List my Five Experiment Week 3

For all of you that haven't looked at their calendar, today it is 10/10/10.  The storm has left some really dry weather that is normal this time of the year in Southern Calif. and makes it difficult for me to get into the fall season, especially Halloween.


I've got some interesting stuff to tell everyone.  First, I was super busy with all my jobs and missed posting my third week by about 3 days, that is not all that interesting, but I am getting to that part.  Just note, that most of the views and earnings will be higher than they would have been.  I noticed a nice jump this morning before I started this post, but here are the stats:

Total articles
56
Total Views 

6474
Earnings for October, 2010 

$2.49

The end of September after 2 weeks I was showing $2.36.  So, not quite mid October I have more than that.  So, I think I can safely say that I will at least make $5.00 in October. 

The most interesting happening was my Websites for Pumpkin Carving Patterns.  This is the one that I created after seeing a google trend (which is still trending today).  It is at 782 views and .38 earnings.  I anticipate it will peak at around 1000 views by Halloween.

What was so interesting is that a couple of days after I wrote it, I twitted it out and looked back at my views to see it go from around 100 to 500, just like that.  I blinked, I reloaded and I wondered if there was a glitch, but no there wasn't.  I find it fascinating to network my articles and watch the views go up like hitting a jackpot at a slot machine, but this one was spectacular.  I networked it out at the most perfect time and benefited hugely. 

This article was also posted in List My Five's front page.  I saw more comments because of that and about 75 extra views.  Speaking of, if you are looking to get your article on the front page, you will increase your chances if you do have a seasonal article that has a nice word count to it.  Write at least 3-4 sentences for each step and it will bring it up to more of what List My Five is looking for.  Me suspects that LM5 may use google trends, too, to see what everyone is looking at, so my article would be a good fit, just for that reason.

With the pumpkin article the overall average is a little trickier to figure out, so I am taking that one out of the equation, altogether and am showing an estimate of 115 views per article.

If your stats are showing much less than that, you need to look at 2 things.  Your article titles and your networking.  Networking will let people know about your articles, but if they don't have a title that will intrigue people, they are not going to click on it no matter how much you network.  So, think outside the box on your titles, spend a little more time on it and don't forget your SEO. 

I am still shooting for my goal of 90 articles in 30 days, but I am slowing down a bit.  I have been writing 2 a day and find that I seem to run out of ideas after that and it becomes torture spending time looking for inspiration.  It really cuts into your earnings if you lose an hour in writer's blog mode.

Remember the Stink Bug article was the view winner last post?  This time it is the Pumpkin article.  The Stink Bug article is at 289.  I think the bug crises is over anyway, so I don't see that one doing much more till next year.  Part of the problem with seasonal and hot trend articles. 

The others that have higher views are Homemade Halloween Costumes for Dogs at 177 at .13, Haunted Houses at 164 at .06 and Signs you are addicted to Facebook at 199 at .12. 

Highest earnings:  Tips for new Businesses at .81 which incidentally, I just wrote two days ago.  It only shows 75 views, but it has a new, killer looking ad about owning your own vending machine.  I am going to give all the credit to that ad, as I don't see it posted on any of my other articles.  The Stink Bug article is at 289 views with .97.

Everything else is from 0 (yes, a few of my articles show views but no earnings) to .30. 


I also want to thank LM5 for listening to the writers.  I have read people's suggestions on the forums and they are right-on.  All that eHow experience, makes our information valuable to them, and they are smart enough to know that and act on it.

If you have a LM5 experience with views or earnings, please take the time and leave a comment about it, so we can all learn from it.

Next post will be the last for the experiment.  My idea is to let the articles marinate for a bit to see if how they do.  Then I will let everyone know about that.