I'm A Celebrity Experiment

I wrote early in November about Dead Blogs And Experimenting.

Part of the post was about how I had started a new blog I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here as an experiment.

It is based on a UK television reality show which was only running for three weeks, and finished last Friday.

The experiment wasn't all that successful, probably too short a time span, but as with most things I gained some knowledge from doing the blog.

The blog really ran for only 46 days, thought it'll hang around the blogosphere for a long time - as I don't cancel old blogs.

The most visitors I managed to attract on a daily basis was 371 and for the 46 days, starting from scratch, the blog had a total of just over 7000 unique hits. The interesting thing was that 4250 of these came from the search engines.

What this emphasised was the value of the right name for a blog and having this within the URL. I got lots of referrals from people searching 'Imacelebritygetmeoutofhere'. In other words it's seems beneficial to use keywords for a title and domain name.

As the show has been around for eight years there was a lot of competition from established websites and the tabloid newspapers. They had the advantage of being set up and running long before I got going.

I also realised that virtually everyone was regurgitating the same material - only so much happens on a TV show each night. So why should anyone regularly visit my blog when they could get the info from a newspaper website?

I found that the only way to boost traffic was by concentrating on a couple of the contestants - and yes, it was the attractive girls (Gemma Atkinson and Cerys Matthews) who pulled, if that's the right word, best. It's the old thing about how 'sex sells'.

All in all it was worthwhile trying. I managed to get some Amazon orders, a few AdSense clicks and I was able to use ads directed at the UK - as 75% of the traffic was from the UK. I also got referrals from I'm A Celeb to my main celebrity blog.

I shall update the I'm A Celeb blog from time to time if any of the contestants do anything newsworthy.

I'm now looking for another niche for a blog to experiment with.

Good luck,
Mike.

Dead Blogs And Experimenting

What recipe do you use for dead blogs?

I leave mine to mature with a good sprinkling of adverts. That way they can last within the blogosphere for a considerable time - and you never know who might come across them and perhaps do a little clicking.

You haven't got any dead blogs? I guess then you don't like to experiment and try different things. I do. I've tried all sorts of blogs on various free blogging platforms.

I get an idea in my head and then try and put it into practice. It's how I started my celebrity blogs. If I'd just kept going with only this blog I wouldn't have made as much money as I have.

I'd recommend that, time willing, everyone experiments with different blogging ideas. They might not work out but, what the heck, it doesn't cost anything to have a dabble. And it's surprising what you learn and pick up about blogging in general.

Experimenting is like taking lessons in blogging.

At the moment my current experiment is with a UK reality television show I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here.

I realise how popular these sort of things are so when I heard a new series was going to start I set up a blog a couple of weeks before it kicked off (the television program actually started yesterday).

I've no idea as yet if it'll be a waste of time or not. One thing I have learned with my experiments is that it's good to anticipate things of interest and get in early. That way you get established prior to the event.

With the I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here blog I had 286 unique visitors yesterday which isn't too bad for the first day proper of the series.

By starting the blog before the event I've managed to get in some decent positions on Google.

I'm actually in first position for 'imacelebritygetmeoutofhere' - a lot of my 1200 referrals, from search engines, have come from this search word - or is it words?


This particular blog isn't long term as the TV series only lasts about three weeks but I'll be interested to see how it pans out and, more importantly, if it makes me any money - because that's what it's all about.

Hubble bubble, toil and trouble - get experimenting.

Good luck,
Mike.

A Perfect Day - 40,350 Hits On One Blog

It was one of those days yesterday when everything went exactly right - a lucky streak if you like.

I checked out my stats and saw that one of my blogs had 2525 hits. "Great," I thought. But then I checked another of my blogs and couldn't believe what I saw. Yesterday it had 40,350 visits - in one day!

Also, though not quite as exciting, my new I'm A Celebrity Get Me Out Of Here blog had 255 hits. This is about a reality show in the UK, which hasn't started as yet. It starts in the 12th.

So lots of hits yesterday and, of course, traffic = clicks.

With Sexy Ads I normally get one sign up every three days, yesterday there were 18. I get the same ratio normally with FriendFinder but yesterday there were six sign ups. And so it went on right across the board.


It really all emphasised what I have said before that if you get the traffic you'll make money, and this is regardless of PageRank, Technorati ranking etc.

The secret to making money with blogs is traffic - full stop.

My influx of hits won't, of course, last. I like to be positive but I'm also a realist. I was just lucky yesterday but once you have achieved something you always believe that you can do the same again, or something even better.

What I did learn was that once you see extra hits arriving unexpectedly you need to monetise the post that everyone wants to read. The truth is that a majority of these visitors may never return, so it makes sense to try and get clicks while you can.

It's also a good idea to see which country the readers are arriving from and adapt ads to suit them. It's no good, for instance, having bundles of visitors from the USA if your ads are aimed at the UK. All pretty obvious I suppose.

To finish my day nicely I checked my bank account and found that Google AdSense had paid me $257.35 and that £50 ($100) had arrived from PayPal for PayPerPost sponsored posts.

All in all a good day - now if only every day was like that ...

Good luck,
Mike.