How do you know that you are successful?

[Anna]

What would your definition of a successful toplist be? A continous increase in hits In/Out? Is your definitionthe same depending on the size 0f the list? How about if you choose HitsIn or Pageview as ranking method?

The reason why I asking is that I do not know if what I am doing is working and I just have to be more patient with my list or if there is some tweaking that has to be done. I know that my list will never compete with the large gaming-toplists when it comes to size since it is a narrow niche toplist, but I still want to know if I am doing things righ^^

 

[Basti]

Well i personally find it a success once more google traffic comes in. That will lead to the needed hits out. Hits in from members are bonus ofcourse, but properbly most leave once they voted.
Independant of how many members you have, having some premium members makes it a success for yourself. That on the other hand might also encourage other sites to join.

Regarding hits in, out ratio. I like it once you get more hits out than hits in. That mean you dont rely on hits in from other members to offer hits out for the rest ( google statement from above )

 

[Anna]

Heh, learned an important lesson here: Every list is unique and comparing is hard if even unnecessary If I should look at the In/Out ratio on my list I am allready a winner ---> In/Out = 0,7. But then that number really doesnt say anything since the no. of hits in and out is embaressingly low....
So, if I try to look at this from a different angle - where do I want to take my list? When do I consider it successful and how do I get there? My definition of success for the list is: a) To land on at least the third page googling on my categories (Using only swedish results and preferably first page) b) Having returning Premium Members and c) Returning advertisers.
The b and c I think I can iron out on my own. But how do I tickle google to rank my list higher?

 

[Basti]

Google rank depends mostly on your # of backlinks and what anchor text is used ( preferable targeted keywords should be included ), as well as onpage seo, think i explained that somewhere in your topic if iam not wrong. Thats why in 0.7 beta we introduced the admin setting to specify that text

 

[Mark]

With my lists I always felt if its making a profit, and those profits are growing, then I am winning Might sound greedy but its an easy metric for me.