Business and Marketing
Blog Update March 2009
So where are we then? I promised to keep you all informed as to how the blog is going in terms of objectives and income, so here we go.
Site Statistics
I couldn’t be happier with these. Visits and page views are well ahead of where I thought they would be, although too much of the traffic is coming from direct links and not enough from search engines. Here are the numbers:
- Average Visits Per day 294
- Average Page Views per day 1027
- Percentage search engine traffic 12.24%
There was a reasonable jump in daily visits as soon as I switched to the dedicated server, which suggests that speed of page loading was losing me traffic before.
I think the only way I can improve the inbound search traffic is by continuing to write as much content as I can, and to get more links from other sites.
Subscribers
I’m a bit disappointed in the number of RSS readers and subscribers.
- RSS Readers 36
- Subscribers 12
I lost a few subscribers in the change to Aweber, so I obviously wasn’t giving them good value. I added a free E Book to new subscribers a couple of days ago in the hope that more people will take that option. Any ideas or advice would be appreciated.
Income
I’m reasonably happy with the income earned this month from the blog, although as with all new blogs the money earned is well out of proportion to the work done!
- Overall Income $65
Around half of that came from Adsense, and the rest from three affiliate sales I made for products I recommended. This income, together with that earned from other blogs, means we’re in profit, but not making a significant contribution to the household budget yet. I have some big plans for new products to launch, which I think will be really helpful to other bloggers, but I’ll need to wait until we have more readers and subscribers.
Other Activity
Like most bloggers I spend time on Digg and Twitter. I haven’t really mastered the former and need to spend more time on it – anyone have a link to some good articles about using Digg? I’m thoroughly enjoying Twitter and now have close to 1000 followers. It’s a very good source of traffic for me, and I try my best to give value to people who follow me – giving them interesting links, really engaging with them and having some great conversations with them.
Summary
The competitor in me is disappointed – I always love to smash objectives to smithereens, but in reality this blog is absolutely on target for each of the objectives I set for it. It proves how right the blogging masters are when they tell us that blogging is a long, slow burn to create a sustainable income. So I’m here for the long haul, are you?
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Hi Mike - your results are
Hi Mike - your results are excellent, considering you've not been blogging for long. It took me a long time for me to build traffic on my blog, as I didn't do a lot to try.
I found Digg traffic to be too time consuming and a waste of time, as folk can and do vote without even reading your stuff. I used to use StumbleUpon and that did help build up my readership a little. Even though most social readers don't buy - they still help to make your blog seem popular which attracts more readers. I don't use it anymore as I'm banned - long story.
I wouldn't worry too much about RSS subscribers and social readers as they buy far less than folk finding you through the search engines. Also, a lot of folk claim to have a ridiculous amount of subscribers but stats usually show that few of them are reading their blogs.
My best advice would be to concentrate on optimizing your posts for search engine traffic - not every single post, but enough to make a difference over time. That way, you're attracting folk who are actually looking for what you're offering.
I recently redirected my blog from /blog to .com My traffic plummeted initially but it's picking up again, two months later.
Great Advice from Cath
Thanks Cath - I really appreciate you stopping by and sharing your experience. I'm sure you're right about search engine traffic, as we have a niche blog as well which gets over 70% from search engines and every time we run an offer on there, it's very successful. As you say the answer is to keep writing good content and to do my best to make some of the posts rich in the keywords I need.
I've also struggled with Digg, and when it did work once, I couldn't work out why! I look forward to hearing the Stumble Upon story sometime! Sounds like one to share over a G and T!
Cheers
Mike
Your doing better then me
Hello Mike. I have been following your blog for a while. I like the fact that you post your stats. It gives me something to compare my site to. We started at the same time which makes it even more interesting. So far you are beating me in terms of traffic.
I am also impressed with your ability to make so many quality posts. The best I can do is about 3 a week. Otherwise I would burn out.
I hope that your traffic keeps increasing so that I can see how it is done. Keep up the great work.
Thanks Roman. It's bloody
Thanks Roman. It's bloody hard work writing so many posts and I'm doing for the two other blogs as well! Lots of 0530 starts!
Mike