anthony
Founder
I have made a very slight amendment to the donation goal, calling it annual goal now. Why?
I want to incorporate some marketing costs into the annual running costs, as required.
I have brought the goal back to run from 1 Jan to 31 Dec. It was set to renew at 27 Jan, so I shaved off 27 days to bring it into a true annual cycle.
Until 2016, I had never performed SEO on this site to intentionally bring more relevant traffic to the site. As such, normally, year on year our traffic was around the 1.2 to 1.4 million mark annually. Slight increases or decreases. Think of 2016 like a personal trial to what I would like to engage further year on year now.
Handing the site over to @joeylittle to administrate has allowed me to work behind the scenes at marketing and other site technical aspects. The result from a couple thousand US$ and a whole lot of my time, is I increased traffic by 900,000 for the year, whilst slightly dropping the bounce rate. That means, more accurate people are finding the site, getting what they want, then leaving.
For every member, it means that you're getting far more diversity in responses now than ever before, and that was the entire aim of my 2016 project.
Oh, I've also reduced the overall server costs even though we have more traffic, from experimenting and such to work out optimal solutions.
2015 Traffic
1.42 million
2016 Traffic with Marketing
2.29 million
My "want" is to raise the annual goal to $5000, thus covering the server and some of the marketing costs to continue to drive more users here to increase member response.
It isn't a huge jump from our raised funds as is, and means I can continue to build the site for its members overall benefit. The alternative is members hate the concept, I do nothing further, and allow the site traffic to fall down over 2017 and thus less member responses ongoing.
What I would additionally like to incorporate if a new goal is accepted, is a quarterly raffle prize of US$200 to US$250 as a single prize, second prize lifetime premium membership and third a one year premium membership, to incentivise donations of $5 or more to help with the new goal. Every minimum $5 increment in each quarter buys a ticket, for example.
Member thoughts / feedback / opinions?
Edit: Removed the full stats to remove complicated information.
I want to incorporate some marketing costs into the annual running costs, as required.
I have brought the goal back to run from 1 Jan to 31 Dec. It was set to renew at 27 Jan, so I shaved off 27 days to bring it into a true annual cycle.
Until 2016, I had never performed SEO on this site to intentionally bring more relevant traffic to the site. As such, normally, year on year our traffic was around the 1.2 to 1.4 million mark annually. Slight increases or decreases. Think of 2016 like a personal trial to what I would like to engage further year on year now.
Handing the site over to @joeylittle to administrate has allowed me to work behind the scenes at marketing and other site technical aspects. The result from a couple thousand US$ and a whole lot of my time, is I increased traffic by 900,000 for the year, whilst slightly dropping the bounce rate. That means, more accurate people are finding the site, getting what they want, then leaving.
For every member, it means that you're getting far more diversity in responses now than ever before, and that was the entire aim of my 2016 project.
Oh, I've also reduced the overall server costs even though we have more traffic, from experimenting and such to work out optimal solutions.
2015 Traffic
1.42 million
2016 Traffic with Marketing
2.29 million
My "want" is to raise the annual goal to $5000, thus covering the server and some of the marketing costs to continue to drive more users here to increase member response.
It isn't a huge jump from our raised funds as is, and means I can continue to build the site for its members overall benefit. The alternative is members hate the concept, I do nothing further, and allow the site traffic to fall down over 2017 and thus less member responses ongoing.
What I would additionally like to incorporate if a new goal is accepted, is a quarterly raffle prize of US$200 to US$250 as a single prize, second prize lifetime premium membership and third a one year premium membership, to incentivise donations of $5 or more to help with the new goal. Every minimum $5 increment in each quarter buys a ticket, for example.
Member thoughts / feedback / opinions?
Edit: Removed the full stats to remove complicated information.