[emile]

Feel like talking shop?

How many visitors per day do you get and do you make any money from your ESL site.

My site, www.roadtogrammar.com, gets 300 - 400 visitors a day currently. My other non-ESL site gets muchhigher traffic.

[mesmark]

My game site www.mes-games.com sees about 400-500 visitors a day.

I wish I had time to add more games. Hopefully sometime soon I be able to.

[clivehawkins]

Like Mark, if only I had more time.

My site eslpodcards.com gets between 450-600 visitors per day. It'd be nice to have a whole week, uninterrupted, in front of the computer to add materials, change the look slightly and generally tweak it but . . . . . . . a whole week uninterrupted is about as likely as taking a leak in The Queen's handbag :-(

Oh well.

[emile]

about as likely as taking a leak in The Queen's handbag

I'm trying hard not to visualise

...I'm going to have to remember that one for my next class on similes!

[emile]

Mark,

I was playing around with your site, mind if I ask a favour? You've got the link to my site set to http://www.roadtogrammar.com/index.swf , which goes to the old version, the latest version is www.roadtogrammar.com (splash intro) or www.roadtogrammar.com/welcome

Incidentally, I'm working on developing learning games for my 'real job', hopefully we can share some knowledge there.

[mesmark]

I fixed the link. I think I did that initially because the swf file was showing up really small when it wsa embedded in the web page.

Quote emile

Incidentally, I'm working on developing learning games for my 'real job', hopefully we can share some knowledge there.

I'll be glad to share what I can, but I'm sure that you noticed it was a hack job. The games are OK and for their purpose they work. A lot of those vocabulary games were my first stabs at FLASH.

[emile]

I'm sure that you noticed it was a hack job.

That's ok, sometimes I think life is a hack job, mine's still in 'beta'

[DaveESL]

I've got a website: ESL etc.

I don't get nearly as many visitors as you folks do. I'm not entirely sure about the numbers. Right now, I'm paying more attention to my podcast subscribers (60 or so). And no, I'm certainly not making any money from it. I never intended to. I just wanted something that I could continue to build over time as a resource for ESL/EFL teachers looking to bring global issues into their classes. It's forced me to get some of my materials into a more presentable form, too, which is good.

Take care!
Dave

[emile]

Hi Dave,

60 listeners is a good start for a podcast. Visitors to a website may only stay a few minutes, but podcast listeners are likely to listen to the whole show for multiple episodes

[mesmark]

Quote emile

sometimes I think life is a hack job

Amen to that!

Quote emile

mine's still in 'beta'

aren't they all

[susan53]

Forget the website. I think I'm still in beta...

[mesmark]

Quote susan53

Forget the website. I think I'm still in beta...

aren't we all?

[mesmark]

Quote emile

My other non-ESL site gets muchhigher traffic.

what's your other site?

[Denis DNT]

I wanted to make an ESL site but bowed out after seeing how far others had gone on their ESL sites. I switched to another field where I could easily measure up. That's at www.bridgeafrik.com

[emile]

what's your other site?

My other site is www.flashbynight.com, it's just a silly site with games and things I made myself, but it actually gets a lot of visitors. And I'm launching a new site any day now about 'freaky facts'. Let me know if you're interested and I'll tell you when it's ready.

[michèle 2]

Quote emile

My other site is www.flashbynight.com, it's just a silly site with games and things I made myself, but it actually gets a lot of visitors. And I'm launching a new site any day now about 'freaky facts'. Let me know if you're interested and I'll tell you when it's ready.

Your site is great! I really had fun doing the first test. I will visit it again for other games !

Michèle

[clivehawkins]

Does anyone use adwords to bring traffic to the site?
I do, and it has been pretty effective. What experiences have you had with it?

If not, how do you generate traffic?

[mesmark]

I used AdWords for my Certificates site. I only used it for about two months. I really just wanted a platform to get the site out there. I think it was worth it for that reason, but since my sites are free it's hard to judge whether it was monetarily worth it at the time.

Quote clivehawkins

If not, how do you generate traffic?

Now that's a bit of valuable information

Link exchanges are important. Registering with education directories is a good idea. Taking advantage of some promotional areas of other sites is also worth the time, even if it's just for the active link. Registering with search engines doesn't hurt.

[mesmark]

Quote clivehawkins

If not, how do you generate traffic?

Another way is content. Good content is called link bait. If your site has good content and/or a lot of it other sites are likely to link to you.

I deal in content. There are a lot of sites that deal in links and those guys are always looking or good places to link to.

[emile]

Another way is content. Good content is called link bait.

That's what I've tried to do with roadtogrammar.com, give a huge amount of content for free and people like it.

Incidentally, linkbaiting refers to a whole range of techniques above and beyond content, but good content is always the starting point.

Also incidentally, I noticed there's a 'made-for-adsense' page at 'www.roadtogrammer.com'. So if students mistype my address they end up at a scam page, not sure what I can do about it!