HundredFoot

This was probably discussed here before but thought I will put some fresh perspective on the topic for all the new bloggers who just begin their journey.

It's been 1 year since my project partner and I started working on a blog. We had no previous experience on how to promote our content other than through the usual means e.g. social media. So, since we had very little exposure in the social sphere, the launch of the blog was nowhere near spectacular. This was all clear to us that building the network, credibility, viewers etc. takes time.

One thing we had in mind that we counted on as the main source of the traffic was the Google organic traffic. Unfortunately, even though it's been more than 10 months of work and about 50 blog posts written, the traffic is very tiny. I started digging around and one thing that I figured that would be a good move is to apply for the Google's Ad Sense but not to get the ads going but to hope that Google will indirectly shed some light on our traffic problem. The thought was that the site is perhaps missing something that neither makes it ready for traffic nor for the ads program.

Long story short, the site hasn't been accepted for the program and the reason behind this was "scraped content". This was very surprising as all the blog posts we publish are unique. Also, to make sure we don't coincidentally have duplicates, each post is run through copyleaks. Quick Google search revealed that "scraped content" is a common reply from Google and that it might not always mean that the content is directly copied. The niche that you are targeting might be already heavily saturated so adding 100th post on the same topic won't bring much of value to the readers and that was our problem.

Whether you want to be a publisher and put the ads on your site or not you still should keep it in mind if you aim for organic traffic and make sure you don't fall short of the points discussed here. This can affect your ranking and therefore lack of organic traffic.

Here is a summary of why the site can be rejected for AdSense.

1. Scraped content: this includes images, the same topic heavily discussed elsewhere even if uniquely written.

2. Poor navigation and lack of content on pages like about, contact, policy etc.

3. A low number of posts.

4. Short age of the website.

5. Spam-y post titles.

6. If the competition is high i.e. if 1000 websites already discuss the same subjects google won’t allow for more ads in the same space (So therefore why would we think that there is reason to push our ”unique" but heavily discussed content up)

1-6 are the main reasons why you would not get accepted for Google Ads Sense, but we believe this can also affect initially your ranking if there are no other reasons to rank your content higher e.g. strong backlinks.

I've tasked myself some time ago with designing a logo for my website. This is the evolution of the design - or more like a separate concepts (lol) but I'm proud of it as I'm not experienced designer.

https://i.redd.it/53but660bbl21.png

....

Website: HundredFoot.com

Target Audience: Our books and reports aim to improve our readers knowledge in the space of self-improvement, business, and lifestyle.

Background: The concept for the name came from one of the motivational books that we offer. The book describes a case of people that live their life under this invisible 3 foot height ceiling which limits their life, the author tries to present methods to move the invisible ceiling to 1 hundred foot and at the same time shift the imposed limitations. There is of course more to it but...I hope you guys get the idea:)

Logo Concept: I wanted the logo to show the initials of the name and also have some graphical element that would indicate the journey the users can go through to reach a better self.

This is very simple exercise.

I need my fellow IH users to help me figure out how important it is to offer a samples of ebooks on a bookstore. I'm working on my own ebook store (small side project) and would love to hear your opinion on that.

I know you all are busy so to simplify this gentle favour you do for me, please comment with a symbol + or -

Comment (+)
If you like a free sample of the book to ensure you of your purchase

Comment (-)
If you don't need it and you can make up your mind solely after reading the book description and seeing the book cover.

Following up my previous update about adding an Interview section to the HundredFoot.com

What are the main questions you always feel like asking the author of the book you read.

1. What inspired you to write the book?
2. TBC...

Waiting for question suggestions.

Consider adding interview page to HundredFoot. The idea is to run interviews with book authors to help customers make better decisions.

Went ahead and asked my HN fellow readers for opinion on how to progress with the project.
A lot of great hints from the community https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19267418

HundredFoot has passed 10 published books this month.