Six month review

September 2, 2008   ·   Paul Raymond   ·   Jump to comments

Hey all, here’s my thoughts about this site after the six month mark. That’s right, MySportsRumors.com has been around for a little over six months now. Man does time fly cause it truly does not feel like its been that long. What I’m going to go through here is the stats, my highlights, my lowlights and then some random thoughts I have at this time.

Ok, first the stats. We’ve had some pretty good growth here, nothing outstanding but things have definitely been on the up and up. Basically up enough to get me to continue promoting, writing and thinking of ways to improve the numbers.

March – 1950 visits, 2805 page views
April – 2387 visits, 3048 page views
May – 1199 visits, 1674 page views
June – 2758 visits, 3752 page views
July – 14,779 visits, 17,078 page views
August – 5196 visits, 6565 page views.

Looking at July, it definitely sticks out. A seven times increase for a blog that’s had under 100 users a day is a pretty big shock. But that was the time I started to really take promoting seriously, in addition to that I also received a link from Yahoo’s Big League Stew. Getting any link from yahoo (outside of the search engine) will blow your stats up! Taking those two days out of the picture the stats were fairly similar to August.

My Highlights -
First, was the link from Big League Stew. The article linked was The Dark Night and the American League East, and the first truly unique article I wrote. With such a major outlet picking this up gave immense satisfaction and let me know I really can be successful at this if I take it seriously.

Second, was my first income report that of course goes hand in hand with that big Yahoo link.

Finally, the people I’ve met. The network of bloggers that I’ve associated with over the last couple months are pretty remarkable guys. Kellex, James, Cussy, Ethanator and a few others I just can’t think of right now, have been there when times are down, times are up and always have good advice when ya need it. The best part is all of us are learning this as we go, and helping each other. At the end of this article, I’ll give you links to all of these guys.

My lowlights – Well luckily I can say a lowlight is not a big server crash on a heavy traffic day. Tooooo many bloggers have mentioned that problem before, I’ve so far been lucky. I’d say so far the worst parts of my blogging has been the slow growth. It’s something that’s very discouraging especially when early on you try and produce as much good content as you can. You get down when the traffic doesn’t follow. I’ve found out the trick to getting through that is to build a network like I have, they’ll help ya out and keep the spirits up.

How do I feel about MySportsRumors.com? Is it a success? – Personally, I don’t feel like this is a success, yet. Others might agree especially the guys above, but it’s just how I feel. Even so, I do like some things that are going on here and really think this blog is close to taking itself to the next level. Between invitations to join NE Patriots Draft, NFL Rankings, Cuzoogles NFL Pigskin Picks, Kellex’s Contest of Sports Sexiness and Ethantor’s Ball Hype Fantasy Football makes me feel that there are people out there that appreciate the opinions I put out there about certain rumors.

Another reason for optimism, I’m starting to figure out where I want to go with this blog. In the beginning, I tried to touch rumors in all the major sports, it spread myself and took me away from what I know best, baseball and football. Don’t get me wrong hoops heads they’ll still be some basketball coming your way. I’ve also seen I can’t just talk about the rumors I need some different content just to keep you guys interested. Heck the best stat days have been when I DON’T talk rumors.

I think I’ve also got a marketing plan down for this thing which should only help traffic get better. In August, I didn’t get a chance to write to much with work but I was still able to promote almost daily. What did it get me? Decent traffic numbers and my second best month to date.

So finishing these random thoughts, I’d say make sure to come back and see what we’ve got brewing. As football season begins things will start to heat up, and I’ll be making an effort to bring you better and more relevant content. To those who’ve been checking this page out from the beginning, thank you, your continued support it is much appreciated.

For all my new readers here are places you can find me.
Stumble Upon
Twitter
MySpace
Facebook user name is mysportsrumors.

Here’s links to the most recent stories of some of that network I talked about earlier. If you’re not included I apologize, like I said earlier I just went with the first few names at the top of my head.

NEPatriotsDraft – Spanish teachers protest Ocho Cinco
Cuzoogle – A day old but this tells all you need to know about Cuz! Babes of Entourage.
The Sports Dollar – Who says contest isn’t king?
NESW Sports – Minor League Durham Bulls Fakeout at Home Plate

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