Fast Server = Happy Users = Better Statistics

Posted by Matt | Filed under Analytics, Get More Traffic 101, Site Traffic Analysis

Visits +9.88%
Pageviews +46.19%
Pages/Visit +33.05%
Bounce Rate -9.29% (less is more with this metric)
Avg. Time on Site +3.14%
% New Visits -1.33%

Digest those numbers for a second. Did I start posting about John & Kate suddenly? No! I moved my Volvo site to a very fast server.

Those numbers represent yesterday (Friday, August 14th 2009) vs. the Friday before. That’s all. No magic or tricks, just a faster server. This may fall into the “No Duh” Department of Internet Research, but people are more likely to click around your site if pages get served quickly.

Search engines may send more traffic (Visits +9.88%), I’ll report on that soon when I have more data to make that call.

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Read more » | Comments (0) | August 15th, 2009

How Can I Get More Website Traffic?

Posted by admin | Filed under Get More Traffic 101, Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Wordpress

Traffic levels are all about content. People ask me about SEO… should they do some SEO basics to their site? Well yea! Do the basics of SEO and promote your site.

I’ve never asked a webmaster if he’s doing everything he can to promote his site and gotten a “yes”.

Real world, online, whatever. If you don’t have your URL in your signature, get it in there! If you don’t hold your website in high regard, nobody else will.

But most importantly, write good content as frequently as possible and users will come. If you can do only one thing do this.

That’s why it’s important to have a site where you can write without noodling with HTML. This is where WordPress comes in, and it’s why I’ve recommended WordPress for probably 19 out of the last 20 websites I’ve consulted on.

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Read more » | Comments (0) | March 11th, 2009

Bottom Dropping out of Ad Revenue

Posted by Matt | Filed under AdSense, AdWords, Site Traffic Analysis

My various web sites have pretty good traffic, and ad revenue has been a growing slice of my income pie. In the past ~6 weeks the revenue from  Google ad spots has dropped maybe 20%*. And that’s with an increase in impressions on the order of 40%*.

The number of ads shown is going up — I’m adding different spots throughout my sites, with each of those showing more frequently — while the overall revenue is going down.

On the flipside, buying traffic has gotten cheaper. I’ve managed to reduce my average bid while keeping the amount of incoming traffic steady.

* off-the-cuff numbers

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Read more » | Comments (0) | February 4th, 2009