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Originally Posted by Dave S
Here's a question ZZ, or rather my scenario. I'm kinda on the verge of giving up, i know it hasn't been long but I've done the maths on my site and it seems that when my feeder traffic runs out my trades will all die.
Lets say my feeder traffic elevates me to a situation where I get 1000 uniques from trades daily. When my feeder traffic runs out that is all I will have, 1000 per day. So if I get 200% prod on that, its 2000 clicks. Now, first clicks to galleries takes away half leaving 1000 clicks, 65% go to galleries leaving 350 to go back to trades. That means next day I only get roughly 350 back from trades at 200% prod that 700 clicks, the numbers decrease each day.... my trades will be dead within a week or so.
Now lets say I switch first click to galleries off, so that from the first click theres a 65% skim to galleries. 2000 clicks per day, 65% to galleries leaves me with 700 clicks back to trades, next day 700 back, again trades are decreasing.
All that doesn't even account for surfers lost to cyber space or lost to the 2% skim to choker.
If I have first click to galleries switched off I calculate that I would need 360% prod on incoming traffic from trades just to stay at the same level, and for any kind of growth I would need at least 400%.
If I switch first click to galleries back on, I need a whopping great 600% prod to sustain and 6005+ to grow.
Is 400% possible from incoming trades? Is that the secret, having a really high prod or realistically do you have to keep the feeder traffic coming contantly or have anothe source of traffic?
I notice that your site really does look shit-hot so I imagine that you get decent prod but can you really get 400%+ and keep it there?
Or am I missing something very important?
Don't get me wrong I'm not complaining, your guide is fantastic, and very accruate even a year after it was written. But as you said yourself, traffic trading is the place where people will fail and that is certainly where it gets difficult. (and getting my head round comus was not breeze!)
I did have plans to make my site look better to increase prod, as it's not great, but after doing the maths I decided to put it on hold until I have a lot of spare traffic of my own to feed it. I didn't see the point in developing it any more unless I can get over 400% prod on incoming which seems very high.
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You missed a key point. Your math would be right if you were trading by uniques only. But its wrong when your trading by productivity.
For example you send one productive user to a trade. The trade will send you one, two or more. These extra uniques will go to other sites where the same thing happens again and again multiplying your visitors. Starting this cycle is the key to traffic trading.
Your saying that when you run out of feeder traffic your site slowly deteriorates. There are three reasons for this.
Your feeder traffic isn't very productive to your trades. Most people only factor in trades that are productive on their end. Thats wrong. People are trading so it should be mutual benefit.
- Only pick trades the same niche as your site.
- Find trades that are similar to your site(thumbsize, content, and niche like I said above).
- Pretend to be the visitor and ask yourself. Would I click on that trades thumbs if I were skimmed there?
Second you need to find a different feeder traffic supply. Its not that its bad. Its just that traffic probably isn't too effective for your site and its trades. The reason why your trades work when theres feeder is probably because you are oversending. But the reason why they die when it runs out is because the traffic isn't productive enough to start the trade cycle above.
Third, fix your own site up. Don't auto thumb do your thumbs manually. Take face shots, reuse the same galleries do an ass shot, reuse the same galleries and then do body parts. This will give your site higher productivity.
Lets sum it up. You need to make your trades mutually beneficial. They are not mutually beneficial that is why your trades slowly die off. Find a more productive traffic supply. Your supply might be good quality but it probably isn't effective for your specific site and trades. Then improve upon your own site.
If you do those three steps. You will probably succeed.
BTW change your skim. If you wanna do first click. Drop it from 65% to 50%. Alot of sites say they want 60% to trade. Well first click usually counts as 10%. So you'll be exactly at 60% skim. Then on the top of your page. The first four to eight thumbs. These will be the best thumbs since comus sorts them. Change them to something like 100% . This will ensure that your best galleries get the clicks that they deserve. When people pass these they can get traded without the risk of profit loss.