Random NYSkiBlog Stuff That You Might Not Care About

[MarzNC]

New Hampshire and Massachusetts are at least as or more relevant than Quebec. Even New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Connecticut.

Berkshires for sure.

 

[Harvey]

What are the variables that determine relevance?

 

[Brownski]

Likelihood of NYers and NYSB’ers skiing there. Berkshires, PA, CT & NJ are full of day trippers from NY.

 

[MarzNC]

What are the variables that determine relevance?

For a regional forum, driving distance from the majority of regular readers and posters is a major factor for which ski areas/resorts are of greatest interest. Given how small the states in New England are from NJ to the north and east, CT, Berkshires, and southern NH seem as relevant as NJ and eastern PA.

SkiSoutheast started as SkiNC in the mid-1990s. Expanded to include a few other states in the region by 2004 or so. The core members who have been around for 20+ years mostly live in NC, eastern TN, or Atlanta. WV resorts are included even though the drive is 6+ hours because Snowshoe is the only "destination resort" with more than 150 acres in the region. VA is included mostly for Wintergreen because the drive time is about the same as the NC mountains for folks in the NC Triangle metropolitan area (Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill). The Triangle has a lot of transplants from other regions who grew up skiing. People drive from FL to ski in NC or WV, but they rarely post.

DCSki covers VA, WV, and all of PA. Pittsburgh folks often make the drive to WV to ski at Timberline, Canaan Valley, Whitegrass (nordic), and Snowshoe. Nobody on DCSki bothers to drive south to ski Winterplace in WV or the NC ski areas/resorts. While a few venture to Vermont once a year, there is little interest driving to the Catskills.

Size of a ski area/resort, vertical, or the number of lifts doesn't matter for a regional forum.

 

[Harvey]

Ok so distance.

I've always felt that from a pure skiing perspective all that matters is cost of travel (distance or time or expense) and snow quality. (Yes terrain, but I'd rather ski pow laps all day at Snow Ridge vs riding hardpacked groomers at Gore.)

From a writing perspective I believe the editor/writers passion for the subject matter is also a crucial variable.

For me, in order of interest, in the east, regardless of distance:

NY
VT
Quebec/Maine (tie)
WV
Massachusetts
Tux, Wildcat and Cannon
New Jersey
Rest of NH
CT, PA
Alabama

To me Quebec is like Catskills, except it never rains.

I know a Catskill ski family that treats Tremblant like their second home mountain. Christmas rain? Tremblant!

One other factor I should point out, I've made promises about travel to Quebec, and I intend to keep them.

 

[Harvey]

Nothing like a little snowfall to drive traffic.

2500 visits in a day is pretty decent for us. I remember when 2200 was the record for more than 5 years. Now we hit 2000 many times a year. Honestly it's the directory that drives traffic, especially when it snows in NY or VT.

Within directory, a lot of it is the weather data section...

Eastern Weather and Climate Data for Skiers

Historical weather, climate and topography.

nyskiblog.com

It may be stupid to share this, and it is probably nobody's business, but I wonder if anyone is curious about the ad revenue here.
I don't mind sharing it, because it is so comically low.

---

Here it is in summary:

So around Christmas, those sessions were netting maybe $2 a day. Last 3 days were each $7+.

Best month ever was $220, some December about five years ago.

Even with that being true, there are maybe 10 months total, over the last 16 years, that have exceeded $100. Almost all of them were Decembers. There is much more advertising competition at Christmas.

So now that I'm retired my costs go way up. A guy I worked with was giving me free hosting. The annual cost is 2x the ad revenue.

I'm not asking for help now. Not monetary anyway. I do ask you to please disable ad blockers, and encourage others to do so too.

My Goal: Now that I have some time I'm going to work on doubling the organic (google) traffic. With more content. Probably more weather content.

Ideas welcome. I'll do the keyword research.

 

[Ripitz]

You’ve got the stickers. Where are the mugs?

 

[Harvey]

Zelda wants tee shirts.

 

[tirolski]

Where are the mugs?

Yup.
C’mon Harv, ya can spin em up as a retiree.
Ya should have more free time on yer hands.
Might be time to put the clay back on em.
It’s like riding a bike. Spin to win.

 

[Green light]

Long sleeve tee shirts