In my “Where Do I Stand?” post, K @ Studio Rockstar asked “I’m curious — what’s the split of your traffic like in terms of referrals/search/direct?” That’s a good question, and wanted to take a minute to examine on a deeper level where my traffic is coming from. By understanding where your traffic is coming from, a blogger will know where to make improvements. Do I need more search engine traffic? Do I need more referrals? Let’s take a look.

Below is a screenshot of the breakdown for August’s Awstats.

As you can see, 79% of my traffic comes from direct type-ins. Initially I thought that number was a little high considering Statcounter only shows about 40 returning uniques/day. This just means a lot of people know my blog exists, they just don’t visit it everyday. Maybe they come every other day. I’m also interested to know the percent of type in traffic on my some of my friends blogs. So feel free to leave me a comment so I know if my number is higher or lower than normal.

Search Engine traffic accounts for only about 12% of my total traffic. This number I though was too low. Without looking, I would have guessed around 30% based on the number of whacky searches I get. No surprise here that Google is the number 1 search engine referral, followed by Stumbleupon and Yahoo.

The Stumbleupon traffic is interesting because I just recently (as in a week or two ago) started submitting all my posts to Stumbleupon. I’ve tried to get into a habit of just automatically submitting my article right after I post it. So far, it seems to be working.

Finally we have external links, which accounts for 8.4% of my traffic. This is a number I’d really like to improve on. I’d like to see it around 15-20%. Once again, I’m not surprised to see John Chow as my top referrer. Now that he has a new design with the blogroll in the footer, it will be interesting to see if the number of uniques from his site to mine increases or decreases.

Long time blog roll friend Jon Waraas is next, followed by new comer Derek Beau. Derek and I just exchanged links recently. Probably not even a month ago and he is already working his way up the list. Other external links include Digitalpoint and MyBlogLog… so if you remove them, then external links probably accounts for only 7%.

Overall, I’d like to see my search engine percent increase some, but not too much. I guess it’s a good thing I don’t rely heavily on search engine traffic (just in case I got thrown into the Google sandbox). I’d also like to increase the percent of traffic coming from links. I need more backlinks folks! Feel free to give me some love in your next post.

I will try to utilize and compare these stats over the next month so I can better understand how where and how to increase my blog’s traffic.

One of the hottest, and cheapest, new ways to advertise your website is to buy blog posts or reviews. Everyone has heard of PayPerPost and ReviewMe. These companies provide a medium for advertisers and publishers to conduct business. In today’s post I want to talk about the differences between advertising through a company like PayPerPost or through freelance bloggers.Recently I pumped in $50 to PayPerPost (PPP) to try it out from an advertisers perspective. I figured at $5 a post, I could get 10 quality posts. PPP is easy to use. You can fund your account with a credit card and create your offers right away. I spent about 10 minutes writing my offer description and filling out the appropriate information. When it came time to checkout, I was surprised by the amount of money they charge as a service fee. 35% !! I don’t know if the rate gets smaller if you put in more money or what, but they took out $17.50 of my $50 in fees alone. That left me with $32.50 to spend on blog posts. At $5 a post, that means I was able to get 6 offers. 6 offers for $50! I was not happy with this at all, especially after I saw the quality of the posts, which were only set to 50 words. How do you screw up a 50 word blog post?

I tested PPP with my site Gator Envy. I have yet to notice any real results from it.

PPP is fine and all if you have a lot of money to spend and don’t have time to write posts. But for those of us with a tight pocket, PPP might not be the best option. Enter the freelance blogger. Just browse the Digitalpoint Link Sales forum and you will find dozens of bloggers ready and willing to post your articles on their blogs.

Just yesterday I decided to try this out with a different site. I started a thread saying I wanted to buy 50 word blog posts on PR1+ blogs for $2. I decided I wanted to write the posts so I knew they would be done right. I stated I wanted 2 links in my blog post. By the end of the day I had about 10 replies. I spent a total of $36 and had 4 different posts I wrote published on 18 different blogs with Pageranks ranging from PR to Pr5.

I don’t even have to tell you which one proved to be more economical. 6 posts on PPP for $30… or 18 posts from DP for $36. And best of all, I got to write the 50 word blog posts for the ones on Digitalpoint. So I know my links were done right, the words were spelled correctly, etc. Sure you can check/verify posts on PPP, but it’s a pain having to deal with tech support and their tack system. Whatever.

This isn’t the first time I’ve found DP to provide cheaper, and better service for my money. I used freelance forum posters from DP as well.

In conclusion, I suggest if you’re looking for a cheap way to advertise your website, to use freelance forum posters instead of companies like Payperpost or ReviewMe. Use those companies if you don’t have a lot of time, have a lot of money, and want the high quality blogs. You won’t find blog posters like John Chow giving out blog posts for $2 on DP. If you want to be a on top teir blog, you’ll need to to try a company. But if you’re just in it for a couple links on a PR site and no traffic, then freelance is the way to go.

One of the first steps towards achieving my new blog goals is to lay everything out there for you. In this blog post I’ll go over my current traffic situation, popular keyword phrases, RSS readership track record, and earnings to date.

So first up is traffic. I’ve been keeping track of my blogs stats via Statcounter and Awstats since it’s creation. For the purposes of the current challenge, I’m going to use Awstats. According to Awstats, my monthly uniques has ranged anywhere from 1795 to 3253 since March. I moved servers back in March, so I don’t have any Awstats before then. Below is a screenshot (click to see full size) to help give you a better idea of where I stand traffic-wise.

There is a general incline in the graph, but unless traffic increases this month, I won’t beat my July traffic totals. To reach my goal of at least 400 uniques/day (which is 12,000 uniques/month), I will need to quadruple my traffic. In other words…I need to increase my monthly traffic totals by 3,000 every month.

I’m not saying it can’t be done, but it will be very hard!

Next up, popular keyword phrases. This is one area I definitely need to work on. Anyone want to guess what my number 1 keyword phrase is? If you guess ‘myspace bulletin ideas’ then you’re the winner! Now what on earth does my blog have to do with myspace bulletin ideas? I know why it’s ranked for that term (because I used to own a site called Bulletin Traders), but really… I’ve never posted any bulletin ideas on this site. The next top five keyword phrases are:

• computers internet blog
• wordpress forum plugin
• lithman
• microphone won t work
• oj interview video

Not bad. As I scroll down my list of keywords, I notice a recurring theme. Myspace. I rank for a lot of weird myspace layout searches. That’s a result of my posts about Pimp Myspace. If I want to attract readers to this blog (and get them to stay), I need to change the keywords I rank well for. Getting visitors looking for myspace layouts isn’t helping my cause. I hate making blog titles obviously keyword targeted, but I might have to start doing it.

Third on the list is RSS Readership. Looking at the graph below, we can see that my general RSS readership trend is on an upward slide. That’s good news. The extremely large spike you see is a result of getting a post published on the front page of Digg. My RSS number shot up to the 200s that day, then quickly dropped. If everything goes well with increasing traffic, then RSS numbers should follow.

Last on the list is earnings. This section is pitiful. For someone who loves money so much, I sure have done a crappy job at monetizing my blog. In the past most of my money made here came from selling sponsored posts and links. Recently, however, I added TLA to the sidebar. TLA brings in about $10/month per link. With 2 links there I’m looking at maybe $20.

I’ve also sold featured links in the sidebar to members on Digitalpoint. These sold for $12 each. There are 2 of them, so that’s $24. The 120×600 skyscraper ad was also sold on Digitalpoint for something like $15.

In total, we can say my blog produces about $60 in revenue per month. So I’m about 1/5 of the way to my goal with 4 months to go. Blog earnings should go up a few bucks with the addition of Adsense. I really don’t know how I can come up with the rest of money, other then selling paid post reviews, selling more links, and an increase in TLA earnings. If the PR update ever comes, I may reach PR6 which will definitely help me get close to $300/month.
So that’s where I stand going into the challenge. As you can see, I have my work cut out for me. But also, I’m in a decent position to get the job done.

It’s time for another edition of Ask David. Don’t forget, you can get a free link back to your blog by asking me a question. It can be any question, personal or business related. This was a slow week. I only had a few questions.

Question #1 was asked by Joel from World of Joel. Hey David do you know a good plugin for putting polls into blogs?

The best Wordpress poll plugin I’ve used is called WP-Polls. You can see this plugin live in the sidebar of my new sports blog, Mugdish. It is super easy to install, and completely configured in the Wordpress Admin panel. Some of the features allow you to run more than one poll at once, as well as, allow users to vote more than once. It’s a really cool plugin, and in my opinion the best Poll plugin out there.

Question #2 was also asked by Joel. David do you have any recommendations of plugins for putting Yahoo or Google ads into a Wordpress Blog?

I have always used Adsense Deluxe when incorporating ads into my blog. Here are several of the features:

• Use simple HTML comments for embedding AdSense or Yahoo! Publisher Network ads in a WordPress post
• Choose from any number of ad styles and format on a post-by-post basis
• Globally change ad styles
• Selectively disable display of individual ad styles or all ads

In addition to Adsense Deluxe, there is another contextual ads plugin by Phil Hord. I’ve never used it before, so read up on it first.

Question #3 was asked by Richard from Blogger For Life. Would it be a crime to use your “Ask David” idea in my own blog. I love the Ask David batches, seems like a very smart way to interact with your readers.

I have no problems at all is anyone wants to use “Ask David” on their own blogs. Quite a few bloggers do what I do.

That’s it for this week’s edition of Ask David. If you want free link love, or are just dying to know what my favorite book is, then just ask.

Over the past year, I’ve often felt like this blog has no direction. Sometimes I write about personal happens, sometimes I give network updates, and other times I actually give tips to feelow webmasters. It’s time to give this blog some direction. I’m determined to turn my blog into something.

I’ve seen a lot of bloggers with less experience than me and in a shorter amount of time turn their blogs into money making machines with readerships in the hundreds and thousands. I want all of that for my blog. And honestly, I think my blog has enough potential to get it to where I want.

So what kind of goals am I setting for this blog? Three very simple ones:

• Make $300 a month by December 31st.
• RSS Readership in the 200s by December 31st.
• Daily Traffic in the 400s a day by December 31st.

That’s certain attainable, right?

I plan to do this the right way. One of the first steps I need to take is to put some ads back up on my blog. Can’t make $300/month without ads. I’m also going to increase my availability for paid reviews. ReviewMe and PayPerPost generate a lot of revenue with bloggers. And with a Pagerank of 5, I shouldn’t have a problem landing a few paid reviews. I’ll also increase the exposure of my featured links for sale. At $12/month each, I should be able to generate almost 1/4 of my goal from those links alone.

As far as increasing traffic and RSS subscribers… there’s one solid method of achieving this. Increase value and quality of my posts and increase quantity. Instead of posting pointless crap, I tend to post more topics that readers can use, such as how to’s and guides. I also will incorporate more screenshots when talking about specific methods on my own sites. And for those of you who come here for some personal posts… I have one word for you… pictures. I plan to add more person pictures to my blog.

It’s going to be a lot of work, but I’m up for the task. I plan to track my traffic, blog earnings, and keywords on a biweekly/monthly basis and share it with all my readers.

I want to take this seriously. If you see me slacking off at all, or not posting enough high quality articles, don’t hesitate to shoot me an email or message me on MSN. Don’t let me fall behind. Everyone needs outside motivation.

You all know by now that I’m a HUGE Gator fan. Spent 4 years of my life in Gainesville at the University of Florida. Unfortunately, 3 of those years were with the Zooker. Even though we had no football success during my college career, I still had a blast. I’m proud to announce that in addition to Gator Envy, I am adding another Gator website into my network. This past week, I’ve been working on my newest site about the one man on campus who is larger then life. None other than Tim Tebow.

Tim Tebow is the perfect character for a new fan site. Unless you follow college football you don’t really know the hype that surrounds this kid. Gator fans are practically giving him the next 3 Heisman trophy awards and he hasn’t even started 1 game yet. They erected statues of Tebow on campus the day he committed to UF. He’s the biggest man on campus since… well, ever. Just check out the Tim Tebow Sayings to get an idea of what I’m talking about.

On the fan site, I’ll be posting several times a week about the latest Tim Tebow news. It will be easy since I follow the Gators religiously anyways. In addition to the blog posts, I have a biography, facts, pictures, and videos section. I also have a ‘tip the editor’ link for anyone who spots Tebow doing something funny on campus. I’ll post about it!

In the long run, I’m hoping that this Tebow site can fuel Gator Envy and vice versa. If I can get good SERPs for the search ‘tim tebow’ then I should have no problem making this site quite popular and a decent earner. There is already a Tim Tebow fan site out there, so I do have some competition.

So anyways, if you’re a Gator or not… you should check out my new Tim Tebow site. He could end up being the greatest football player in the history of the universe.