Determining an article's sucess

Okay, as a (recent! yay!) Clout 10, I should know this, but frankly, I don't. Some of my articles are very, very successful in terms of page views. With the execption of one, these have all been articles I published for display only.

How do you determine if an article is successful vs a dud? My high page view articles are exceptions and I know that. Because of that, I have a distorted idea of what a good PV article is. My run-of-the-mill articles I wrote for upfront payment simply don't do well. They get maybe 100 views in a month? Is this good? Is this what's "normal" on AC?

Last month, I received a page view bonus of $340. I'm already due $210 for November and the month isn't over yet. This is only attributed to articles I write on certain, popular topics.

I don't even know if I do SEO correctly. I must be doing something right but I doubt myself because my lame articles like, "5 Great Whatever in Whatever USA" just don't bring in the PVs.

And another thing--why does AC pay for these "unique" articles, but it's the common "crap" that gets the PVs? There's a reason why no one writes about certain topics--because no one searches for it or wants to know about it. Ergo, no pvs.

I've been on AC for less than a year, so I'm still trying to see what works, but my high PV articles set a high standard for the rest of my stuff, and I need to know what's a GOOD number.

HappyHolidays said:

Okay, as a (recent! yay!) Clout 10, I should know this, but frankly, I don't. Some of my articles are very, very successful in terms of page views. With the execption of one, these have all been articles I published for display only.

How do you determine if an article is successful vs a dud? My high page view articles are exceptions and I know that. Because of that, I have a distorted idea of what a good PV article is. My run-of-the-mill articles I wrote for upfront payment simply don't do well. They get maybe 100 views in a month? Is this good? Is this what's "normal" on AC?

Last month, I received a page view bonus of $340. I'm already due $210 for November and the month isn't over yet. This is only attributed to articles I write on certain, popular topics.

I don't even know if I do SEO correctly. I must be doing something right but I doubt myself because my lame articles like, "5 Great Whatever in Whatever USA" just don't bring in the PVs.

And another thing--why does AC pay for these "unique" articles, but it's the common "crap" that gets the PVs? There's a reason why no one writes about certain topics--because no one searches for it or wants to know about it. Ergo, no pvs.

I've been on AC for less than a year, so I'm still trying to see what works, but my high PV articles set a high standard for the rest of my stuff, and I need to know what's a GOOD number.

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Congrats on your clout level 10. I am currently only at 4 (maybe I should publish more articles instead of staying with just the 7 lol.) But I would also like to know the answers behind these.

I don't know, AC has a strange take on things, actually I found this other site today that is supposed to pay a lot better after you get like 150 page views (doesn't pay at all until then), well I figure I'll see how it goes first and then I can post about it here if its ok, I am still waiting for my first article to be approved there.

HappyHolidays said:

Okay, as a (recent! yay!) Clout 10, I should know this, but frankly, I don't. Some of my articles are very, very successful in terms of page views. With the execption of one, these have all been articles I published for display only.


Congrats, and welcome to the "Blackhat AC Clout 10 Club" Happy Holidays!

^^^ lol coined a new little phrase there


How do you determine if an article is successful vs a dud? My high page view articles are exceptions and I know that. Because of that, I have a distorted idea of what a good PV article is. My run-of-the-mill articles I wrote for upfront payment simply don't do well. They get maybe 100 views in a month? Is this good? Is this what's "normal" on AC?



1) There's no exact science to it other than to take the time to use Google Adwords Keyword tool and check the total monthly search volume for the article's keywords. This will be your indicator for search interest in your article topic. Don't forget to change the setting from "broad" search to "exact" search.

2) What your shooting for is a PVA (page view average) ratio of 1000 views for each published article. This is optimum, but certainly not mandatory. To do this just divide your total page view count by total published article count.

You should be able to raise your PVA dramatically by using multiple Twitter accounts and an automation app like Hootsuite for auto-posting. I explain it in more detail in the "made $30" thread. The more Twitter accounts you use, the more exposure your content is going to get.



Last month, I received a page view bonus of $340. I'm already due $210 for November and the month isn't over yet. This is only attributed to articles I write on certain, popular topics.

I don't even know if I do SEO correctly. I must be doing something right but I doubt myself because my lame articles like, "5 Great Whatever in Whatever USA" just don't bring in the PVs.



This is where AC simply has it's head up its ass lol. Everybody that I know (me included) gets their highest view counts from articles that are not exactly the best performers for upfronts. There's no rhyme nor reason for their decision making on this or else they wouldn't get it wrong so much of the time

Again, it really comes down to how eye catching and grabby your title is. Even a boring, mundane piece of content will get the clickthrough/view with a catchy title. We really don't care much what the viewer thinks about the content itself at that point, we just want to draw their interest enough to get their clickthrough.



And another thing--why does AC pay for these "unique" articles, but it's the common "crap" that gets the PVs? There's a reason why no one writes about certain topics--because no one searches for it or wants to know about it. Ergo, no pvs.



Like I was saying above, their review process is highly flawed in this respect. The best thing to do is make sure that you're using your keywords correctly, then work on making yout titles grab the viewers eyes. If it's natural to add it in (since you're writing the articles yourself), you can also use LSI (Latent Semantic Indexing) when possible. If you aren't familiar, it's basically adding secondary topical keywords. Here's a pretty good resource about it. http://www.knowledgesearch.org/lsi/lsa_definition.htm



I've been on AC for less than a year, so I'm still trying to see what works, but my high PV articles set a high standard for the rest of my stuff, and I need to know what's a GOOD number.



Realistically, between 200-300 views a month per article is a good number but again, you're shooting for a PVA of 1000 per piece.

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Hope this helped a bit, and keep rockin!

You're doing great.

Special Congrats to you!

I really admire those A*C writers who earn their Success solely through the "DO" (Display Only) option. A Clout-10 really makes itself proud when talented writers like you (there aren't too many though) achieve it SOLELY this way!

HappyHolidays said:

My run-of-the-mill articles I wrote for upfront payment simply don't do well. They get maybe 100 views in a month? Is this good? Is this what's "normal" on AC?

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Ha! I guess (could be way off though) A*C secretly takes those 1K views away from the writer for paying them 1.50 (and proportionately for higher payments)! Hence most of their writers mention this ET phenomenon!

J?K... not really!

I divided the total views by total articles. Now I'm depressed! My average is in the 700 range. That's definitely below the 1,000 range.

So.. here's my question... If AC pays you $6 upfront and they like you to generate 1,000 views for a maximum of $2 ppv that is $8 an article. So.. that would be .008 per pv they think is acceptable.

If I'm falling in that range for total earned and total ppv generated.. do I need to worry about my overall pv count?

OR

If my pv cost to AC is significantly higher than the say .008 ppv should I be posting some ppv only articles that will hopefully generate high volume to lower my overall ppv cost to AC in hopes of higher upfronts?

I hope this makes sense. LOL

The total views correspond to the overall period -- it begins from your 1st submitted article, and the period can span well over a year or two, or even more. So the total views isn't the deciding factor that decides your current payment IMHO. Logically this should be true. So there must be another factor that sets your current payments. It could be your last 'n' number of articles and their total views. So just check your last 2 months articles' views. Find the average views for that period. This should give you a better picture of what your articles are worth to AC. Then do the twicking on your next articles for getting more upfront payment, or if the total views for this period is less than satisfactory, then you should be expecting to get less upfront from AC in near future.

So just set a test period, for example, the last 2 months. Get the number of articles that you've submitted and their total views generated. Then do the calculations (Tot views divided by tot articles).

Also from this set, find those articles that are not producing even avg views. If they are more in numbers, then you need to look minutely into where you are losing and what you are missing -- check minutely your writing style, your selection of topics, your selection of keywords, your selection of titles, etc.

Other uncontrollable factors can be the change in the quality of editors (they can be the biggest stumbling blocks on your success path), or even getting more competition from within and outside AC.

With this method, you can set new higher standards for yourself. If you do this periodically, you'll find that you are in control of not just what you're writing, but you can also somehow control how AC treats your articles. I am of the opinion that whatever I do, I should be in control of my actions and not the opposite!

Hope this helps!


P.S.: Also, by submitting only "DO" articles, you are actually doing AC more favors. They are getting some more free clicks to their ads. This is only a part of the overall strategy. The best part would be to set new highs for yourself and forget who is benefiting out of it. You have chosen AC to earn your b&b

Why don't you take some of your best articles and re-write them slightly so they are unique again, and then use them on your own niche website. If you're an accomplished writer, you can even sell your digital products, or sell aff. products and earn substantially more, and also become partly self-dependent. FYI, a great website can have between 5 ~ 5000 great web pages and also doesn't cost a lot...

Well, going by the theory of the past 2 months of articles, I'm in the average range of the 300's instead of the 700's for the entire life of the account. I think I'm going to focus on writing as best as I can and let the chips fall where they fall. All this analyzing has gotten myself frustrated. If I go by the numbers it will get depressing. I'll just focus on keeping the dollars coming in and hope it gets better.

OK, don't get depressed! I request you to check for the last 6 to 8 months, divided in 2-month periods. So that's effective 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 months. Then recheck and compare for those periods. I guess, the last 2-months results haven't yet stabilized, so you're getting a low reading. But with this new method, you can be pretty sure about what's happening exactly with your account. Also, with such a method, you can really be spot-on, or nearly-spot-on with your analysis!

Hope the method is not too time consuming for you.

And I also hope this really helps you this time!

And, guess what! Your result also means that if you remove those yet-unstabilized results from the overall avg, your real avg is hovering in the vicinity of 1K. Isn't that a boost to your spirit? Statistics is a funny game, it actually has at least 2 meanings to it, depending the way you look at it!

Also, there are other factors... your earlier articles aren't sleeping! They are still producing a trickle of views, and over so many months, that trickle has formed into a nice collection!

So you have heard this:
Statistics are like a bi***i. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital.
LOL



God bless!

srb888 I actually want to hug you, your post has just given me an idea how to increase my PPV.

Hey I did that and it is higher. Thank you for the suggestion! My spirit is uplifted.