Tag: visitors

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Why Do I Spell Bill Swartwout Incorrectly?

I purposely typosquat my own “billswartwout.com” and “billswartwoutphotography.com” domain names to retain more website visitors.

First, let’s get this out of the way: I have a love/hate relationship with typosquatting. I love it because it’s a great way to get additional traffic to my website. I hate it because it’s often used by nefarious individuals to scam people. I do not do the “scam stuff” that gives domain squatting a bad name. OK, lets move on…

Our family has been here a very long time. The original Swartwout to come to the “new world” sailed with Henry Hudson and helped establish the trading post at New Amsterdam, today known as Manhattan. Brigadier General Jacobus Swartwout was the highest ranking officer in the Revolutionary Army in the state of New York.

jacobus swartwout homestead in swartwoutville, NY
The original homestead of Jacobus Swartwout in Swartwoutville, NY

My surname, Swartwout, is a difficult name – to pronounce and to spell. The second “w” is silent but no one knows. Couple that with the full website name(s) and it can easily be confusing.

I want to make sure that when people type in my domain name they are taken to my website. By “typosquatting” my own domain name I can do this. The name SWARTWOUT is often, very often, misspelled SWARTOUT – without the second “w” in place. There is, in fact, a variation of my surname that is correctly spelled that way. There are two more spellings, SWARTHOUT and SWARTWOOD, that are also variations of the “original” SWARTWOUT. But the most common error, by far, is to leave out the second “w” in the name.

swartwout coats of arms
The Swartwout Family Coat of Arms with spelling variations of the name.

Of course there is a town (actually a Hamlet, a VERY small town) of Swartwoutville in the state of New York.

Sign at Swartwoutville, ny
Welcome to the Hamlet of Swartwoutville, a Hudson Valley Greenway Community

Examples:

Link: BillSwartout.com –> BillSwartwout.com

Link: BillSwartoutPhotography.com –> BillSwartwoutPhotography.com

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Initial Results from my Personal Daily Blogging Challenge

I am seeing growth in traffic and page views beyond my expectations.

Let’s begin with a caveat: One must keep in mind that I am comparing January numbers, one of the slowest sales months, to December and the holiday shopping season. Therefore, I believe any growth AT ALL is a significant increase.

Graph of User Growth USPictures January 2022
Graph of User Growth USPictures.com mid-December, 2021 though the end of January, 2022.

One is tempted, possibly because of innate vanity to describe success based on feelings or “what I think” is happening. That is all a feel good, pat yourself on the back, reaction and may be OK in general conversation. However, what follows is my sharing of actual data, the metrics of which are derived from the Analytics service from Google and from AWStats, an internal statistics package on my leased server space.

Remember the rationale for this is a rebranding of my USPictures domain and to create more SEO “juice” (search engine results) for my own sites – rather than for the stockholders of FB, Twitter or any POD with a forum.

While I have several blog/websites related to (supporting) several of my art photography collections, I have chosen to focus the first part of the year on my personal blog at BillSwartwout.com and my “rebranded” site targeting United States landscape/seascape images at USPictures.com.

USPictures.com was “moved” from being pointed to my premium site at Fine Art America to its own server space in mid-December so I could offer more choices for my customers, including the Free Shipping at Pictorem, another quality POD (Print on Demand) company. See “Rebranding and an Art Challenge.”

Therefore the numbers for USPictures.com and BillSwartwout are based on a comparison of daily averages, not one month vs another month. This is to keep things on an even keel, so to speak.

The Results Are In:

I am not sharing actual numbers, just percentages. The following percentages increases are for BillSwartwout.com & USPictures.com, respectively

Number of Visits: 124% and 189%

Page Views per Visit: 187% and 174%

SEO/Organic Search Results: 175% and 325%

Averaging all of those results yield an average growth in one month of “Daily Posting” of nearly 200% (195.6% to be exact).

But Wow, those Organic Search Results, a 250% increase, are far better that what I was hoping to see at the one-month mark. That means the longer I can keep growing the sites’ SEO the less dependent I am on Social Media.

Hey, these increases are after only one month of Daily Article Posting, or Blogging, if you like. Imagine what may/will happen after another couple of months. Or the whole year. Not too crabby, eh? – Er, I mean, not too shabby.

Yum - a Big Crab Claw Image Matted and Framed

Right?

Geno Prussakov, a long-time affiliate marketing colleague, about a dozen years ago, decided to try posting one new article every day for a solid year in order to help his business grow. He did and it did. AM Navigator at https://www.amnavigator.com is one of the best Outsourced Program Management Agencies in the world today. I am proud to call Geno a friend.

I would certainly appreciate any observations or comments you care to make (below). Your critique or insights may help me improve my outlook and or marketing strategy.