This was a good article, all except for the last little bit:
Sometimes, driving traffic simply demands ingenuity, creativity, and hustle. Be more creative than your competitors, work harder than them, and test faster than them. Go where your competitors dare not because they are too complacent, too conventional, too risk-averse. There are literally thousands of diverse traffic sources out there…go explore them!
Not trying to rag on the author, but the problem here, is that this is just a _platitude_. It can mean anything. Therefore it really means nothing. Until and unless specific examples are given, it's just saying that in order to be better you need to be better.
All-in-all, though, it was a great article. My takeaway was that sticky sites beat plain content sites, but only if you bust your ass getting people participating, and there are no hard and fast rules for that. Do whatever it takes. That's not necessarily a happy piece of information to have, but it's direct and useful.
I had the pleasure of chatting with the owner of ThatHigh.com yesterday in regards to SEO and other traffic building efforts. Hopefully, I've provided him some ideas that he didn't think of.
But that's sort of what I'm getting at, you don't need to think of every idea on your own. Reach out to people tell them what you're doing and they'll come back with ideas you may not have thought of. A fresh set of eyes is usually helpful.
I always give my ideas out for free so if you're looking for traffic building, traffic retention, or SEO ideas give me a shout. Email in profile.
HN is a goldmine of driven, successful, and welcoming people. Reach out and connect.
Did he not give an example in that white text box just above that paragraph?
"Every 2 days or so, I’d go to my school’s quad and chalk every vertical surface I could find. Then I’d do the same thing in town. I even went to one of the dorm’s and used dry-erase marker on the mirrors and windows on each floor and in each bathroom. "
But isn't it considered de rigeur to end a case study with a trite, meaningless yet upbeat platitude? You know, "Here's how this guy is successful, now go forth and be successful like him, because YOU CAN DO IT!"
In any case, I welcome any and all suggestions for an alternate ending.
This is great info for people looking to do sites in the chicken/egg category.. I'm actually sitting here working on an idea that a friend and I will be launching by Monday that will face many of these same problems and it's awesome to hear from someone who has been successful facing the same problems we envisioned having.
My rent is $1050 / month, I live with two friends. Adsense pays me per click, but when I charge advertisers, I charge them CPM.
August - 150k uniques
Sept. - 100k uniques
Nov. - 140k uniques
organic = ~20%
referral = ~30%
direct = ~50%
I don't get direct advertisers often, but when I do, I charge them anywhere from $2 - $5 CPM (obviously it depends on the company)
Edit: I forgot to mention, the AMA title was "I run ThatHigh and it pays my rent in SF" so I guess it's safe to say that he makes at least $1050/mo from the site.
From my experience, 500,000 pageviews a month will turn a decent profit. Absolute minimum seems to be 100,000 a month, which is extremely easy to obtain these days.
I am familiar with the site because I saw it on Reddit. When I saw the headline on HN, my initial thought was "Wow, those stoners actually figured out which came first, the chicken or the egg!"
Very interesting. It's funny, I'm actually launching a site with the chicken/egg problem and I thought of some of the same ideas (fake users or at least having your friends create 2-3 accounts each and chalking up my campus quad). I'm glad to hear that these ideas have resulted in lots of hits. I will report back on my progress with chalking for those interested. I'm planning to hit the 3 major universities in my area and I think this could have major impact. We'll see!
@endlessvoid94 - Good work solving the chicken/egg problem. I noticed you're a UIUC alum (couldn't help but make the connection between your mentionong of chalking the quad in the article and the actual THATHIGH.COM chalk I saw everywhere last year). I would love to hear your thoughts on entrepreneurship in CU and what prompted you to move out west. Just sent you a tweet.
They talk about how SEO wasn't important for them, which makes sense, since very few of their target audience or current users are going to search for "funny stories of people getting high" or similar.
That was a nice read, though I wonder if there are legal issues with mining the web for content. For reddit they were just submitting links, so they probably wouldn't have gotten into much trouble.
I've read a similar article which was on the frontpage of HN not so long ago. And it was better.
Why would you use ThatHigh as an example to illustrate this ? I think this site did poorly. And just looking at how much fan they have on their facebook can pretty much prove my point (I got like 95k fans on my page just by liking something with my facebook account. Never did anything else than that to promote my website)
[+] [-] DanielBMarkham|15 years ago|reply
Sometimes, driving traffic simply demands ingenuity, creativity, and hustle. Be more creative than your competitors, work harder than them, and test faster than them. Go where your competitors dare not because they are too complacent, too conventional, too risk-averse. There are literally thousands of diverse traffic sources out there…go explore them!
Not trying to rag on the author, but the problem here, is that this is just a _platitude_. It can mean anything. Therefore it really means nothing. Until and unless specific examples are given, it's just saying that in order to be better you need to be better.
All-in-all, though, it was a great article. My takeaway was that sticky sites beat plain content sites, but only if you bust your ass getting people participating, and there are no hard and fast rules for that. Do whatever it takes. That's not necessarily a happy piece of information to have, but it's direct and useful.
[+] [-] fleitz|15 years ago|reply
But that's sort of what I'm getting at, you don't need to think of every idea on your own. Reach out to people tell them what you're doing and they'll come back with ideas you may not have thought of. A fresh set of eyes is usually helpful.
I always give my ideas out for free so if you're looking for traffic building, traffic retention, or SEO ideas give me a shout. Email in profile.
HN is a goldmine of driven, successful, and welcoming people. Reach out and connect.
[+] [-] dalore|15 years ago|reply
"Every 2 days or so, I’d go to my school’s quad and chalk every vertical surface I could find. Then I’d do the same thing in town. I even went to one of the dorm’s and used dry-erase marker on the mirrors and windows on each floor and in each bathroom. "
[+] [-] il|15 years ago|reply
But isn't it considered de rigeur to end a case study with a trite, meaningless yet upbeat platitude? You know, "Here's how this guy is successful, now go forth and be successful like him, because YOU CAN DO IT!"
In any case, I welcome any and all suggestions for an alternate ending.
[+] [-] covercash|15 years ago|reply
http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ev2zb/i_run_thathighco...
[+] [-] bherms|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jayzee|15 years ago|reply
ps: I guess quite a few of us have such "Oh that would be a fun site" ideas... I just don't know what traffic will make it worth the effort.
[+] [-] covercash|15 years ago|reply
My rent is $1050 / month, I live with two friends. Adsense pays me per click, but when I charge advertisers, I charge them CPM.
August - 150k uniques
Sept. - 100k uniques
Nov. - 140k uniques
organic = ~20%
referral = ~30%
direct = ~50%
I don't get direct advertisers often, but when I do, I charge them anywhere from $2 - $5 CPM (obviously it depends on the company)
Edit: I forgot to mention, the AMA title was "I run ThatHigh and it pays my rent in SF" so I guess it's safe to say that he makes at least $1050/mo from the site.
[+] [-] oldstrangers|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] devinfoley|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Rariel|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] guynamedloren|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rmc|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] widgetycrank|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kgtm|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] baby|15 years ago|reply
[+] [-] il|15 years ago|reply
Honestly, I don't know that many people who have built a community site of similar traffic level that quickly, especially without doing any SEO.
If you can put me in touch with others who have accomplished something like this, I would love to write about them too.
[+] [-] endlessvoid94|15 years ago|reply