Statistics and Figures Update

I promised in the very beginning that I would keep you up to date with progress on this blog, and although I have done so in various interviews recently, I haven’t here! At the end of June we hit the six month old mark, so it’s a good time to see how we are doing versus the original objectives I set:

New Visitors and Page Views

My target for daily visitors after six months was a tough one – I was looking to hit 500 a day. In the event we just managed to beat that objective and during June the average was actually 584. On page views I wanted to get getting 1680 a day (I know that’s an odd amount, but there was some science in my calculations). We’ve actually smashed that with over 2600 page views per day during the month!

Note: Originally I set out to achieve 1000 visitors a day, but realized after about a month, and through talking to others, that it wasn’t a realistic objective, so I changed the figures at that point.

Result – On target

RSS Readers and Subscribers

I wanted to be at over 500 RSS readers at this stage and with 200 subscribers. The actual figures at the end of June were 663 and 188, so I was a little disappointed in the latter, and I need to focus more on that in the next six months, as the objective is much stiffer.

Result – One element on target, one not

Income

The objective for this blog was to have earned $6070 by the end of six months (remember there are two other blogs, this figure is just Mike’s Life). Mike’s Life actually earned $5365 until the end of June, but at that point there was still another two full months of payments to come in for my Beginner’s Guide to Blogging course. The course was sold in the period, but two thirds of the income will come outside the period. So in terms of actual cash in, I missed the objective, but we’re set quite well for the very bullish targets I want to achieve in the next three months.

To put some detail on this, income came from:

Own products

Affiliate Sales

Advertising on the blog

Adsense

In that order. Proving once again that selling your own products is the best way to earn an income from a blog. I’ve recently launched The Beginner’s Guide to Twitter, which has started well, and should continue to sell for some time, and The Beginner’s Guide to Blogging opens it’s doors to a new course in September.

Result – Missed Target

Feelings

So how do I feel? Interestingly, I remember vividly writing those objectives in the cool days leading up to Christmas. There was so much guesswork involved, and on reflection I wasn’t far out at all with what could be achieved. At the end of the day the blog has gone from zero to an average of $1000 a month in just six months. Having said that, I’m disappointed to have missed a couple of targets, and will try to sharpen up in those areas.

I’m a little nervous now though, that was hard work, and the objective for the next three months is to double that, and then more than double it in the following three. So wish me luck, and please keep reading!

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You might also enjoy:

1/ Welcome to the Mike’s Life shop!

2/ About Lanzarote

3/ I am Web 2.0