A year ago I wrote how the website I Got Uggs! began. Since then it has done well. I interviewed the proprietor recently.
Since our previous conversation about I Got Uggs! (April 2008), what’s happened with the site?
A lot more page views. On average, approximately 6,000 more. I’ve also increased revenue greatly by adding some revenue producing advertising. When we last spoke I was only using Google Adsense, but now I’m using three more sources.
How did you increase page views?
The first thing I did was change some keywords in my heading. For example, I added the words “Buy UGG Boots on Sale”. By doing that alone I got an increase of almost 2,000 hits overnight. The second thing I did was join three affiliate programs: Amazon Associates, Chitika, and ShareaSale. When someone buys a pair of UGG boots from the site, I get between 7 and 10% commission. Furthermore, I get money from other websites that want to place an advertisement on the site, and I charge them a monthly fee based on the number of page views using a formula I found on the ‘net. Now since, I changed the keywords, if you type “uggs” or “ugg boots” into Google, I Got UGGs! is on the first page or number 1.
What were page views before the increases?
I was getting an average of 1,800 page views per day in September and early October. That number went to close to 4,000 page views per day on October 4, and then to averaging 6,000 page views per day beginning October 5.
You get significant income from both I Got Uggs! and I Got Converse!?
I’m getting more from I Got Uggs, but it’s going down as the weather gets warmer, but I Got Converse is going up everyday. I Got Uggs is showing some seasonal changes in terms of the income stream, but I’m praying that I Got Converse will eventually pick up the full slack.
You hired an assistant so you would have time to write a book. What does your assistant do? What do you pay him/her? How did you hire him/her?
She currently scans pictures, looks for pictures in the tabloids, and proofreads for me, in addition to other things like going to the post office and make 99 cent latte runs to the Dunkin’ Donuts on 8th avenue. More importantly, I’m training her to do the postings for both sites.
I pay her $10 per hour and she works about ten hours per week. She’s actually a Landmark [High School] student [where he teaches]. Despite being a straight A student, she wrote a paper on wanting to be a personal assistant as a career goal. Another teacher told me about her, so I offered her the opportunity to try it out. Thank God, she’s awesome and she loves it! She’s actually my 5th assistant. The others didn’t work out for various reasons.
You still have your teaching job, right?
Yes, I’m still teaching, but I’m looking to do the blogs and writing full-time after this school year ends. At the most, I plan on teaching part-time at a college, but not full-time anymore.
If you are looking to get out of the UC system and/or are looking for a new school to teach at, this may sound odd, but the junior college up here in Santa Rosa might be a pretty good option. It is recognized as one of the top ten junior colleges in the country and pay is allegedly competitive to what you’d see elsewhere in the state. I’ve known more than one instructor who preferred teaching there over anywhere in the UC or state system. Many of the professors are UC transfers and teach classes that are on par or more difficult than what you’d see at that level. From my experience, many of the classes I took there were actually better than what I took at UC Davis.
It’s a good gig if you’re just looking to teach a few classes part time.