Website Picking Up Steam Not Sure About The Next Steps..

[untitled]

So I've been working on one of my projects for about a year, Organics.org.

It's been averaging about 500 visits per day in the last few months, but it recently went viral with a few of the posts and other posts starting to get rankings. In the last week one of the posts got about 50,000 shares in a few hours, and the website went down for quite a while, I had to switch hosts just to keep the website up.

The one post currently has about 150,000 shares, not sure how much traffic the website is really currently getting as it goes down again every once in a while. But for example, yesterday there were about 30,000 visits.

The reason I mention this, is I need some advice on where to go from here. The bounce rate is very high, especially right now, it averages from 70-90%, as people come in to read 1 article and leave. What can I do to keep them more engaged?

As of now, I do not put any ads on the website, so I am not really sure how to capitalize on this new found fame yet. I have added a subscription option on the sidebar as well as a like box. I've gained a lot of likes over the past few days, but not enough to make a difference. Without polluting my website with ads or compromising the intention to remain as a free source, how can I capitalize on this traffic? How can I keep this going and growing?

The website is now ranked 490,000 in the world, 65,000 in US. About 2,000 followers on IG, 600 likes on FB.

Do I narrow down my focus onto one thing (initially it was organic product reviews, and users submitting their content) or expand into more areas, or just keep doing what I am doing?

My goal for this website is to some day generate a steady stream of income, to where as I can only focus on this website as a primary source of income, but I am not sure of the best way to go about it. I've received 20K offer just on the domain name in the past, so while I am making $0 of the website currently, its very enticing to humor some of these offers or consider selling the domain or business. I am hoping someone here with experience with growing website businesses or someone with similar interests (health) could give me some advice on how to make the website better.

Thanks,

William

 

[Shane]

You should immediately develop a digital product, a guide of sorts would make sense with your content. You also need to start building a list. Ideally, this would have been done from the beginning.

 

[untitled]

@Beards.net , what kind of list? subscribers? And are you talking about a guide/recipe book of some sort? Is the point of that, again to gain subscribers? I think it's a good idea.

 

[Shane]

@untitled

Yes, a subscriber list.

I would definitely recommend creating a guide or recipe book (or both). You develop one to entice subscribers to sign up and another one to sell. Ebooks can be quite lucrative on the right website. It's the only way I can think of generating substantial revenue, while remaining truly independent.

 

[untitled]

Great idea, @Beards.net! Your input is much appreciated, and I will probably look into developing one or both of those. The problem is, is that I can't capitalize on this current traffic if I don't develop and implement these quick enough.

If anyone have any other ideas as well, I would love to hear them.

 

[JudgeMind]

thanks for sharing beards

 

[amplify]

Add internal links in your articles that link to another related article that you have posted. This will increase the chance that someone clicks on it and stays on your website, decreasing bounce rate and increasing average page views and duration per visit if you haven't done so already. External links to another site you own is good too, sure they will bounce, but land right back to where you want them and can profit from them still.

List building is a good technique. So would be adding Facebook Connect to allow commenting to improve engagement on the content (but mainly for the purpose of your list building as you can request their name, DOB, sex, email, etc.-they just need to approve that exchange) as opposed to the social commenting system that FB provides. After they scroll down so far or on the site so long, make a new layer popup that has a "FB Connect" link to comment on the article, share, etc. Don't make it too intrusive where they exit your page and never come back though, remember their preference. If they say no, we all learned, no means no.

 

[Shane]

Great idea, @Beards.net! Your input is much appreciated, and I will probably look into developing one or both of those. The problem is, is that I can't capitalize on this current traffic if I don't develop and implement these quick enough.

If anyone have any other ideas as well, I would love to hear them.

If you implement the free one first you will be able to send a blast to your email subscribers later.

 

[Charles Sweeney]

Two points:

1. If you are getting 30,000 visits, *you* are the one who should be offering the advice!

2. Disregarding the above, with numbers like that, you absoutley MUST carry advertising!!

Offer a limited amount of advertising spots. Very very easy, take the cash and place their ad, or use something like BuySellAds.com

 

[Karim Nasser]

First: You must address your hosting issue, there is nothing worse than a website which is offline. If you want more traffic you will need a dedicated server with some serious bandwidth. If you plan on increasing traffic and keeping your visitors on your website longer, you will need to have plenty of overhead with a quick plan to grow, meaning ready to install more servers and bandwidth. Traffic can grow very fast as you're noticed.

Second: If you want your visitors to stay, get them to interact with your website, either comment on your article or allow them to post one altogether, this will bring more users to read your articles and your visitors'.

Third: If I received a $20K offer for a domain which I purchased for $100 let's say, I'd sell it, however I would check how much tax I would have to pay. I would sell it because if I know how to build one website, I should be able to build another. This all depends on what you plan on doing with your website.

You have a lot of due diligence in a very short time.

Good luck and I hope you make the choice which is right for you.

So I've been working on one of my projects for about a year, Organics.org.

It's been averaging about 500 visits per day in the last few months, but it recently went viral with a few of the posts and other posts starting to get rankings. In the last week one of the posts got about 50,000 shares in a few hours, and the website went down for quite a while, I had to switch hosts just to keep the website up.

The one post currently has about 150,000 shares, not sure how much traffic the website is really currently getting as it goes down again every once in a while. But for example, yesterday there were about 30,000 visits.

The reason I mention this, is I need some advice on where to go from here. The bounce rate is very high, especially right now, it averages from 70-90%, as people come in to read 1 article and leave. What can I do to keep them more engaged?

As of now, I do not put any ads on the website, so I am not really sure how to capitalize on this new found fame yet. I have added a subscription option on the sidebar as well as a like box. I've gained a lot of likes over the past few days, but not enough to make a difference. Without polluting my website with ads or compromising the intention to remain as a free source, how can I capitalize on this traffic? How can I keep this going and growing?

The website is now ranked 490,000 in the world, 65,000 in US. About 2,000 followers on IG, 600 likes on FB.

Do I narrow down my focus onto one thing (initially it was organic product reviews, and users submitting their content) or expand into more areas, or just keep doing what I am doing?

My goal for this website is to some day generate a steady stream of income, to where as I can only focus on this website as a primary source of income, but I am not sure of the best way to go about it. I've received 20K offer just on the domain name in the past, so while I am making $0 of the website currently, its very enticing to humor some of these offers or consider selling the domain or business. I am hoping someone here with experience with growing website businesses or someone with similar interests (health) could give me some advice on how to make the website better.

Thanks,

William

 

[durdom]

If you got 20K offer for the domain alone imagine how much you could get for a fully functional website.

Solve your hosting problem that would be the [HASHTAG]#1[/HASHTAG] problem right now. Then focus on advertising then go into a product or find someone who already has a product that you can get some of the commission for everyone that turns into a sale from your website.