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TWO MILLION unique visits to this site. Yes, two million seperate visits, not page refreshes, not 'hits' no bull stats but a real 2 million people have 'passed through the gates' so to speak as measured by Google Analytics.
Add in the 756,000 views of my Youtube and Yahoo video channels and another 350,000 from my other assorted websites and that is over 3 million visits to my sites.
Regardless of what anyone says I consider that a major coup in self promotion from a relatively unknown actor and it has been worth it and it is most definitely helping my career and taking me places....
So 2 million visits to this site and NO traditional media have yet sent any appreciable volume of visitors (nor even a measurable increase in numbers). Wait until I hit some major newspapers and magazines, the numbers will skyrocket, or in April 2011 when "Game of Thrones" airs on HBO. So back to me gloating, or shall we say basking in the rays of my own glory....(yes that is for a certain reader who writes silly poetry to me claiming that my ego is absolutely ginormous). Way back in 2006, in the first article on this site I stated that this site was for self promotion, for gaining leads on acting jobs and as a (relatively) stable monthly income from advertising to help support me between jobs. What do you think? 2 million direct visits - I think that would be well classed as a success in self promotion, another million viewers of my other sites and video channels on top. That is over 3 million people who have now at least heard the name Conan Stevens who would never otherwise have heard of me. That is called building brand recognition. Better yet once my story hits the mainstream traditional media outlets then this site will serve well as a net to capture readers who are more interested in the details of my life and how I made it from a nobody beach bum in Australia to a juniour actor in Thailand to a major action movie star (I'm still working on that, but it is the plan). the site is up and does not require a whole lot of maintenance to continue running. The fact that interested people can come and learn, or just read more about how/why I achieved success will also build on the brand, there is several books worth of material here for free - disjointed though the presentation is. The second stated reason for the site was to help get jobs, I have covered this before and I have had several job offers come through from the Internet - the three most notable were an audition for the Antonio Banderas film "The Big Bang " which I did not work in, and the Indian film "Drona " in which I flew to Mumbia, India to work with Abishek Bachchan and most notably is the effect my intial efforts at internet marketing had on the "A Song of Ice and Fire" fans and their help to secure the role of Gregor Clegane in the HBO show "Game of Thrones" . On top of the actual work offers I would not have received otherwise this website also serves as a personal reference or an indicator of my personality to those Producers/Directors interested in employing me - my personality shows through in most articles on here and I believe that it presents me in somewhat of a good light (well I hope it does). Lastly the advertising income and using the site as a platform to sell my ebooks has been a GREAT help in my acting career - to the point that if I did not have this income I would not have been able to follow my dreams full time for so long... I would have run out of finances long ago. As it is I can survive on this income, though I get very, very tired of just surviving at times but at least I did not ever have to give up and return to a 'real job'. So all in all the website has been a huge success, marketing has worked well (3 Million people!) and the site has generated a positive, passive income stream that will continue for years and years to come. (UPDATE 2013: not as long as I thought).
Most gratifying though is to know that sometimes I do chose and plan correctly in this adventure I call my life.
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