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Drudge Report style site

Rem

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Here is my latest experiment:
Camo Underground - Hunting and Second Amendment News and Information

With the latest talk about ugly sites, I decided to experiment in my industry by creating a Drudge Report style site but focus on hunting, outdoors, and 2nd amendment topics 99% of the time.

Also with owning a blog network in the hunting and outdoor industry I can periodically link to blog posts that are newsworthy.

I haven't had this launched more than 48 hours and I have some loyal readers already.

Will keep you posted on how well this goes.
 
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Rem

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Update: In about 48 hours I have had a couple thousand impressions. Not bad for a new site with only a page and no "real" content. Just outgoing links.

I have 3 people who have been sending me news info. One of them used to write for Outdoor Life and the other 2 are bloggers.

Will continue to network and add decent links.

I have spent a lot of time adding magazine and news sites to my Google Reader. When an article comes in that is relevant I put up the link.

It's possible that the first month could generate around 25K impressions. Peanuts but not bad for a launch in the outdoor, hunting, industry.
 

jazzfreak11

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Sounds like you have:

1. a market with a highly devoted audience
2. a good method to add content
3. plenty of ways to turn it around to benefit you (and your blog network)

Sounds great!

Lately I'm being schooled with all this ugly site stuff. I'm amazed at the effectiveness of an ugly site.

It's fine, design was never my thing anyways. Just gotta outsource that stuff and focus on what I do best.
 

Jonleehacker

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One of the cool things that Drudge Report does is to take a "snapshot" and archive the page every hour or so.

This is great for historical purposes, is interesting to people to look back and it great for attracting search engine traffic.
 
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Rem

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Quick update:

Been going strong on this for 2 weeks. Looks like over 15,000 hits to the site in the first 2 weeks. The last 3 days have been real busy.

If the site keeps up, next month will see 60,000 +

Hope to keep providing value.
 

Rem

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Right now? It doesn't haha

I need to build more traffic. Once I hit a quarter of a million hits monthly I can probably start getting some small level sponsors.

I have a google ad up right now making me about 2 cents per day :urock2:
 
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hakrjak

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Haha, ;) That's what I was afraid of! And you have to update this site by hand each day when new news & blogs come out or what? Maybe it auto-updates in a somewhat automated way?

Cheers,

- Hakrjak
 

Rem

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Nope manual labor. I am defying all odds.

A) No content
B) Sending people AWAY from my site via outgoing links
C) No RSS feed (biggy)

And yet, I am on task to garner more in page views for the month than my most active blog on the Skinny Moose network.

Interesting. It's a challenge. I subscribe to news feeds all over the web and the news comes to me. Every half hour or so I check my reader and if anything new comes out that I think is interesting I slap up a link. Then back to my other work.

It's an experiment. We'll see.
 

biophase

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Nope manual labor. I am defying all odds.

A) No content
B) Sending people AWAY from my site via outgoing links
C) No RSS feed (biggy)

And yet, I am on task to garner more in page views for the month than my most active blog on the Skinny Moose network.

Interesting. It's a challenge. I subscribe to news feeds all over the web and the news comes to me. Every half hour or so I check my reader and if anything new comes out that I think is interesting I slap up a link. Then back to my other work.

It's an experiment. We'll see.

Wow, that's crazy. I thought for sure it was automated.
 
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Rem

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UPDATE: Hit just over 90K impressions for the 1st full month (September). I am slightly down this month. Last month instapundit linked to me so I got a nice flood of traffic for a few days. Was really nice.

I have joined up with a 3rd party ad agency to place banner ads on my site, removing all Google Ads... It's a little more money. Gaining some good loyal followers as well and getting about 1 or 2 emails each day with people sending me news or comments. Would like to see where things end up in the next 6 months.
 

stevenmac2

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Sounds like you are progressing well. Do you think there are any implications to be concerned about in terms of copyright since it resembles or copies the look & feel of the drudge report?

also, who are you using to host your page? you are doing pure html right?
 

Rem

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There is no concern for copyright directly related to the design of the site. I do have to be careful of the pictures I choose to use on the site as some are copyrighted by AP for instance. I try to use generic ones or ones that have been released to be used by publishers.

I use idologic.com for my hosting. They are really good with customer service and usually get back to me within 15 minutes if I have any questions. Been with them for a couple years now.

As for the page it is all strictly html, but I do use a style sheet that is very short.
 
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Icy

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Just want to grats on this so far. I like seeing how it's going.

Quick question though, how come you have a gmail account for the email instead of *name*@camounderground.com?
 

Rem

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I like gmail and I know I can forward it over no problem but I don't think people care anymore if your email address matches your site name. I also think it depends on the business you are in. If you spend a lot of time with clients and are trying to be hospitable then it's nice to match your email with your site. But I am more of a news site, collecting info, pasting it on my site. It's quick and easy and not a lot of hospitableness :)
 

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Rem,

Love the site. It looks great. I actually just launched a Drudge Report style site myself yesterday. I'm focusing on business news, personal finance, and entrepreneurship. Check it out here: http://www.financialbin.com

I was wondering what you did to get your traffic. Have you used Google Adwords or something? Is it mostly from networking you describe? I'm just curious since I am just starting out.

Any insight you can offer would be great.

Thanks,

David
 

MJ DeMarco

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Guys the above post is OK ... known contributor and person doing something.
 

Rem

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FinBin,

Let me first say that it is not fastlane nor will it ever be. I don't want to shred your dreams and maybe you can find a way with your site. After studying and learning the fastlane principles I realized my site was cool but not something that gave me much leverage. It was kind of hard for me since i build up a nice audience but I dumped it. I haven't updated the site in over 2 weeks. I really enjoyed it and thought about doing it for fun, as a hobby but I had to be real honest with myself. I had other better hobbies than to work at a website. I pitched the project to concentrate on 2 businesses. One is super fastlane which implements every single principle. I have another business I have been working on which implements 2 of the fastlane principles and have determined I will continue to build that one to sell off.

Now with that out of the way, I did it mostly through networking and very little advertising. I was able to get bloggers to link to me because I provided news stories from the bloggers. win/win. On my second month I had Instapundit link to my site and it simply said FIREARMS NEWS. I was basically getting slammed with traffic for about 3 days and then maybe gained a dozen loyals. Leaving out that rush I was probably getting only about 30k-40k page views per month and a lot were repeat visitors checking in. Maybe only a few thousand uniques.

But I mostly networked with other bloggers and online magazines and linked to them.

I do feel like I let a lot of people down since after 3-4 short months I gave it up but I knew it was the best thing for me and my dreams. I had to be truthful and move on.

I am glad you like. I may sell it off for something cheap. :)
 

CommonCents

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There's a ton of competition of business news headline sites all over, yahoo, google, marketwatch etc.... How are you going to differentiate?

for example: seekingalpha or zerohedge go beyond headlines w/ original content and views you don't get from just news headlines

good luck!
 

valuegiver

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Unique views or page views?

Quick update:

Been going strong on this for 2 weeks. Looks like over 15,000 hits to the site in the first 2 weeks. The last 3 days have been real busy.

If the site keeps up, next month will see 60,000 +

Hope to keep providing value.
 
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valuegiver

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His site is a niche news site which doesn't compete with all the portals you mention.

There's a ton of competition of business news headline sites all over, yahoo, google, marketwatch etc.... How are you going to differentiate?

for example: seekingalpha or zerohedge go beyond headlines w/ original content and views you don't get from just news headlines

good luck!
 

TheFinBin

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Rem,

What you say about our sites not being Fastlane is exactly what I'm worried about. Same goes about the lack of leverage. I have been kicking ideas around about how to automate it and still maintain the integrity of what I want to do. I came across this site -- NewsNow (NewsNow.co.uk > The UK's #1 news portal) -- as a possible template. Possibly using RSS feeds. I think I need to learn some PHP and Javascript to get it the way I want it.

Good luck with those other two projects. I would love to hear about them and how you're progressing if you're willing to share.

I will reach out to bloggers and network as well. Those are some good ideas.

That's a shame about letting people down. But, hey, it was successful for the time you did it. If it's not for you, you did the right thing in moving on.

I appreciate your help and insight.

Thanks,

Dave



FinBin,

Let me first say that it is not fastlane nor will it ever be. I don't want to shred your dreams and maybe you can find a way with your site. After studying and learning the fastlane principles I realized my site was cool but not something that gave me much leverage. It was kind of hard for me since i build up a nice audience but I dumped it. I haven't updated the site in over 2 weeks. I really enjoyed it and thought about doing it for fun, as a hobby but I had to be real honest with myself. I had other better hobbies than to work at a website. I pitched the project to concentrate on 2 businesses. One is super fastlane which implements every single principle. I have another business I have been working on which implements 2 of the fastlane principles and have determined I will continue to build that one to sell off.

Now with that out of the way, I did it mostly through networking and very little advertising. I was able to get bloggers to link to me because I provided news stories from the bloggers. win/win. On my second month I had Instapundit link to my site and it simply said FIREARMS NEWS. I was basically getting slammed with traffic for about 3 days and then maybe gained a dozen loyals. Leaving out that rush I was probably getting only about 30k-40k page views per month and a lot were repeat visitors checking in. Maybe only a few thousand uniques.

But I mostly networked with other bloggers and online magazines and linked to them.

I do feel like I let a lot of people down since after 3-4 short months I gave it up but I knew it was the best thing for me and my dreams. I had to be truthful and move on.

I am glad you like. I may sell it off for something cheap. :)
 
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TheFinBin

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CC,

You know, you're right about all of those sites you list. However, I'm trying to style my site as more of a financial news aggregator. I think it lends itself more to Google or Yahoo. But, what I'm trying to do is focus the links I post on strictly US Markets, Global Markets, some General Business, Personal Finance, and Entrepreneurship. Plus, like Drudge and Rem's site, I actually pick the articles myself currently rather than have a computer do it. So, I think that brings a more personal element to it.

However, I'm open to expanding the concept to being a full financial news aggregator. I would want to put it together similar to NewsNow -- as I mention in my reply to Rem. So, it would still be strictly financial news -- but I'd be able to automate it.

What do you think? I'm open to criticism.

Thanks,

Dave

There's a ton of competition of business news headline sites all over, yahoo, google, marketwatch etc.... How are you going to differentiate?

for example: seekingalpha or zerohedge go beyond headlines w/ original content and views you don't get from just news headlines

good luck!
 

TheFinBin

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VG,

Yeah, I think you hit it spot on. I'm not looking to go "toe-to-toe" with Yahoo or Google. The concept I'm looking to go for is more focused as you refer to.

Thanks,

Dave

His site is a niche news site which doesn't compete with all the portals you mention.
 

Rem

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Good luck with those other two projects. I would love to hear about them and how you're progressing if you're willing to share.

I will probably expound more on what I am doing after the New Year. I would love to share with everyone but I sort of feel like I am promoting myself haha. I don't want to break any rules. I guess I could start a progress thread. We will see.
 
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Kak

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Put some dates by the links and I will be all over that.
 

puckman

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looks good. FYI, Drudge is completely manual, he manually updates his site pretty much 24/7, I heard him talk about it. He basically searches the web and posts the links he likes the most, this is no automation behind his curation. He also has a small team that does this, Andrew Breitbart was one a while ago. Plus a lot of his numbers are inflated by the auto refresh every 15 seconds on the site.

full disclosure, drudge is my number one news source. its worth noting though that for the amount of traffic he gets, he is incredibly under monetized. if you notice most of his ads are ad networks and the occasional gold broker. he gets more traffic than most websites you will visit today, but will earn drastically less than other sites of comprable size.

You may want to consider putting ads in the content/links section, play around with different sizes/formats. Also, you should try to get the links to show above the fold.
 

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