Been putting consistent effort into building this website into something more. I've actually been surprised at how much the readership has increased this month. Out of the first six months of the year we've broken our page view record four times. The final count isn't in yet for this month but we will almost without a doubt top 2000 page views for the first time in our history. We are already in record territory with six days to go.
One of the driving forces is adding links to all our old stories and articles at the bottom of the page. Most days I ad links to one article and then re-promote it in a few appropriate places on Facebook and also on Twitter. I do this for the balance of the month after promoting the month's latest issue. The result has been that I have steady traffic during the part of the month where it used to always fall off significantly. The whole campaign will take me about four months to complete.
One other thing that I have done that will slowly bear fruit in the future, is adding this site to a number of blog directories. I'm not sure how much effect that will have but I'm hopeful. Another was to do some much needed housekeeping on my Twitter account. Over the last few months I've been busy deleting deadwood. People who I was following who had no interest in following me back and had no other reason for me to continue following. That allowed me to go back and follow everyone who was following me but the Twitter cap was preventing me from following back. That work was all completed today. Twitter can be a powerful tool and I'm now in a position to take better advantage of it.
This month also marks the beginning of a campaign to get direct paying advertising on the website. I took a great deal of time analysing the data I get from my Adsense account. I'm not unhappy with them and don't plan to abandon the program. I just believe that by cutting out the middleman and getting ad content more directly related to what Pico's Cycling is all about that would interest my readership, we would get an income that would give us the ability to invest in our writers. Quality content from a greater variety of sources would immediately up our game. Not having to write the bulk of the content myself would allow me to spend more time on making improvements.
With the Adsense and Google Blogger data, I set about finding out what our ad space was worth. Once I understood what I could fairly charge advertisers, I studied ad placement and standard ad sizes. From that I determined a price list for our available ad space. If all our ad space sold out each month, we would be bringing in $28 per month from advertising. Which pleases me immensely because I am aiming at consistently bring in $25 per month and at that point paying five dollars per article or story with pictures. I don't expect that to happen overnight. A smaller income would provide funds for business cards and stuff like that to further promote the site. Better yet, as our readership grows so does the value of our ad space. I firmly believe that the goals I have for this site are reasonable and doable. I'm excited.
June has shaped up to be a terrific month for the webzine. The future looks bright. I'm curious as to how far this momentum will take us.
Additional Links (Please click either the photo of the title for access)
Attention Advertisers
This is a new page added to Pico'c Cycling to help advertisers. It gives basic information about our readership, what we offer and how to proceed if they want to advertise with us.
Pico's Cycling - Tales of the Road
Published for more than a year and a half now. If you're into cycling as transportation, commuting or touring, come and check us out for stories, tips and inspiration.
