10 Days Online: Averaging $2-$3/day

This is my first real website. After 10 days online, I'm averaging $2-3/day based on ~3,000 uniques and ~10000 page views/day.

I'm happy with the traffic. The CTR, on the other hand, is atrocious. I'm seeing my best results on individual post pages.

Any initial impressions/glaring deficiencies?

http://www.celebslam.com

 

wow, 3000 uniques a day in 10 days? nice work, that's quite good.. what have you done to promote the site, if you don't mind my asking?

 

thats impressive 3000 uniques id be happy with 300 uniques

currently im at 70 uniques a day

 

You'll probably find that most people dont actually click through on the post title and go to the full article page.

i.e peeps will view 'http://www.celebslam.com/category/babies/' but wont click on the article title to view 'http://www.celebslam.com/babies-are-the-new-gay'.

Your most clickable ads (blended text ads) are only on the article pages and on the other pages you have just a image skyscarper on the right.

What I would suggest is to place the square(250x250) text ad on every category page. This should increase your CTR no problem, probably double.

Sound good?

 

That's an impressive number, anything that you can share with us of your success?

 

I promote every story I publish (digg, fark, etc.). My main traffic comes from posting funny comments in other gossip blogs' comments section (along with a link to my site of course).

 

I think one of his pages were submitted to digg.com and got 7 diggs.

That must have given quite alot of traffic...

 

actually, I'm not really getting that much from digg. It's not even listed among my top-5 sources on google analytics.

 

You mean post it above the fold (above the first story) on a category page? I'm trying to avoid above the fold ads for fear of alienating potential visitors.

 

How about the changes i suggested, sound any good?

 

see above

I might test out a few small text ads above the fold this week. I'll let you guys know how it goes.

BTW, I had 1 click this week worth 2.33!

 

Hey, you have some eye catching articles. I ,like many others, browse sites to take a look and go, but no- I just had to keep reading why Nicole Richie looks so hungry. man! give her the anti jenny craig program.

 

Conentrate on increasing your montenization rate and you will do fine.

 

Thanks. That's a great compliment coming from a web-savvy DPuser. I'm really trying to put out quality/funny articles so people will actually return.

 

off topic: is anyone using IE6? Are my front page ads still getting pushed to the bottom?

 

Avoiding placing ads above the fold is a good idea for your type of site.

What I meant was place an ad on 'http://www.celebslam.com/babies' and not just 'http://www.celebslam.com/babies-are-the-new-gay'

It could be just a half banner ad to seperate two paragraphs and it can be below the fold too.

 

will try, thanks

 

Try using ad links units. Use a horizontal unit right below the top navigation and use a block above the ads on the right column (I'd move the right column to the left, but that's just my preference). Also, I'd use text ads instead of image ads.

I also expect sites where people are killing time (reading gossip or jokes, watching videos of kids hurting themselves, etc) probably won't convert well and may not pay well either. If people are researching a high margin product or service than you have good CTR and good CPC.

 

I replaced my right image banner with the following:

<random image>

125x125 text ad

<random image>

120x240 text ad

<random image>

It certainly couldn't do worse than the image ad (horrible ctr)

 

This about the rate of converison he can expect from an entertainment site.