First Facebook Fan!

[elt]

I haven't been promoting my website at all, because I've been working on content. I was concerned that if people visit with only a handful of articles, they won't subscribe or come back.

Today I posted my 14th article. I pinned it to Pinterest. Within one minute, I had my first "Like" on my Facebook page. She also repinned my pin and said "Interesting site" in the caption. That was about an hour ago and it's been repinned 3 more times since then.

I guess someone does want to read my material...

My husband said, "I told you."

[xenxes]

Congrats

Not sure if I have any likes on Facebook, but should have a couple. Site has been up for almost a month now, got close to 4k hits, only 50 of which were Facebook referrals. Maybe 5 from Pinterest. Most from Reddit posts.

Sadly no one is sticking around long enough to sign up for the forums/community, which is the bulk of it. I definitely need more content--where do you find your inspiration? I had a list of articles and plowed through writing them, now I'm out of ideas.

[elt]

Thank you, Xenxes!

As far as writing inspiration, I write about the things I would be talking about if I wasn't writing them. And sometimes I do write about the things I've discussed with other people. It's based in the subjects I studied as an undergraduate and graduate student.

[josephbrown]

I am planning for a new site/blog which i will be start soon and it seems to be a little like yours by the sound of it. Is pinintrest a good way of marketing your blog and its posts? I have never really looked in to before.

Congrats

Not sure if I have any likes on Facebook, but should have a couple. Site has been up for almost a month now, got close to 4k hits, only 50 of which were Facebook referrals. Maybe 5 from Pinterest. Most from Reddit posts.

Sadly no one is sticking around long enough to sign up for the forums/community, which is the bulk of it. I definitely need more content--where do you find your inspiration? I had a list of articles and plowed through writing them, now I'm out of ideas.

What is your websites address xenxes? As i said above i am starting a new website I would just like to see yours so i can judge your websites amount of content, against the traffic you have received with the first month! I think 4k is great, i hope i receive that one month in!

[xenxes]

I am planning for a new site/blog which i will be start soon and it seems to be a little like yours by the sound of it. Is pinintrest a good way of marketing your blog and its posts? I have never really looked in to before.

What is your websites address xenxes? As i said above i am starting a new website I would just like to see yours so i can judge your websites amount of content, against the traffic you have received with the first month! I think 4k is great, i hope i receive that one month in!

Hope this isn't consdered "spam," but per your request I think it'd be a good idea if we all compared our social media source traffic & why we got them, as well as returning readers from those sites, here's my analytics source if you're interested:

For site: plantedspace.com

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Visit Duration % New Visits Bounce Rate
1. reddit.com / referral 4,593 1.82 00:01:26 64.23% 82.12%
2. (direct) / (none) 372 3.70 00:03:08 68.01% 68.28%
3. plantedtank.net / referral 126 9.60 00:09:53 67.46% 31.75%
4. google / organic 95 26.03 00:29:04 34.74% 34.74%
5. advancedaquarist.com / referral 53 4.40 00:06:52 81.13% 33.96%
6. facebook.com / referral 48 10.65 00:10:43 41.67% 54.17%
7. getk2.org / referral 28 3.07 00:02:29 96.43% 35.71%
8. kunena.org / referral 12 2.50 00:02:42 83.33% 25.00%
9. pinterest.com / referral 10 2.30 00:02:06 100.00% 80.00%
10. google.com / referral 7 2.14 00:00:46 57.14% 42.86%

A few notes: for #1 I post quality articles or images people would actually like to see in the proper /subreddit; for #3 I'm an active community member of a related forum; for #5 I got one article featured in another related blog.

Pinterest doesn't seem as good as reddit, I mean--you pin one image, someone looks at it, but they rarely go to your content. The demographic for Pinterest is also probably 90%+ female, which is good for my site, but take that into account when you're pinning.

But for reddit to work you need GOOD CONTENT, content that looks like self-promotion will get voted down to 0 and disappear into oblivion in no time, and you risk getting reported/banned on that account.

For organic traffic, I think I wrote my first article on 4/7. Unfortunately I'm still ranked on page 4-5 on Google for a lot of keywords, and for my main ones probably 10+ /sigh. The problem I think is the site is not "niche" enough, instead it's all over the place--that is, none of my content is truly unique. The goal is to get people to use the forums, and then to write articles based on their photo journals or content they post, but it's like the chicken and the egg, one can't come without the other and I can't get either to use the site; pardon the bad analogy.

Elt and joseph, you have to share too

[xenxes]

Oh another thing--I also have a Facebook page but I don't use it. No idea how to incorporate it in, seems just like another space to post repetitive information?

There are already like buttons under each article. What's the point of a page?

[josephbrown]

I love the website xenxes! I cant say im much of a gardner or knew much about your topic, but i loved how it was laid out. I especially liked your drop down menu's. Did you use wordpress to build this? (Thats what i plan to use to build my site!)

I can see from your analytics that you get many of your visitors from reddit. I may look into that as my planned website seems to be like yours (just on a different topic). I also see that you have got quite a few visitors from advancedaquarist.com, is that another website of yours? Or was it from a guest post? I plan to write and send out 6 - 8 guest posts to other blogs in my field when i officially launch my site, so that is interesting to see. I also plan to use a forum i participate in for marketing, so thats also very interesting. You get quite a few views from the forum, considering i think!

Il take on board what you say about Reddit and definiately look into it as a way of promotion. You seem to be getting some good results with it anyway

I see what your saying about the organic traffic. My site is going to cover entrepreneurship and young newcomers to entrepreneurship to be exact. Its going to covers topics from personal growth and development, to success stories, my experiences, as well as the general topics such a marketing, research, etc etc. So mine is not really going to be as you said "niche enough" either i dont think. It cover the same subject of business and entrepreneurship, but its not a topic such as marketing alone. I dont know wether this will be a problem or not, but ahh well! Its as much about the enjoyment from makiing it as it is about the traffic and money made for me

I feel for you about the forums part, maybe as visits grow and people keep coming back, your forum will really kick of and give you a great website and business... hopefully making you lots of money to!

Thanks for the stats and comments, has been intresting to read and look at. Im also sorry that i cant put my own stats up, as i dont have a successful website yett... give me time though ay

[xenxes]

I'm using Joomla, because it's more modular and has more versatility in my opinion. I have run a few Wordpress sites, they're great for blogs or simple content, but the forum plugins (and other scripts) aren't as developed. That being said, Wordpress can sustain a good sized forum, I think I used bbPress. In the end it's just whatever you're used to and comfortable with. With enough hacks and scripts and custom code you can make one CMS look exactly like another.

Advanced Aquarist was an online magazine that featured one of my posts (which I had put on reddit and an editor PM'd me ). My site definitely isn't niche enough, it's gardening--terrestrial and aquatic and fishkeeping and aquaponics and orchids. Too spread out, I'm hoping the Photo Journals section will keep people posting and coming back, but it seems like most gardeners don't have time to take pictures, or aren't savvy enough to embed an [image] code.

I'm looking forward to your site progress. Btw if a moderator/admin read this, what would be a good idea on these forums is a site showcase, or a journal of your website so to speak, so people can follow you, see exactly what you're doing, ask questions and offer feedback. I know it might get spammy, but it will work and be a great feature if well moderated.

I like to consider Planted Space a test run, I'm developing a legal community site right now, probably 95% done with the site, but I need to weed through thousands of pages of content /wrist.

Going back on-topic though (lol), I hope OP or someone can give an example of when and how Facebook worked for their site, I understand the Like button for articles, no idea what to do with a Facebook page.

elt--can you tell us a little more about your site? Interested in what your undergrad/grad topics were

[josephbrown]

Oh yeah, joomla. I did look into joomla a few months ago when thinking about another site idea. It seem pretty good, i mean even mcdonalds use it for their site! I see what you mean about the forums thing, joomla probably was a good choice for your needs

When you say featured in, do you mean an article about you site or one of your aritcle/posts was put on there site with a link or what?

Hmm, i think your photo journals idea is a good one, but like you said many people arent savvy enough to take photos, upload them and put them on sites like yours. Not the kind of people who are big on gardening anyway, i dont think

I shall certainly post it on here, although it could take a few months until its been built, launched and ive got the results. I like you idea about the journals. That would be great for people to read each other and comment, but it would also be good as you could look back over your own progress in the form of a diary/journal and not just numbers

Hmmm, i cant say I've ever really used fb fan pages successfully with my previous sites, but lisa and 2createawebsite is a good example. I believe it offers her quite a lot of traffic, re-visiting traffic ofcourse. She links to her page on her website, and then announces posts, tips and general comments threw the page. She often gets quite a discussion going threw it and thus, people are obviously interested in what she has to say on the page. Maybe somebody else could add to this and give there experiences with facebook.

[xenxes]

Featured--I mean I gave that editor permission to copy paste the article so long as he gives me 1 link to the original article and 1 link to my forums

[Crazzykylex]

Congratulations, Elt! It am feeling inspired. I guess I get similar results like you on my Hubpages.

[Shaun.p]

That is a good start. I really think you should go on to make it big from there.

[Beno27]

Hope this isn't consdered "spam," but per your request I think it'd be a good idea if we all compared our social media source traffic & why we got them, as well as returning readers from those sites, here's my analytics source if you're interested:

For site: plantedspace.com

Source/Medium Visits Pages/Visit Avg. Visit Duration % New Visits Bounce Rate
1. reddit.com / referral 4,593 1.82 00:01:26 64.23% 82.12%
2. (direct) / (none) 372 3.70 00:03:08 68.01% 68.28%
3. plantedtank.net / referral 126 9.60 00:09:53 67.46% 31.75%
4. google / organic 95 26.03 00:29:04 34.74% 34.74%
5. advancedaquarist.com / referral 53 4.40 00:06:52 81.13% 33.96%
6. facebook.com / referral 48 10.65 00:10:43 41.67% 54.17%
7. getk2.org / referral 28 3.07 00:02:29 96.43% 35.71%
8. kunena.org / referral 12 2.50 00:02:42 83.33% 25.00%
9. pinterest.com / referral 10 2.30 00:02:06 100.00% 80.00%
10. google.com / referral 7 2.14 00:00:46 57.14% 42.86%

A few notes: for #1 I post quality articles or images people would actually like to see in the proper /subreddit; for #3 I'm an active community member of a related forum; for #5 I got one article featured in another related blog.

Pinterest doesn't seem as good as reddit, I mean--you pin one image, someone looks at it, but they rarely go to your content. The demographic for Pinterest is also probably 90%+ female, which is good for my site, but take that into account when you're pinning.

But for reddit to work you need GOOD CONTENT, content that looks like self-promotion will get voted down to 0 and disappear into oblivion in no time, and you risk getting reported/banned on that account.

For organic traffic, I think I wrote my first article on 4/7. Unfortunately I'm still ranked on page 4-5 on Google for a lot of keywords, and for my main ones probably 10+ /sigh. The problem I think is the site is not "niche" enough, instead it's all over the place--that is, none of my content is truly unique. The goal is to get people to use the forums, and then to write articles based on their photo journals or content they post, but it's like the chicken and the egg, one can't come without the other and I can't get either to use the site; pardon the bad analogy.

Elt and joseph, you have to share too

Amazed by your Reddit traffic. How did you get it so high?

[xenxes]

Amazed by your Reddit traffic. How did you get it so high?

I started a Google Analytics show-and-tell thread here: http://www.websitebabble.com/showthr...24844&p=179761

Let's not hijack elt's thread any longer Congrats elt again, keep us posted the FB experience, I still don't know what to do with it.

[elt]

Haha, you guys have really kept this thread alive! I saw you asked what I studied. Psychology and Education as an undergrad, Family and Consumer Sciences and Education as a graduate. It's mainly geared toward psychology of women and family.

As far as Facebook, I think it is best used to remind people of your content. For example, the fan on Facebook did not subscribe to my mailing list. And then today a new article was shared several times on Facebook. People who wouldn't have found the site any other way have found it through a mild case of viral posting. (Very mild -- It got 7 likes, lol). I think it's just a good way to keep people reminded that your site is there.