A Letter From the Editor
Mother fuckin' August, beeches! Man, where did the year go?? I mean, really? Where?
Anyway, I wanted to do a quick ‘check-in' post and let folks know how we're doing here, on the Urban Dater because I think it's rad to do that from time to time, that and I just don't write as much as I should.
As you all know, I'm on a dating detox. Meaning, I'm taking a break from the crazy that was my dating life for a few months there. I've managed to find new and interesting ways to keep busy. I went on vacation to Oregon, then stopped by San Francisco to attend WordCamp SF and you can check out my Instagram recent photos for a little catalog of my family and some of the sights I saw while I was up there.
Also, I'm proud to be a co-organizer of WordCamp Los Angeles 2013! It's a WordPress user conference aimed at all levels of WordPress junkie. As you guys probably noticed, this site is powered by WordPress. My life is actually powered by WordPress; it's how I make a living away from this here blog. So if you're in LA, or looking for a reason to visit, hit the site up to get more information about the event and keep a look-out for when tickets go on sale.
Another thing I wanted to call attention to is something that I'm kind of proud of. This month we surpassed 70,000 views on this here blog. How cool is that shit? Google's Penguin and Panda updates absolutely beat the fuck out of a lot of people but were especially kind to us, as we saw a huge surge in organic traffic in addition to our repeat offenders, I mean visitors of course. But that's only one part of the story.
When Your Web Host Just Sucks…
You'll notice in the above image, we had some issues with traffic. Like, serious fucking issues; so bad that I considered just quitting. After getting kicked off a number of servers by a few different hosts we landed at a managed WordPress hosting provider called Synthesis. They were helpful, but ultimately couldn't help with our server issues. Thus, we moved our site over to a new host. WPEngine. Things went back to normal and our traffic just fucking went upward from there. The one thing I tell colleagues who ask what they should do with their site is this: Get an awesome host. WPEngine is the standard bearer. More expensive than anyone else, but so, so fucking worth it (we are on their $99 per mo. plan). Their staging area feature is the nuts! You can get 3 free months by using ‘HEATWAVE‘ (no quotes) during checkout.
So over 70k views in a month… Now What?
That's cool. That just means we're going to look at other things we can do with that traffic and see if we can make folks happy, while making some duckets on the side. After all, hosting ain't cheap round here. We'd like to start a Publisher's club. The club would be aimed at those who wish to promote more of their materials/products/services to visitors of our site. We still want to promote our fellow up and coming bloggers for free, however, for folks that fall beyond that, there would be a charged to place content. We already do this today, but our policy is loose. More details on that to come.
I'd l ike to breakdown our ad figures over the last month as well. Trust me, they're not impressive. =)
Display Ads (buysellads and google adsense) – 348.32
Blogger Network (Single Edition Media) – $0
Affiliate Marketing Programs – $12
Content Marketing – $125.00
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Total: 485.32
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I realize that above figure ain't much, but I'm working on it. We just started to get into doing some affiliate work and we'll see where that goes. Display ads from BuySellAds have always treated us well. Hopefully that Content and Affiliate Marketing figure will triple once we get things going there.
My vision with this site changes, as do my feelings toward it in general. Around the time, last year, when traffic sucked, I was ready to throw in the towel. Fuck this shit… But I kept at it, switched hosts, and stayed patient and consistent with posting content (we have over 300 contributors to this site now. Wow!). But I want to keep growing the Urban Dater. It's a strong brand and if I can keep revenue going up, then that enables me to do some other cool stuff, bring on paid writers and staff to help with other areas where we're lacking. By January I'm hoping to have the publishing club in place and hopefully see a boost in our monthly revenue streams. =)
In any case, thank you to everyone who supports this blog. You're all such peaches.
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You can’t expect traffic to be directly proportional to income; such as saying “I got 30k visitors last month and made $400. – This month I’ve got 60k visitors so I’ll make $800.” – You might make more than before but chances are you’re probably still leaving a hell of a lot of money on the table – because you’re not funneling that traffic but rather letting your visitors come, look, and leave; with no incentive to say around.
I suggest that you take a look at this: http://nanacast.com/vp/109059/132753/ . ‘Wishing you future success.