[Mz]

In regards to both this reply and the other one where I wrote a lengthier response, please note I have not asked "how do I monetize this?" I have asked "How do I get quality traffic for the site?"

My expectation is that at some point there will be an app and that will have more potential for being monetized. For now, I only want to know how to get more traffic. Can anyone address that specific question and leave out your opinions that I am crazy to try to monetize this?

Thanks.

[hayley]

You might try Tumblr for audience building.

The caveats to this advice are that this worked for me a couple of years ago (so I'm not sure if the same community exists there now) and that my thing was much more about fat loss.

Still, I was shocked at how quickly I felt like I had been embraced by a community, especially since I had only started out with the intention of using Tumblr as a free place to host a diary (I was quite ignorant of the community features at the time).

Another caveat is that Tumblr tends to favor short form content rather than longer blog posts. However, this could actually be seen as a positive since it's a lot easier to do shorter, more frequent updates.

Aside from that, finding forums where people are talking about these issues and then getting actively involved could be one of the best ways to indirectly build an audience.

A few thoughts on your website:

* I'd either make your blog the main page or automatically pull in at least the latest blog onto your main page. Otherwise, I get the impression that the site was last updated in 2009.

* I'd write a one paragraph summary of who you are and what you're trying to accomplish, the "elevator pitch" if you will. I feel that a lot of what is on your current main page would be more appropriate on a longer form "About" page. I'd put the elevator pitch front and center so that new visitors can know exactly why they should care and keep browsing your site.

* I'd consider coming up with a short timeline - as a new visitor, I might be interested in quickly knowing things like how far along you are in your journey. Like were you just diagnosed? Have you just recently decided to turn your life around or have you been working on this for awhile? As a new visitor, it helps me more quickly identify with your story and what I can expect to get from you.

To sum up, I think there's an audience out there for this. Plenty of people are going to be interested in the everyday perspective of someone who's down in the trenches battling an illness.

So if keeping the site going makes you happy, don't give up!

[Mz]

I'd either make your blog the main page or automatically pull in at least the latest blog onto your main page. Otherwise, I get the impression that the site was last updated in 2009.

I have considered making the blog the main site and the main site an "archive", because the information there is mostly pretty outdated but makes for a good intro/overview. It would involve a lot of work and I'm not sure how to tackle some of the technical issues.

Any idea how I could easily make the blog more visible?

I'd write a one paragraph summary of who you are and what you're trying to accomplish, the "elevator pitch" if you will. I feel that a lot of what is on your current main page would be more appropriate on a longer form "About" page. I'd put the elevator pitch front and center so that new visitors can know exactly why they should care and keep browsing your site.

I actually started working on redoing the main page. This past year has been very hard in terms of my physical healing process. It's been enormously eventful (like I have had way too many Saturdays where I threw up all day). There are plans to redo the main page, there really are. But I really don't want to put the focus on me (re your comment about explaining "who I am"). I have struggled a lot with the fact that information on the site is so personal -- not because I care about sharing such info (I spent years in therapy for sexual abuse endured as a child and both my therapists were ministers -- I'm perfectly comfortable blathering on about crap that makes other people desperately want to tape my mouth shut) but because of the negative fall-out that occurs and that it takes the spotlight off the information per se, which is where I want it to be. So I wrestle a lot with that and I very much want to work on making the site more about "this is good info and helped me" and less about "me, me, me", which just causes all kinds of problems in all kinds of ways.

I'd consider coming up with a short timeline - as a new visitor, I might be interested in quickly knowing things like how far along you are in your journey. Like were you just diagnosed? Have you just recently decided to turn your life around or have you been working on this for awhile? As a new visitor, it helps me more quickly identify with your story and what I can expect to get from you.

Thanks. I did start a time-line. I never finished it or published it.

So if keeping the site going makes you happy, don't give up!

Oh, it doesn't really make me happy. I would much rather be in the entertainment space. But you can't separate this dramatic piece of my life experience from who I am and I don't think it's possible for me to entirely walk away from it. I think if I shut down the site and made a fortune doing something else entirely, then years down the road reporters would hound me for info on how I got well. I would rather just leave the site up and say "here's that info -- now back on topic, it's so not that interesting, thanks". As I noted elsewhere, the site grew out of an off-the-cuff remark I made on an email list I belonged to and the strong reactions people had to the information I casually commented on as a normal part of my everyday existence (a list, btw, that had nothing to do with health issues at all).