Where are you coming from? − 19 April, 2007
Today I noticed that there were a number of new members. I also noticed that there were a number of new stories - most of which were easily found as they came from the same source. It's on days like these that I go look at the stats to see why it is people are coming to Dandelife today in droves (and not yesterday). Usually, I can attribute the influx of visits from a link on a high-profile blog, for example. Or a bit of news. Or a really active set of users. Today, I am flummoxed. There does not appear to be any specific reason that people are coming and joining more today than any other.
Normally, I wouldn't take the time to note that unless I didn't also happen to snooping around today's search engine keyword traffic. Out of curiosity, I was wondering what keywords were bringing most of our search traffic to us today. Much to my dismay, this is the top ten list.
I thought it was funny. A vast majority of our traffic comes from search, as a matter of fact. So much of our search traffic is very specific. Primarily people are searching for names of people and places. We index those items fairly well and with microformatting we can assure that search engines are savvy to the difference between a place named Dallas and a person named Dallas.
It occurs to me that my analytics are not quite detailed enough for me to get a full picture of where my audience is coming from. Since most of the traffic here that results in any additional traffic comes through the invitations that you all send one another, I'm not really all that concerned about not knowing how or what a majority of my search engine derived traffic is searching for. They got here. They must have found it.
Without a zillion dollars to spend (Dandelife is an independently-owned, non venture-backed company), the only way we can generate more traffic is to generate better content. We can't do commercials. We can't afford a high-powered PR firm. And you won't be seeing me giving keynotes at the Web 2.0 Expo. It's just not in the cards for us. Still, though, many more people deserve to know there's such a thing as Dandelife for preserving memories, visualizing one's life, and for engaging friends and family to do the same.
It's no secret that you can use Dandelife to track the timelines of interesting subject matter. Lately, I've noticed that Web 2.0 and The Police have become members of Dandelife (the former even encourages you to log in with his username and password to make updates yourself). In the past, we've had WW1, Apple and Video Games become members. A number of our members have asked us if Dandelife can be used as an educational tool. And I have pondered aloud if Dandelife might also be useful as a tool for journalists and memoirists (i.e. professional writers).
A majority of our searches are one-off searches. The long-tail of requests, as it were. That's why that list above stands out. Far more people are performing searches for "Panty Pooping" than for "Santosh Singh" (we specialize in indexing the latter). While we do happen to have certain subject matter such as the aforementioned scatological pastime here that's obviously not the kind of subject matter we want to promote. That's why it is becoming more important to me to help more people learn about Dandelife as possible. These top searches represent less than 1% of my overall search-referred traffic so I'm not too concerned. However, I am looking at ways to have "The Iraq War", "Election 2008" and "History of AIDS" at the top of my keyword lists every day instead. Keep Dandelifing and keep posted. We'll figure something out soon enough.
Incidentally, we hit a milestone two days ago. 25,000 stories. the 25,000th story is private - otherwise I'd link to it.
Normally, I wouldn't take the time to note that unless I didn't also happen to snooping around today's search engine keyword traffic. Out of curiosity, I was wondering what keywords were bringing most of our search traffic to us today. Much to my dismay, this is the top ten list.
| Keyword | Pageviews/Visit | | |
| 1. | dandelife | 2.67 | |||||||||
| 2. | spanking | 1.00 | |||||||||
| 3. | panty pooping | 1.00 | |||||||||
| 4. | spanking stories | 1.20 | |||||||||
| 5. | dudesnude | 1.40 | |||||||||
| 6. | dandelife twitter | 101.75 | |||||||||
| 7. | blowjob stories | 1.50 | |||||||||
| 8. | kindergarten graduation | 1.00 | |||||||||
| 9. | mcdonalds birthday party | 1.00 | |||||||||
| 10. | brian zimmerman | 4.00 |
I thought it was funny. A vast majority of our traffic comes from search, as a matter of fact. So much of our search traffic is very specific. Primarily people are searching for names of people and places. We index those items fairly well and with microformatting we can assure that search engines are savvy to the difference between a place named Dallas and a person named Dallas.
It occurs to me that my analytics are not quite detailed enough for me to get a full picture of where my audience is coming from. Since most of the traffic here that results in any additional traffic comes through the invitations that you all send one another, I'm not really all that concerned about not knowing how or what a majority of my search engine derived traffic is searching for. They got here. They must have found it.
Without a zillion dollars to spend (Dandelife is an independently-owned, non venture-backed company), the only way we can generate more traffic is to generate better content. We can't do commercials. We can't afford a high-powered PR firm. And you won't be seeing me giving keynotes at the Web 2.0 Expo. It's just not in the cards for us. Still, though, many more people deserve to know there's such a thing as Dandelife for preserving memories, visualizing one's life, and for engaging friends and family to do the same.
It's no secret that you can use Dandelife to track the timelines of interesting subject matter. Lately, I've noticed that Web 2.0 and The Police have become members of Dandelife (the former even encourages you to log in with his username and password to make updates yourself). In the past, we've had WW1, Apple and Video Games become members. A number of our members have asked us if Dandelife can be used as an educational tool. And I have pondered aloud if Dandelife might also be useful as a tool for journalists and memoirists (i.e. professional writers).
A majority of our searches are one-off searches. The long-tail of requests, as it were. That's why that list above stands out. Far more people are performing searches for "Panty Pooping" than for "Santosh Singh" (we specialize in indexing the latter). While we do happen to have certain subject matter such as the aforementioned scatological pastime here that's obviously not the kind of subject matter we want to promote. That's why it is becoming more important to me to help more people learn about Dandelife as possible. These top searches represent less than 1% of my overall search-referred traffic so I'm not too concerned. However, I am looking at ways to have "The Iraq War", "Election 2008" and "History of AIDS" at the top of my keyword lists every day instead. Keep Dandelifing and keep posted. We'll figure something out soon enough.
Incidentally, we hit a milestone two days ago. 25,000 stories. the 25,000th story is private - otherwise I'd link to it.
Comments:
edunn (April 23, 2007. 03:44pm)
Fantastic! 25,000!! Woo Hoo :)