Monday, June 21, 2010

Drive-By Blogging - Nude, Naked, and Nekkid Edition

^^Click those thingies to share all of my posts with all your future ex-friends!!

Just a quick heads-up, whatever you do, DO NOT use Teh Google Image Search for "nekkid" with OR without the quotes. And as always, YOU will NOT listen to me.

Told you. Did you listen? Why, Hells to the naw. As usual, I was right.

Since we have been doing traffic tests and modification stuff to this Monument to Mediocrity, we have decided that nothing draws in the folks like nude girls. Of course, I have not HAD any nude girls on this site and have only linked one page of one nude girl, but traffic has exploded with just the tease of Teh Nude.

Like Larissa Riquelme nude or Rima Fakih nude. Nope, not one single nude photo, yet I am NUMBER ONE on Teh Google for both searches.

Herein lies the rub. Since ramping up traffic, I have noticed that average visit time has plummeted, subscriptions have stayed basically the same despite the Feedburner hiccups, and comment volume is UNCHANGED. In other words, this traffic surge offers nothing of value at all to me or to anyone else on this planet.

Now, how to convert this traffic into return or motivated traffic is our next goal since there is no longer any doubt what brings in the folks. And yes, this is ALL geared towards finding out how to convert traffic into DOLLARS. I can certainly tell you this much though, Adsense for Feeds offers NOTHING. I have made THREE WHOLE CENTS in two months on the feed ads. I changed them up a bit to see what happens today. Yes, we have decided to go full blown money-making mentality on my business site and this here is the testing ground.

If you want to help out with this testing, use the searches on this site for your stuff. Use the Google Search and the Amazon Search to let me know how those are working. And YES! I am going to do that research and publish the results, too! You get free knowledge that might lead to YOU making money, too. Remember, MONEY IS GOOD.

Another question that I have for everyone that reads and comments here is this, "Do you have a problem with a business having an AOL, Yahoo, Hotmail, or G-Mail account instead of their own domain?" Personally, I have a problem with a couple of those, but I so seriously HATE HATE HATE Microsoft Outlook as to even allow myself to NOT HATE Hotmail as a business e-mail. Seriously. I had a Hotmail account back years and years ago. How many years you ask? Well, the address was rpm34@hotmail.com, so I guess it was TWELVE years ago. Dang.

By the way, I hate the big banner ad at the bottom of posts as much as you do, but it also makes the most money. And tell me which ones YOU like.

Please take the time to comment.

5 comments:

Herb said...

I think having a free e-mail instead of your own at your own domain is not real professional, but if it's all you can afford, then use it. I guess I should add the caveat that if you are handing out a business card and you say, "Here, let me give you my personal e-mail address to make sure you can get ahold of me," and print it on the back of the card that that could be used by some people effectively.

Mozilla Thunderbird is an excellent e-mail client and most of the e-mails@yourdomain.com have a web-based interface as well. At least mine do.

Andy said...

You pose many questions, Grasshopper (Robert). Did you really have that Hotmail address? Jeepers, you must have been on the cradle-roll over there.

Ummm...personally, I have NEVER updated my business website "contact" e-mail address to one of the POP boxes that are available. I think that I have something like 500 available. My contact e-mail links still read @aol.com. I put it together 10 years ago, and I'm lazy.

But, when someone orders, they do receive a confirmation e-mail from "order@domainname." I probably should change the contact link to "info@domainname.com"

The hosting service I use charges $7.95 per month, and allows for WAY more flexibility/features than I have found useful. I've got my Dad's biz set up on the same program, but never took the time to change his contact e-mail to an "info@domainname" either. When the contact link is executed, it comes up with an @aol.com address.

Trust me...it has not stopped people from using it.

All that being said, if "professional" is what you are going for, I'd just go ahead and obtain the domain name you want...host it at Gate.com (or somebody...Gate.com is what I use)...and take advantage of the POP e-mail boxes (which are easily forwarded to your G-mail box) available. The whole shebang is like 10 bucks a year for the domain registration, and roughly a hundred bucks a year for web hosting.

It probably is much more pro to use the domain name as the @ destination...than AOL, or G-mail, or Hotmail, etc.

I'll get back with you about the other stuff.

Paul Mitchell said...

The e-mail question is not about my business technically. I own my own domain and have the e-mail already set up. The reason that I am asking is because I am wanting to have everything completely clouded with zero attachment to the actual domain. For some reason, I think that in the near future, we shall all have the cloud e-mails with subdomains set up in the cloud with say, paulbusiness@paul.com and paulhappyfuntime@paul.com as two different boxes of the same address.

I was just asking for what I would guess is the "queaziness" factor. I do know that some sites will not allow you to register with a hotmail/g-mail/yahoo account. That is why I am asking.

Andy said...

Gotcha! As far as the "queaziness" factor, it would not bother me as a consumer to see an @somethingotherthanthedomainname pop up when I hit a contact link.

Still...it is more reassuring if you see "support@gateway.com," than "support@rashid.india.i.work.for.gateway." So, I'd say that for broad acceptance, the standard @domainname is probably best.

Then again, I'm old, and did not half understand the "cloud" deal you were talking about. So, I wouldn't take my opinion into account when deciding how to proceed.

You're welcome.

Andy said...

You pose many questions, Grasshopper (Robert). Did you really have that Hotmail address? Jeepers, you must have been on the cradle-roll over there.

Ummm...personally, I have NEVER updated my business website "contact" e-mail address to one of the POP boxes that are available. I think that I have something like 500 available. My contact e-mail links still read @aol.com. I put it together 10 years ago, and I'm lazy.

But, when someone orders, they do receive a confirmation e-mail from "order@domainname." I probably should change the contact link to "info@domainname.com"

The hosting service I use charges $7.95 per month, and allows for WAY more flexibility/features than I have found useful. I've got my Dad's biz set up on the same program, but never took the time to change his contact e-mail to an "info@domainname" either. When the contact link is executed, it comes up with an @aol.com address.

Trust me...it has not stopped people from using it.

All that being said, if "professional" is what you are going for, I'd just go ahead and obtain the domain name you want...host it at Gate.com (or somebody...Gate.com is what I use)...and take advantage of the POP e-mail boxes (which are easily forwarded to your G-mail box) available. The whole shebang is like 10 bucks a year for the domain registration, and roughly a hundred bucks a year for web hosting.

It probably is much more pro to use the domain name as the @ destination...than AOL, or G-mail, or Hotmail, etc.

I'll get back with you about the other stuff.