Although I’ve heard Google doesn’t allow publishers to provide Adsense stats, I wanted to give an update on FuelAssistance.com, the site that was built for me by my friend Bradley at Site Graduate. I launched the site a few weeks ago, and I blogged about it in a “5 With… Bradley Epstein.”

So far, the site has done very well.  With the exception of the 2 days around when I posted a link to it from my blog (which received much more traffic than normal), search engine traffic has grown from 0 to around 22%, mostly from MSN, but also from Yahoo and Google.  People are using the following keywords to successfully find the site (among others), “fuel assistance,” “home energy assistance program,” “free weatherize home,” “weatherize,” “federal fuel assistance,” “ma. low income financial assistance,” and “fuelassistance.com.”

Revenue is also up quite dramatically, although the site was making less than $.15 per day as a parked page. Once the site achieves a higher ranking in Google, which can be attributed to SEO activities of Site Graduate and link building, I think traffic will grow even more.  Also, the revenue per click seems to be much higher than it was when it was parked, which is a nice surprise, as sometimes the opposite happens.

Because of the success of FuelAssistance.com, I  decided to work with SG on another geodomain that I own, BerkeleyHeights.com (Berkeley Heights, NJ). At the moment, the site gets very little traffic – just under 1 unique per day, and it makes just a few dollars per month.  I did some keyword research, and I found that quite a few people were searching for various things in Berkeley Heights.

Since Berkeley Heights is a community of about 15,000 people and is 30 minutes from Manhattan, I felt this name would be perfect for a mini site. IMO, it’s not big enough for a full site like I’ve done with Burbank and Lowell, but it’s perfect to capture low-hanging fruit traffic. The site isn’t fully developed yet, so if you are interested, you can watch it as it grows.

In addition to the mini-site and SEO work that Site Graduate will do, I also plan to add my own content based on some keyword research that I do.  This will keep the site growing, which is something the search engines like to see. Ultimately, I plan to sell this geodomain, but I think the traffic and revenue will be a major contributor to its value.

If you have a site developed by Site Graduate and want to share some of the results, feel free to leave a comment for others to see. I am trying to determine which of my domain names will be next for them to develop – perhaps SaveTheDates.com.

Skip Hoagland and his team have announced the launch of Portland.com, a geowebste geared toward resident and visitors of Portland, Oregon. Portland.com is a part of GeoDomains New Media family of Companies, which includes other great geowebsites such as Atlanta.com, BuenosAires.com, HiltonHead.com, and MyrtleBeach.com.

Press Release:

Nov 17, 2008 – Portland.com today announced the launch of their newly redesigned website that provides information to visitors and residents of Portland, Oregon.  After one month of development and content building, new site offers thousands of additional pages and features.

For visitors to Portland, the new site offers information about attractions, lodging and things to do along with reviews and ratings.   “We want to provide as much information as possible to the tourist to Portland, whether they are traveling for leisure,  visiting family and friends, or for those seeking information for business travel,” said Jeremia Froyland, the Operations and Marketing Director for Portland.com.

“We believe that we owe it to the community and visitor’s to be the one-stop site for any and all information on Portland, Oregon,” Froyland noted. “With the re-launch of Portland.com, we have integrated a myriad of features that make finding information about Portland as easy as possible.  From events to business listings to community interaction, we believe we have put a world of knowledge at a visitor’s fingertips.”

In addition to providing information for tourists and visitors, the new site offers many local and community features that provide information to residents of the “City of Roses.”  Technical & Operations Director Josh Stauffer noted “We have filled the site with useful information about real estate, neighborhoods, community events and you can now find thousands of business that are located in Portland.  With many of the business listings we have not only built in features that allow ratings and reviews, but we also have uploaded descriptions, maps, hours of operation and several other features that provide a great experience for visitors to Portland.com.”

As part of the site’s effort to build and enhance the community, they are also offering free event listings, free business listings, free classified ads and the ability to post and submit your press releases for free.  Stauffer continued “We want to build and support this great city as much as we possibly can.”

Froyland added “Additionally we are very big on supporting the GeoDomain (domains that are geo-specific in nature) industry through our continued support and promotion of Associated Geos, which is a network of city, state and country sites.  By providing visitors to all of our sites with useful, helpful information, each member of Associated Geos is helping build the new frontier for local and visitor information online.

About Portland.com

http://www.Portland.com offers information for residents and visitors of Portland, Oregon on their website.  With information about hotels, real estate, news, attractions and businesses, they cater to online users who seek any information about Portland, Oregon.