Start a Blog to Gain Site Visitors

I've been working this Blog for 3 and a half years now, starting in Nov 2005. Pretty much 3/4 web site topics with the rest being engineering topics.

I started a second blog in Oct 2007 to cover page additions to interfacebus.com. In most cases I list what ever new pages are added to the site, but I'm sure I miss a few now and again.

The attached graph shows the combined visits to both blogs. The large spike at the center of the chart shows when the second blog was started [spikes are per day].

Using Google Analytics [which was started mid 2006] shows this Blog referred 3,045 people to interfacebus [46.21% blog traffic]. While the 'What's new Blog' sent over 2,605 referrals [39.53% blog traffic]. And that's with the second blog starting a year later. In fact just looking at this year, the 'What's new blog' referred 812 visits, while this blog sent over another 531 visits.

Seems like a good reason to start a blog

Top Web Site Content

Here is how the site is doing, Page Views and number of pages receiving those page views. Seems like most of the site is receiving less than 1000 page views so far this year.

Maybe it's time to work more on adding to pages already on the site and not so much into adding new pages. At any given time there are always 50 plus pages waiting on a page rank. So it's understandable to have some number of pages with no page views, but these number are to high.

70,000 to 79,000: 1 page
60,000 to 69,000: 0 pages
50,000 to 59,000: 1 page
40,000 to 49,000: 1 page
30,000 to 39,000: 2 pages
20,000 to 29,000: 4 pages
10,000 to 19,000: 18 pages
1,000 to 9,000: 340 pages
100 to 900: 809 pages
1 to 99: 640 pages [estimate]

Many pages in my list receiving below around 10 hits, are 404 pages. Or pages that were visited but don't really exist. They are just misspelled page addresses, so that 640 figure is a bit high.

Last years post on the same topic; Page views.

Twenty of the pages receiving below 10 visits were Transistor Derating Curves, a few are listed below. Another dozen or so just receiving between 10 to 20 visits. Guess that section of pages is never going to do so well.... But listing some of them here provides an external page link, and they were just up-dated.

Low visits;
2N4150 Derating. 2N5581 Derating Curve.
How to derate a 2N6762. 2N6306 Power Rating.
2N4033 Power Data. 2N6300 Power Derating Curve.
2N5002 Derating Guideline. 2N2904A Derating Graph.

Static Generation. No page text
Relay Derating Rules. Not sure what is wrong here
Cable Retracter Arms. New page
Fuse Holder Notes.
Power Supply Notes.

SEO Tactics and Visits from Image Searches

One sure way of getting new site visitor is from image searches. Just like receiving incoming visitors from a text based search, images can bring in new visitors. Plus images go along way to adding support to the text it's related to on the page.

The attached graphic shows weekly page visits from people using an image search, via a search engine. The data is from Google Analytics; Traffic Sources, Referring Sites, Filter 'image'.

So over the last three years there have been 43,437 visits to interfacebus.com via an image search. Now 43,000 site visits is not a very big number, and it's less than what the site gets in a single week.
More importantly the data indicates that 86.37% of the incoming hits were from new visitors. So 37,000 new people found my site who may not have otherwise ever found it, that's called free advertising.
Now the Bounce rate was only 67.77%, so 33% of the visitors jumped to more than one page on the site. I can't tell how many people book-marked the address or came back again, but it must be some percentage.

New pictures are being added to the site all the time. All images also always come with an html alt tag and title tag to help the search engine determine what the picture relates to. The picture file name is always descriptive, and most site graphics have a visible caption.

In fact the section on Definition of Resistor Terms was up-dated over the weekend with a few more graphics. At the same time any missing pic captions were added.

How to Increase Site Visits:
Just keep adding graphics to gain more visitors, but not so many that they slow down loading in the page. Keep in mind that there is a time lag between when a pic file is added and when the search engine finds it.

This blog brings in 100 visits a month, 61% new visits at a 61% Bounce Rate.

SEO: Search Engine Optimization

Related post from last year; SEO and Hits from Image Referrals
Graphic; Weekly hits from image searches.

I Need More Visitors

Visitors to interfacebus.com have been flat for years. I add new pages all the time, and of course I up-date and enhance existing pages at an even faster rate [Engineering Page Additions]. What ever I do to the web site, it seems to make no difference.

Of course some of the issues that effect the website are just out of my control. A third of the website is geared toward Computer Buses. Well as time moves on more and more of those PC Buses go obsolete. For example the PCI Express bus replaced both the PCI Bus and the AGP Bus, resulting in 5 pages replacing 8 pages [when pinout tables are counted].

Many new pages added are small in size and it takes time to work them while also doing routine maintenance to the website.

----- RoHS Definition [Added in 2006, no Page Rank, and only viewed 347 times]

Sometimes a page might seem like a good idea, but I never get around to working that particular issue.

----- PON Acronyms [Added in 2007, Page Rank 2, only viewed 263 times]

Maybe I start a page because I generate a new graphic and think it will support another page.

----- Compliant Pin Description [Added in 2008, Page Rank 2, only viewed 230 times]

Adding new pages does not guarantee visitors, as they still have to compete with preexisting pages on the web.

----- Manufacturers of Waveguide Gaskets [Added in 2009, no Page Rank, only viewed 71 times]

New pages also need three months before they receive a page rank from Google, if they ever get one at all. A Page Rank helps the page show up on page one of the search results.

Of course I have no control how my pages show up in the search results. The rise and fall based on an algorithm running on some computer. This page lost 50% of its visits in mid 2008 and stayed there.

----- Wire Insulation Color Codes [Added pre 2006, Page Rank 2]

FYI

The attached graphic is from Google Trends showing the Internet search history for the term AGP. Click the graphic for a larger image. The AGP interface [Accelerated Graphics Port] is the obsolete PC motherboard video bus which was replaced by the PCI Express [PCIe] bus.

Website Site Map

I finally got around to up-loading the latest site map that I generated last month; Engineering Sitemap. I did notice that the previous version at the same location was never saved so I'm not really sure if it could have been found on the internet. The previous up-load date was 8/1/08 and the page address has no page rank even after 10 months on the internet...

Seems to be there now. But the pages out under Google Sites only bring in 10 visits/month to the main Engineering Site ~ which is not good.

Here are a few pages that are generating the least amount of pages views this year [in the single digits]:

BJT Multivibrator Definitions.

2N6758 Derating Graph.

2N6762 Derating Graph.

2N6766 T1 Package Derating Graph.

2N5002 Derating Graph.

Electrostatic Volatage Definition.

Cable Retractor Definition.

High Speed Serial Trace Specification.

How To Design a Chassis, Index.

Broadband over Power Line.

Rackmount Computer Vendors.

Computer Publications.

I'm sure there are dozens if not hundreds more that could be listed, but many of these are new pages.