We published 44 articles this year or almost one per week. This is up from just 21 articles in 2009. If the trend continues i hope to have 65 articles posted in 2011. Having said this, my aim is always quality, not quantity. When people search for round valley fishing information – I want them to wind up on a site that answers their questions, I want them to have a great experience, I want them to be on this site!
We started running ads on the site August 14, 2010 and generated $14 in ad revenue through Google adwords. Google’s contextual ad selection didn’t really target our site content till mid September and I’m expecting to see our annual revenue for 2011 to be around $50. My goal with ads is really to pay for annual hosting ~$100yr and paid content from contributing authors. If you are an experienced Round Valley Fisherperson and would like to publish an article on this site, shoot me an email – roundvalleyfishing@gmail.com
We have 94 registered users on the site and over 1600 unique visitors visit the site and forums every month. In the last 6months we have had over 9,000 unique visitors and 30,000 pageviews and all our numbers continue to rise.
Our most popular fishing stories in 2010 were as follows:
- NJ state record American Eel caught – eaten! (This story was picked up by Field and Stream as well as NJ.com boosting its popularity)
- Getting a 1975 Mercury 110 outboard running (This story was popular because it really had nothing to do with RV but everyone who ever tried to start an old outboard.)
- Clean up at Round Valley by ‘sweeping’ the shorelines (Our first article by a contributing author proved to be quite successful in terms of the number of people who read the article. Expect to see more articles from John Korn.)
- Flat-line trolling bass and trout (Pretty sure this got popular because more people are searching for Bass information than Trout)
- 25 pound Lake Trout caught at Round Valley (This is popular for obvious reasons – its a notable catch! It was picked up by Lots of other fishing sites and news outlets.)
Looking ahead to 2011 I just want to say thank you for all the readers here and as we get more traffic to the site I expect to see more commenting in the articles and more participation in forums. If there is ever a feature or article you’d like to see on the site I can certainly try implement it. If there’s any offline features you like to see i can do that as well. I’ve been toying with some ideas, let me know if any interest you:
- A classifieds section where you can post an item for sale for $1 and it sits there till you sell it.
- Round Valley Reservoir contour map – I actually had an artist friend create one with me, but I’m waiting to figure out how to put it up on this site.
- Clothing? I created a Round Valley Fishing hooded sweatshirt but am pretty convinced my friends and I are the only ones who will wear it. Maybe not. I’ll put it up and see what happens OR find me at GSOSS this year and I’ll be wearing it.
- Round Valley Bass fishing tournament – anyone know how to get the ball rolling on this? I think it would be a hit.
- Free Monthly electronic newsletter of the top articles for the month.
- Replace Google ads with advertising from local businesses.
- Lure of the month – every month I or a contributor write about a lure and then we give it away! (I would have done this already but funds are limited)
- Better photo gallery (I took the old one down because it was just useless). Maybe a reader photo gallery?
- Videos – really want a video section. I will do at least one video this year.
That’s it. I hope to see you all on the water or ice real soon.
Cheers and Happy New Year!
Robert Ivan – Editor and Publisher of RoundValleyFishing.com
