website makes money.  It should have a ‘Learn How’ page.

Then the links will be renamed to specifically target type 3.  Sections like, ‘How to create a website for beginners’, ‘What beginners need to know’, and ‘How beginners can make make money online’.

By making these changes a target audience will be served.  That should increase traffic.  That should increase revenue.

Working For Peanuts

All that remains is to make the changes.  I expect it will take about 5 hours to make all the changes.  So far I have worked 241 hours and made $93.15 which means that I make $0.39 per hour.   $0.39 multiplied by 5 hours is $1.95.  For now my motivation must be to help those who seek help, not to make money.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Actual Stats From The Website Used, What YOU Should Do

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

Can Jesus help me make money?  I am a little rusty with my recollection of Jesus stories, but I think I remember the gist of a few of them.  There is the one about how He came across a man who had been sleeping in a cave for days.  The man refused to talk to anybody, eat, or even breath.  Jesus miraculously convinced him that he better get up and return to work otherwise he will not be invited to the office Christmas party.  And there is the inspiring story of Jesus informing a couple of down on their luck fisherman, that the real money is in the ‘personal self help’ industry.  These two fisherman went on to become leaders in the field.

My problem is traffic.  It has stayed steady around 50 visitors a day for a couple of weeks.  I post to forums and make comments on other blogs.  This gets traffic, but always around 50 visitors.  I cannot seems to get anymore. I read on other websites that they receive thousands of visitors a day.  How do they do this?  Jesus help me.

Actually I have an inkling of what the problem is.  This site gets no traffic from search engines.  Last month only 11 visitors found the site via Google.  All the rest were through forums, and bloggers checking who left a comment on their blog.  I need more search traffic. How to increase traffic from search engines?

Writing Posts For Google Or For People

This Sunday morning while everybody was at church I was doing research about increasing search traffic. I found plenty of articles which argue that to get lots of traffic you need to write for Google, not for people.

There are two ways to write a post.  First one is to write for people.  Make it interesting.  Offer some advise.  Make the reader feel special.  Reading your post the visitor will feel good about themselves and they will think you are a great person.  They will keep coming back for more and they will tell their friends.  That’s great.

Writing Posts for Google

The second type is to write the post for Google.  Google is a machine.  It does not know what words mean.  You can not make Google smile or feel good.  Google takes the words on your post and creates statistics.  What words are used, how often are they used, what words are used the title, what words are bold.

By using certain words in your website and by using them in a specific way, you can get Google to place your website at the beginning of search results.  If your website is at the top of Google searches then you will get more traffic.  More traffic is more money.

Your website does not need to be interesting.  It does not need to make readers happy.  It simply needs traffic.  Google brings you traffic.  Once the traffic arrives visitors will have a look around; and find the material repetitive and useless.  Then quickly becoming bored, they click an ad just to get away from your site.  Jesus hallelujah.

How To Get Search Traffic

The trick is to create a website in a very competitive niche.  Which means a niche that lots of people search for.  A good example is “money”.  Every month 30,000,000 searches are done for the term money.   If you can got to the top of search results for money you can consider yourself a millionaire.  But most likely you will not get to the top of search results with that word alone.  No matter how well your content is geared towards making Google happy.  There is too much competition.

So what you need to do is combine the very competitive keyword with another keyword.  A word with less searches and therefore not as competitive.  For example , “Jesus”.  The term “Money Jesus” is searched 6,600 times.  Now you have a chance of getting to the top of search results for “Money Jesus”.  How?  Make Google think your post is perfect for people looking up the term “Money Jesus”.

Google with rank you higher in searches if you:

• Have the keywords in your title.
• The first sentence has your keywords
• You do not use the keyword too much. Google will think that you are making the post simply to please Google. There is lots of debate about what is ‘too much’. So to be safe do not use keywords ‘too much’.
• The last sentence contains your keywords.

These are the tips that I have been able to gather on the Internet.  Are they true?  Do they work?  Who knows.  This is simply what a lot people think that Google likes.  Of course, Google does not reveal what it likes.  If it did, then there would be a lot of crappy posts  on page 1 of search results.  The only way to find out if its true is to try.

Traffic vs. Morality

Something about creating a website specifically for Google just does not feel biblical.  It feels wrong.  True, I need traffic and will do almost anything for it.  But writing posts simply to trick Google into sending me traffic -  that is not right. I have to ask myself, is that something Jesus would do to make money?

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, Optimistic and Motivational, There is a HOW TO in the Post, What YOU Should Do

There are two types of visitors.  Those that love your site.  And those that have never heard of it.  The first type visit and visit again.  They read your content because they are entertained and inspired by it.  As soon as their RSS reader alerts them that there is new content, saliva begins to form on the lips.

Then there is the other type.  It is their first time on the site.  They are not sure what they are doing there..  They were looking for something and somehow ended up on your site.  Just browsing.  Ready to hit the back button on the slightest whim.

The Regulars

Almost unanimously it is agreed that the first type is better.  A loyal visitor.  That is why it is always suggested that you provide a RSS feed on your site.  Make it easy to subscribe.  A big RSS logo – on the top of the page.  For visitors that do not know what RSS is, have an email subscription option. 

Another popular suggestion is to have  a news letter subscription.  That way you can get their email address and constantly remind them to come visit your site.

This sounds like good advise.  The more times they visit the more visitors you have.  And it feels great to know that people are returning to your site to read what you have to write.  You are like the friendly bartender who has many loyal patrons that keep coming back because they enjoy your advise.

I agree.  Return visitors are good.  People like you, they like your writing. That feels good.  And you can rely on them to keep your visitors stats high.

The problem with return visitors is that they know your site.  They know what advertisements you have and where they are.  They have seen them before.  Maybe even clicked on one of them – a long, long time ago.  But they are not going to do that again.  They are on your website to read the content.

If your website’s revenue  is strictly through advertisements then return visitors provide little value.  They just read the content.  They do not make you money.  In fact, you can argue that they cost you money, since they take up bandwidth.

The One Time Drop In’s

For a website with advertisements the best visitor is the first time visitor.  She knows what she wants.  Something to do with –your niche here-.  She finds your site, stumbles around a bit.  And then suddenly, sees an ad describing exactly what she is looking for.  She clicks on it and is taken away.  She will probably never return – but her purpose has been served. 

For a website which revenue is derived from advertising – your focus should be more on attracting new visitors and less on returning visitors.  The bartender who focuses on getting more customers will be better off then the bartender who keeps chatting with the regulars.  An empty bar with three chatter bugs is not going to pay the bills.  You need new people coming in and drinking lots.

Regulars Are Great For Affiliate Sales

So why is there so much emphasis on getting visitors to return?  Because return visitors are good for websites that sell affiliate products.  If you are trying to sell a $100 product, a first time visitor is not likely to purchase it.  You need to build trust with the visitor.  They need to feel like you know what you are talking about.  To convince them of these things you need them to keep coming back.  To keep listening to you.  Then after the tenth visit you might convince them to buy the $100 floor mat.

Please Come Back

This website makes it revenue from advertisements.  Therefore first time visitors are preferred.  But since I am not sure where this website is heading, I better continue making these posts so that my visitors keep returning.

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion

I am not a social butterfly. I do not enjoy going to house warming parties and commenting on the beautiful red rug. I do not care that my friend’s Facebook status is “Gone to store for apples.”

I had a Facebook account, but after a few months stopped using it. Too much information about things I do not care about. Why do people spend so much time exchanging the minutia of everyday events. Should I care that my friend went to British Columbia for a vacation and that he saw a moose. Should I look at his 22 pictures of the moose eating grass and be entertained? I do not understand it.

Now there is Twitter. Exchange even smaller bits of information. It is so easy to do that you will get details like, “feeling hungry, thinking of eating a carrot”. All day you can watch these little bits of unfiltered information scrolling across your screen. When I first heard about it, I thought that it was a ridiculous idea. Nobody will use it.

Not only are people reading these little packets of non-info. They also enjoy writing them. Lots of them. “I found a dime under the bed today”. Before I started this website all these social networks did not concern me. They are a success – great – but does not concern me.

But now it looks like I need to use them. On every blog about increasing traffic you read about how vital the social networks are to traffic. Sign up to as many social sites as you can and start building your network.

That scares me a little. I do not want to turn into a micro information junky. Spending hours exchanging small talk with 200 network friends. Small talking to 5 people at a cocktail party scares me. “How’s the weather?”, “Good” “Hows work?”, “Good”. Repeat 5 times. And now with Twitter I would have to do that 200 times a day.

Social Networks are Great For Traffic

Social Networks are good because you can send information through them very quickly. It is a very simple principle:

You know something (1 person knows)
You tell two of your friends (3 people know)
Each of them tells two of their friends (10 people know)
Each of them tell two of their friends (18 people know)

As this continues through the network more and more people know at a faster and faster rate. Simply by telling two of your friends you can get the information to hundreds of people in very little time. It just depends how big the network is and how willing your friends are to tell their friends. You tell them that you won the lottery and in no time all your friends will know.

The other advantage is that your friends do not have the same friends as you do. So your friends might tell somebody that you do not even know. Now suddenly it is in a network that you did not even know existed. People you do not know are receiving your information.

Networking sounds great. A great way to get traffic. It is. But I am not going to do it.

The First Step Is The Most Important

The most important step in the social network is the first one. Tell two of your friends. That gets the ball rolling. After that they tell their friends and on it goes.

The question is: why should I spend my time doing that first step? Other people will do it for me. If the website is interesting, if people want to pass it on to their friends then they will. I would have to start my social network from scratch. I would have to login everyday and chat with my network. Reading all the banter, and writing banter. Day in and day out. Lots of time wasted.

Let Other People Do the Social Networking

Instead of me doing it, there are people out there already with huge social networks. They enjoy exchanging information. If one of the people visit the website and finds it interesting then they will pass it on.

Currently I have 50 visitors a day. I am guessing that lots of them use Facebook and Twitter. At least some of them will find the website interesting and pass it on. Start the network process. Why should I spend my time starting the process when there are so many others that enjoy doing it and have much larger networks then I could ever have.

My small contribution to the increase in traffic via social network would be small compared to the abilities of my visitors. I would just be one out of many. My contribution small compared to the whole. Not worth the effort. I will focus on the website. Adding and improving content. Let the social butterflies with their establish networks do the marketing. They want to do it.

Of course, if my traffic does not increase, then I will register onto Twitter and tell my friends that “I just got back from the store. I am so happy. The apples where on sale.”

About Traffic, Visitors, Promotion, So You Want To Be A Webmaster...Get in my Head, What YOU Expect vs Reality, What YOU Should Do