Zero 2 Hero » Updates http://zero2heroblogger.com Experiments In Blogging, Marketing, and Social Media Mon, 01 Aug 2011 03:40:02 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 All Traffic Was Not Created Equal http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/10/all-traffic-was-not-created-equal/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/10/all-traffic-was-not-created-equal/#comments Mon, 19 Oct 2009 00:10:49 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=1360

Recently I’ve written about image search optimization. Not too long ago I began to reap the benefits of tediously setting up images across all my sites a specific way. One day this week my site traffic spiked way up. I was pretty excited until I found out that 90 out of 100 of the new visitors were all visiting though google image search. They were all looking for one particular image on my server.

So realistically I didn’t actually gain any new readers at all, but I did gain over a extra hundred people. I was tempted to delete the image and move on, but I stopped to think about what possible benefits I could get from this newfound traffic source. It’s a very small image they are after and it doesn’t put much extra load on my server by letting people download it. However the extra traffic could help give me a boost in Alexa rankings or page rank, and I feel like I’m providing some kind of service for the people by letting them come and take my pictures, even it they have no interest in what I’m talking about. Especially as much as I’ve used Google image search in the past.

In the end I decided that even though this group may never click ads or even read my articles, if I could get 1 out of 100 people to come back and visit, then its a worthwhile investment. So what would you say if more people came to your website everyday just to find an image and then left, than actually came to appreciate your work. Would you welcome them in or would you take down the picture and ask the moochers to get their kicks somewhere else? Share your opinions in the comment section.

]]> http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/10/all-traffic-was-not-created-equal/feed/ 3 Zero 2 Hero September 2009 Design Changes http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/zero-2-hero-september-design-changes/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/zero-2-hero-september-design-changes/#comments Mon, 07 Sep 2009 00:20:38 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=1005 Through experimenting on other various websites I have worked on I have found more efficient layouts for pages. In an effort to continually update and optimize the page I have made a few changes to the theme and layout of the page, as well as fixed any problems Internet Explorer users were experiencing. Lets take a look at whats new.

Old layout on Left — New Layout On Right

[poll id="5"]

Changes:

    1 Header
    The old header was much larger than it needed to be. To give me screen real estate to the content I decreased the size of the header to 150 px.

    2 Left Sidebar
    I felt like having two sidebars was redundant. While it allowed me to increase the number of ads shown, it did not increase the number of ads people clicked on. To make things more organized for the readers I moved everything into one sidebar on the right.

    3 More Info Section
    In the old layout each link had its own banner. Adding more networks meant adding more and more buttons and taking up more space. I feel like the new area looks more professional and is easier to read.

    4 Ads
    Increasing the size of the side bar means I could increase the size of my google ad as well. Hopefully this should make up losing the text ads on the left sidebar.

    5 Digg Widget
    This will allow readers to stay up to date with relevant news stories as well as support Zero 2 Hero by digging our stories as well. Who you might even see one of your stories on their as well.

    6 Ads
    Increasing the sidebar width also means I was able to use side-by-side ads rather than just placing them in the center. This fills the area much nicer.

    7 Polls
    The polls section moved down to the bottom.
]]> http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/zero-2-hero-september-design-changes/feed/ 3 Calling Out Guest Posters http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/calling-out-guest-posters/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/calling-out-guest-posters/#comments Wed, 02 Sep 2009 03:34:11 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=965 When two worlds collide

After 2 full months of soloing this operation I feel like it’s about time we got to hear from some other people. Writing guest posts for a blog has many great benefits.

Benefits for the readers:

    New original content
    Different writing style
    Fresh point of view

Benefits for you:

    More people will see your work
    More exposure for your blog
    Build links for your website
    You can write on different topics then you normally would

Benefits for me:

    I get to help other bloggers get their name out
    I can spend a day focusing on other projects I have in the works for Zero 2 Hero
    When my readers are happy, and my friends are happy then I am happy

If you would be interested to do a guest post for Zero 2 Hero send me a brief introduction and I’ll be in contact with you.

]]> http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/09/calling-out-guest-posters/feed/ 0 Zero 2 Hero Aug Update – Design Overhaul, Traffic Update, New Pages http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/08/august-update/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/08/august-update/#comments Sun, 23 Aug 2009 10:38:04 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=780 Google Analytics

Traffic:

Overall Traffic Results:
654 Unique Visitors
1,571 Pageviews

August Traffic Results:
392 Unique Visitors
768 Pageviews

Top 7 August Traffic Sources:
(direct) – 108
problogger.net (commenting) – 93
images.google.com (search) – 61
fouhourworkweek.com (commenting) – 32
stumbleupon.com – 20
forums.digitalpoint – 18
digg.com – 10

Last month I set the goal of 1000 uniques so I fell just shy of that, but after only 2 months I am happy with the results. You can see that This month more than doubled my traffic. With all of the design changes and school starting up again, I am optimistic that I will double that growth again in next month.

The traffic source results were also great, for the first time more people came directly to my page than came from referrals. Which means more people visited me than just the ones came from my comments and forum posts. This indicates that people are both returning and also discovering my page through other means.

Search traffic is still very low, but the easy solution to this is create more content. However search traffic is up 500% this month from 1 to 5…

Money:

AdSense Overall Update: $4.18
AdSense Past 2 weeks: $0.25
Affiliate Sales: $0

So 2 months in and I’ve created $4.18 and spent 8 dollars on domain name, and 9 dollars on hosting so far, which comes out to about -$15. Kind of a bummer, but I realize that money comes with more traffic. Although it may be possible that you guys simply don’t like to click on ads… However it’s forced me to stay creative. If I had earning say 25-50 dollars by now I may have been less motivated to keep updating the theme and optimizing the ads. Next month I am going to try a new program where I promote my own services instead of just promoting ads. After all “Self-Promotion” is one of the themes for this website.


Design Changes:

  • Added new nicer background – So I don’t need to be embarrassed when submitting my pages
  • Added search bar – Finally have enough posts that would require it
  • Moved the “get more zero 2 hero” section to the top right sidebar – More optimal position
  • Moved the polls section to top left sidebar – To get more exposure
  • Added zero2hero video channel header – To increase subscriptions and make videos look nicer
  • Moved videos from clickthrough, to front page – Less annoying for readers
  • Highlighted comments section – Stands out more
  • Added feedburner and twitter counter buttons – Make following me more visible
  • Changed “twitter” button to “follow me” – More direct, text implies action (think psychology)


    New Page “Make Money”

    This is the main thing on most people’s mind, so I feel it deserves more than just a blog post. This page I will keep updated over time as I find new and better money making opportunities.

    http://zero2heroblogger.com/make-money/


    Beta Testing Amazon “Bookstore”

    This a feature of Amazon associates called aStore. It allows you to create and sell any products that you wish from amazon.com on your own page. I will be toying around with this to see how people like it.

    Zero 2 Hero Bookstore


    Creating A Name

    I’ve continued to comment on blogs daily through the internet and I’m starting to see some familiar faces online. Also I’ve setup my YouTube channel. I plan on building up a name on YouTube as well to increase my overall web presence. Also I find that some topics are better discussed through video.

    Overall August has been a good month, but I’m still broke.

    ]]> http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/08/august-update/feed/ 4 Zero 2 Hero Update – Day 32 Traffic and Tactics http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/07/day-32/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/07/day-32/#comments Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:09:20 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=379
    It’s been 32 days since I first started on my blogging journey. In the beginning I literally knew nothing about blogging. In the time span of just one month I’ve been able to accomplish many of the goals I set out to achieve.

    Lets take a look back at the first 30 days and recap some of my mistakes and successes.

    Traffic and Tactics
    The first week was probably the worst feeling, I was unsure of what direction to take the blog and I was struggling to get between 1-3 visitors everyday. I just kept posting and started to branch out my network to similar blogs and forums where people might find my content interesting. My goal was doubling my traffic each week.

    Day 7
    13 unique visitors
    84 pageviews

    Not bad, but not good enough.

    By Day 15
    I had found a few blogs that were good at sending traffic through comments. I checked those sites frequently and used some secret “ninja” tools to make sure I was notified of new posts as fast as possible.

    44 unique vistors
    217 pageviews

    Not a whole lot of visitors but I succeeded at doubling my traffic in just one week.

    Day 21
    I’ve stepped up my commenting routine and now I’ve gotten the hang of posting daily content and I can see the results.

    80 unique visitors
    319 pageviews

    Another week of doubling my traffic. If I can keep this up I will be a Superhero blogger in no time. However at this point I’ve yet to make a dollar off of any my ads, which is to be expected. I spend the next week trying to optimize my ad placement and style as well as boosting traffic.

    Day 32
    A little more than a week since the last update, but since then I’ve earned my first dollar! As well as another week doubling my traffic, needless to say I am pleased with this weeks results.

    203 unique visitors
    628 pageviews

    Getting my first dollar

    Was a great feeling but it took over 1000 ad impressions to do it. So I’m working further on increasing my “CTR” (click through ratio). Also I’ve added the featured section in the sidebar which has greatly increased my pageviews / visitor ratio. I will be adding related content as well in the future.

    Now that I’ve created a foundation to build on I plan on spending the next 32 days greatly increasing my traffic, hopefully I can keep doubling my traffic every week this month as well. I’ve learned A LOT of tricks the last 32 days and I plan on sharing them all…eventually. If I give up all my secrets today why would you come back :)

    So for anyone out there who is just getting started don’t let up. If you keep working hard it will pay off. And to those who say making money from blogging takes away from the pure spirit of it, I only say that the more I can earn from blogging the more time I can allow myself to invest in it. When its a business and not just a hobby you will take yourself more seriously.

    My next goal is 1000 unique visitors which I plan on hopefully hitting somewhere halfway through the month, lets see what happens!

    ]]>     http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/07/day-32/feed/ 3     2 Ways to Get More Traffic, 1 Way to not http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/07/get-more-traffic/ http://zero2heroblogger.com/2009/07/get-more-traffic/#comments Sat, 11 Jul 2009 00:35:25 +0000 zero2heromn http://zero2heroblogger.com/?p=183 Website Traffic Tips

    Today at Zero 2 Hero we celebrate the 15 day anniversary, since this blog is fairly new I have the advantage of testing many different methods of traffic generation and reporting how well each one works.

    So today I wanted to share with you my progress and what has worked best after 15 days since my beginning. Lets take a look at 2 ways that I was able to get more traffic and improve my page rank, and 1 way that has not worked well so far.

    1. Create A Blog Commenting Routine

    By going to blogs that are relevant to my blog and have a relatively large following and then commenting on their posts I can say 100% of the time it has brought new unique traffic to my site within the first day. Also for blogs that are updated less frequently, commenting brings traffic to my blog for days to come. So to help build traffic to your blog I would recommend number 1 to get out there and comment and be part of a conversation.

    For every 100 people that read a post mostly likely only 10 will comment, but that does not mean that the rest of the people don’t read comments or click through to see more.

    I would like to add that I have never, not once, put a link to my site in the comment post. Simply sign in to whatever service and ALWAYS be sure to update your profile where available. Make sure it has a good looking picture and your website info. So as to not look like a spammer and I try to actually be part of the conversation. Posting your link directly on the comments kind of looks selfish, because you could really care less about the person who’s page is giving you traffic to begin with. So some respect ya know.

    2. YouTube Videos

    Making videos and posting them on YouTube and other hosting sites has been great, but not exactly the way you think it would be. I uploaded my first video to YouTube and Vimeo. Since then they each only have a handful of views, but they were not that interesting to begin with. I do not think they brought any unique traffic to my blog at all. However what they did do is help to improve my page rank.

    In fact when searching for my blog the video’s sometimes come up ahead of my page (for now). Also one person on VodPod added my video to his stream, and that showed up on page one of google as well, even though I did not sign up for VodPod. So videos have improved my page rank and gave me some added visability. Which will down the road lead to more search traffic to my site. I will continue to make videos even if they never get me any direct traffic just because of what they do for my google page rank.

    For each video I posted, I have left links back to my website. YouTube linkbacks are a great source for PR.

    3. Twitter Advertising

    I’ve stopped the practice of following everyone who follows me because after following a few hundred people with the mindset of have to get more followers so I can promote myself it gets very cluttered. No two days could I ever see the same two user names so I felt like it didn’t bring me closer to anyone and my posts were being lost in a see of spammers.

    I am certain that there are good ways to use twitter but they involve engaging the people who genuinely have in interest in what you have to say.

    Once I can remove all people who are following me for the interest of advertising to me, I will start adding people back that I think are real people.

    Although I haven’t had much luck using Twitter to promote my blog, I have seen it alot of other people using it very effectively.

    Here are my stats after 15 days since starting this blog:
    (From Google Analytics)
    91 Visits
    217 Pageviews
    44 Absolute Unique Visitors

    of those
    38 referrals from blog comments
    2 referrals from digg
    2 referrals from twitter
    2 other

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