Shmula, 2006: A Traffic Retrospective

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If you’re interested in advertising on shmula.com, please contact me or you can advertise on shmula via text-link ads.  Below, you will find traffic stats for 2006.

I started blogging at the end of March, 2006. It’s been a fun ride; I’ve made friends, enemies, and have learned first-hand about the power of the written word, viral marketing, and the value of community. So here we go. I started using Statcounter as my analytics tool, so I’ll begin with that:

Click on the image for a larger view.

In April, my Google Job Interview post was dugg to the front page of Digg, Del.icio.us, and Reddit and stayed pretty popular until May also. In September, my Game Theory and Digg article made it to the front page of Digg and Del.icio.us; in November, my Google, Yahoo, and Microsoft Acquisition Timeline made it to the front page of Digg and Del.icio.us.

From March 26, 2006 to December 31, 2006, shmula has had around 124,000 unique visitors and 199,956 pageviews. According to Technorati, shmula is ranked 12,299 and has 464 inbound links from other blogs; according to Yahoo!’s SiteExplorer tool, shmula has 1,502 inbound links from non-blogs, and shmula is ranked 69,628 on Alexa. As of December 31, 2006, shmula has a pagerank of 5/10. In May, I started using urchin, which is now Google Analytics. Below is the chart of my traffic beginning in May:

Click on the image for a larger view.

The majority of my traffic comes from "Other" and from organic google searches. I’m not exactly sure what "Other" is, but it’s vague and brings in a lot of traffic to shmula. Here’s a marketing summary of my traffic:

Click on the image for a larger view.

Here’s a Geographic view of traffic:

Click on the image for a larger view.

Based on Google Sitemap data, below is are the top queries and converting clicks for shmula (keyword, approximate location on Google search engine result pages (SERPS):

• google interview process
• tinyurl
• "amazon c"
• lean manufacturing
• "google ve"
• click and ship
• six sigma
• hotcaptcha
• poppendieck
• american express
• myheritage face recognition
• muay thai stuff
• playstation recall
• takt time , 8 time-trap
• pareto principle
• queueing theory
• cumbaya
• netflix
• my heritage face recognition
• trackmenot
• 2007 suburban
• ps3 recall
• agile software development
• team dynamics
• google

Lessons Learned

I have learned about SEO first-hand. I’ve learned about inbound links, writing content, and creating dialogue with others in the community. It’s a crazy thing when my blog ranks higher in natural search results than the company itself, as in the case with MyHeritage.com — this article once ranked higher than the actual company’s site on the keyword of "myheritage facial recognition". SEO is about patience, writing good content, creating buzz that manifests itself in inbound links to the article. There are mechanics to it also, such as the anchor text, title tags on images, etc. But, at the end of the day, it’s about inbound links from reputable sites and from many, many sites — that’s the goal. While I haven’t made that a goal, it’s become the result from just writing content. The web is rewards well-written content.

Plans for 2007

I’ve responded to some of my readers who have commented on the spamy-ness of shmula. I have listened and have done what many of you have requested. Here are some things that I’ve removed:

1. Removed "Poplular Posts" box that forced reader to scroll down to view content.
2. Removed "Related Posts" box that forced reader to scroll waaay down to view comments.
3. Removed "Share This" bar on front page, but it appears in the individual posts.
4. Removed spammy box in internal search results page (using the internal shmula search bar).
5. I capitalize now.

I’ll continue to write about Lean Manufacturing and The Toyota Production System, Six Sigma, Software, Technology, Operations, and business-y stuff. You’ll see bits of family and everyday observations too, especially on ethnography and product development and industrial engineering. Thanks for putting up with how spammy shmula has been; and thanks for reading and subscribing to my feed. I hope you continue to come back and I hope you enjoy what you find here.

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