Pages

Thursday, February 25, 2010

102,348 Page Views!

As of the update last night, I have over 100,000 page views, reaching my goal three months ahead of schedule.  Here, take a look!

Now that I've made it, what am I to do now?  Well, I'm not in a hurry to start anything new with AC right now as my plate is full with other projects.  I will continue to write on the same topics and such but right now, I have an Examiner project going on focusing on the topic of short stories, I'm putting together a short story and photography contest for my website at DeKalbRamblings.com, and I'm on a creative writing marathon, trying to get some credits built back up before I start submitting my newly written novel.  Whew!  All in a day's work, I suppose.

So while I'll be steadily writing for AC, I'm afraid I won't have time for any new experiments or projects.  However, items of interest I find around AC, I will pass along here on my blog.

Keep writing and thank you for reading!

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

How Much Time Should You Spend Promoting?

How much time should you pour into posting links in various social networks? Is it really worth the time and effort? I'm not talking about autopost. Autopost is wonderful but only covers WordPress, Facebook, and Twitter. And what about those days when you don't write? Is it worth setting links up in Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, and the zillion other social networking sites so you can get clicks on your off days? And watch out! If you constantly post links, then you might be in danger of spamming.

These are all very tough questions and everyone has their own opinion about this. I can get extra page views by retweeting and reposting links to content that hasn't been posted in awhile but personally, I don't think that the payoff is worth a half hour of my time setting up links. And how many social networks are too many?

I've been thinking about this topic for quite some time now and it just so happens that I came across this article by Lyn Lomasi yesterday while searching for answers to these questions.

But really, if you're spending more time posting links then you are writing, that's not a good sign. If you're still not pulling in the page views after posting all those links then it can be frustrating, I know. Time to rethink the topics you are writing on.

But take a look at the article above and find your own balance.

Monday, February 1, 2010

Tripling My Highest Page View Earnings

When I started this page view experiment, I thought it was a lofty goal to reach for 100,000 views within a six month time. Now, after the first month, it seems easier.

I've been writing on hot topics and let me tell you, I'm completely astonished at the staggering number of page views I've been getting. In December, my page view average was 140 views per day. In January, (drumroll please) I averaged 858 page views per day. Talk about a HUGE difference. I finally have a page view bonus coming that I'm freakin' excited about!

I started this with a meager 56,000 page views. Now I have over 81,000. I published 19 articles this month. Eighteen of them were Arts and Entertainment articles, seventeen of those being hot topic items. One was a humor piece and I published a poem. None of them received upfront but the page views were so high that I really don't mind.

The only reason I published a poem is because when the Short Story and Poetry Featured Contributor Categories become available, I'd like to apply for those as well, which is something I didn't know I could do with a Featured A&E title before. Why? Because creative writing is a topic that I am very passionate about. So that was the only deviation from my plan. And otherwise, that plan has worked.

If I continue to keep it up, I will have 100,000 views in just a few weeks. Thank you for keeping up with this experiment and my own race for page views. I'd also like to thank AC for allowing me to be a Featured Arts and Entertainment Contributor. It certainly helps!