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What's my problem?


This month, Utter Domain officially turns one year old. Hundreds of hours spent writing posts, creating back links, promoting my site via Twitter and in general building the Utter Domain brand, but over the past year, with over 70 posts at fairly regular intervals, this site really has gained no traction.

Except for the traffic spikes associated with my feed readers (I love you guys!) and Domaining.com whenever I post a new entry, this site gets practically 0 traffic (not exactly 0, but close enough to 0 to not be significant). While this site has been quite interesting to work on, in terms of readership, it's not succeeded to my expectations. So, I need your help to figure out what I'm doing wrong!

Let's look at some of the issues:

1. Blogger. Okay, I get it. Blogger sucks. I've had numerous people comment that commenting is frustrating, the fact it's hosted by blogger isn't good for SEO, the template is horrible. It's essentially a done deal that this site is moving off blogger, so let's just not even bother with that.

2. Page Rank 1. WTF!? I'm sure this is partially related to blogger, templates and traffic patterns (all you domaining.com readers bounce like nobody's business), but I've got a nice post history, plenty of back links (over 120 according to Yahoo's site explorer). I really fail to see how this site is only Page Rank 1.

3. Lack of recognition. I have no problem accepting that I'm nobody (one of my favorite poems!). But brand recognition is important. Maybe my domain name is too generic. Maybe my content sucks. Maybe what I have to say doesn't match with the accepted standards (I invest in other extensions besides .com - gasp!). Maybe I don't do enough shameless self promotion about my successes. Whatever the reason, Utter Domain is not a recognized brand. Don't believe me? Check to see how many times you see my name or my blog appear on a Blog Roll.

4. Search engine rankings are pathetic. Sure, Blogger's SEO is pretty awful, page rank is a huge factor, too, but I've worked on creating relevant page titles, keyword intensive posts, deep linking, internal link building. I've used a lot of tricks, and the site only seems to get search traffic from the longest of long tail terms.

5. Lack of growth. It didn't bother me when I was posting 3 times a week and still struggling to reach a thousand visitors a month, but the fact that the situation hasn't changed in a year... well, that tells me something is fundamentally busted... I just don't know what it is.

6. Post frequency. While the frequency has tapered off some from it's high, I've chosen to post unique content at a regular, but not an extremely frequent, interval. I've averaged at least post a week, but in many cases that post count seems to be antithetical to traffic volume (ie. the more I post, the less traffic I get).

So tell me. Brutal honesty. What I have I screwed up? Is the brand salvageable? Is the content useless? Maybe it would be easier to just list the things I've done right!? :) Let me have it!

6 comments:

  1. This is my first time visiting your site, I don't know the quality of content you have in here and I don't know who you are so here is my opinion.

    Don't bother about pr to me what's really, really, really important what I learn from the time I spent on any domain blog (so who you are is not a factor)

    Secondly, Please get your own professional site and a search for a hosting company and stop using this service.

    FIRST IMPRESSION AND YOUR APPEARANCE MAKES A BIG DIFFERENCE. It was turn off for me when I first saw your homepage specially the top of your page.

    Good luck and learn from from other popular domain blogs

    ReplyDelete
  2. I will add that posting every day or at least with no more than 48hs of diference makes a big diference.

    I dont think that blogger is aufull with seo, just try a good template and change the icon of blogger from the url bar and is as good as a WP

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  3. "Hundreds of hours"???
    btw, A lion'ss share of the most successful and profitable blogs are built on the blogger platform

    ReplyDelete
  4. Owen, I'm not sure what you are getting at. And no, the lion's share of the most successful blogs are not on blogger: http://trends.builtwith.com/blog

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  5. you need a different domain or a domain that gets type in visitors.when you have type in visitors hundreds per month goople pulls your serp closer to the top 20.
    you need to have a tight focus! you are not a geo blog,you are not a money blog,dn journal specializes in domain sales,you have no tight focus...what do you stand for?
    where are your advertisers? where are your back links?
    what can you do specifically and specialize in for the domain community?maybe build a domain
    from scratch and post your commets?due it over and over newbes will learn and follow you.
    how about specializing in cctlds news? and mirror rick lations auctions and give out revelant commets?
    i will review you again in the future domainexpert@aol.com

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  6. I would change design. I see you slowed down your posting, and i cant blame you. I have had same thing happened with my blog. My best advice, focus on developing your business and blog only your leisure.

    ReplyDelete