My Effects from Cool Site of the Day

Firstly thanks again to Roman1 for starting this thread and everybody who helped out with voting (and campaigning)

This is my report back on how www.coolest-gadgets.com was affected by being Cool Site of the Day on November 3rd. Thanks to forums, friends and mailing lists the site managed to get a record (I think) average vote of 8.775.

To get featured on CSOTD you have to submit your site and pay a (non refundable) fee of $27 for the site to be reviewed. It took 2 weeks for me to hear that the site had been accepted and I was given the date when it would be featured.

Traffic
The traffic spike lasted 2 days on my logs, number of visits was up by about 3,000 and page views 7,000. A number of these visits were from friends helping me out so after taking those into account (based on revenue percentage increases) the actual traffic from CSOTD was approximately:
Visits: 2,225
Page Views: 6,225

Income
CG has a few revenue streams; I will report on 2, A and B

A) This stream enjoyed an extra $65 of income

B) This looks to of earned an extra $40 but as I can't break this down between sites this may not be accurate but I reckon it is a pretty good estimate.

Other Benefits
The site got another 20 confirmed subscribers to the newsletter (which I will send one day).

A link to the site will be listed on a popular page (PR6) for the rest of the month.

There is a very good chance that CG will be a candidate for Cool Site of the Year, I've no idea how this works but will report back when I do.

I've found in the past with advertising the site, it gets a nice peak and then falls back down to a level above what it was before, so hopefully I'll have a 100 or so extra daily visitors.

Overall I'd say CSOTD has been a success for me and with the help of forum, friends and mailing lists has been bigger success than I envisaged. If you think you have a cool site I would highly recommend investing the $27 review fee.

 

One word bro............ NICE!

 

That's an awesome AAR (after actions review) dct; thanks for sharing your experiences, lessons learned, etc.

If the site of the year requires another round of voting - you know we're there. Also, if it is and you've a few days notice, shoot me an email - we'll publicize the hell out of it on some other places too for some extra help

 

I will defenetely give CSOTD a go some time next week. Do all sites get published for a day or is it possible to lose that $27?

 

It is possible to lose the $27, but if you think your site is cool I'd certainly take an educated risk.

 

It sounds like a good ROI ($27 cost --> about $100 revenue), plus other less tangible benefits. For ROI, how does this compare to other traffic-boosting techniques you've tried?

 

Well, I can't speak for dct, and all sites are different, but I did a press release on my site that was more expensive but had about the same level of results - so his route seems more advantageous.

Although, I'll likely wait until after the first of the year to submit - his score is so damned high I dare not try to compete

 

So wait..you have to pay and then wait two weeks..assuming they even accept your site? Rip-off!

 

er, take a look at what Google thinks of you....

http://www.google.com/search?q=IamNed

Do you mean....

 

It's always good to hear about positive experiences with companies like this. I don't have a domain right now to submit, but I might someday and I'll give them a try.

 

Yikes. That's scary. Maybe Google has god complex.

 

dct, your stats are very similar to mine, your link will stay up forever on the still cool/november 2005 page. the sept. 2005 page where mine is is a pr 4.

One thing you did not mention is all the other links you receive from people that like your site, so not only was it financial beneficial, it's a good link building campaign.

I'm still getting about 50 uniques/day from them.

I'm hoping for the site of the year they select the top site each month as I won in Sept.(nowhere near your score, but I only voted for myself once)

As for iamned's comments, to get turned done by CSOTD, the site would have to suck pretty bad IMHO.

 

Thanks for the great review! Sounds like a good deal if your site's accepted. I'm sure some of us are already having plans to submit sites.

 

dct, I'm glad for you, happy I was able to help

 

Very cool dct. Nice site too... Grats on the extra $ and visitors.

 

Thanks, nice sig you have there Bazkaz