Stats & Analysis for November ‘07
November has been a very odd month for me. Stat-wise things have improved massively this month as you’ll see but over the last couple of weeks I have had some personal issues which have made it very difficult for me to work and this situation is likely to continue for at least another week. It will pass in time, but the next fortnight are likely to be a bit wobbly.
Blog Stats
The growth of the blog has utterly amazed me this month - it has grown in every way far beyond my original goals which I thought were ambitious already.
RSS Subscribers
As I say every month, my RSS subscriber number is my most important statistic as that represents those people that have actively asked to read what I have to say, which makes me all warm & fuzzy inside :) Last month I ended on 259 and I set myself a goal of 450 for the end of November.
The graph shows a sharp growth at the beginning and I have already analyzed and documented that growth earlier in the month. That took me to around 550 subscribers, but I am completely clueless at to what happened about a week and a half ago - the number just suddenly jumped by about 250 in one day to over 800! I really have absolutely no idea why this is and for a couple of days I assumed it was a mistake but the numbers have held out and right now it sits at 885 which is lovely.
So a big *wave* to all of those people who have joined me this month! As far as growth in general goes, I would like to see something like 30% growth every month which would give me a December goal of 1150 subscribers but that seems like such a huge number, I’d be happy if I hit the 1000 mark in December.
Traffic Numbers
I had just over 11k unique visitors last month and that has trebled to almost 35k for November. My RSS trebled too so it’s nice to see a correlation between traffic and RSS numbers.
The graph clearly shows the early spike which I explained earlier but do you see that second smaller spike about half way through the month? That would be the StumbleUpon Thank-You post which brought me an enormous amount of abuse!
Traffic Sources
Again, the pattern is very similar to previous months - the vast majority of my traffic comes from referring sites and only just over 3% is from search engines. I had wanted to see more search engine traffic and I am in terms of raw numbers 1400 up from 450 last month, but that is simply a reflection of the overall growth so I’m not sure of that’s good or bad!
Keywords
The majority of searches are for my name but another large source of search engine traffic this month has come from various Twitter related searches. I am hoping that the Twitter guide is the kind of post(s) that can continue to generate SE traffic for a long time to come. This is something I need to do more of I think.
One thing I notice is that I get searches related to just about everything I write about, including people - Ed Dale, bum marketing, Facebook, StumbleUpon, keyword research, blog commenting, embedding YouTube videos etc etc. This indicates that just about any post can get traffic albeit in small amounts.
Now for some funny ones:
“big juicy boobs”
Check!
“bum enlargement”
Hmm, not today thanks :-)
“can I get projects that do with eggs”
Whatever floats your boat!
“juicy caroline”
Ermmmm :-o
“wasting my time and I hate you for that”
Well I’m sorry!
Referral Traffic Breakdown
The last couple of months traffic have been dominated by StumbleUpon but this month I have hugely diversified my traffic which I think is a good thing as it’s no good to rely on a single traffic source. StumbleUpon have still sent me over 12k visitors which is more than last month but that only accounts for 27% of the traffic unlike last month’s 63%.
- StumbleUpon - 12,295 visits, 27.4%
- Direct - 6,227 visits, 13.9%
- Lifehacker - 4,062 visits, 9%
- Twitter - 2,905 visits, 6.5%
- Del.icio.us - 1,606 visits, 3.6%
- ProBlogger - 721 visits, 1.6%
- Net Profits Today - 573 visits, 1.3%
- Search Engine Guide - 549 visits, 1.2%
- Entrepreneur’s Journey - 489 visits, 1.1%
- Sphinn - 449 visits, 1%
Now here is what I find especially interesting: If I deduct all of those large traffic sources, and deduct direct traffic, google etc that still leaves me with 9,180 visitors from smaller traffic sources! That just goes to show just how much all the small links and comments etc add up - don’t neglect the small stuff!
Blogs That Sent me Traffic
I have had a massive amount of traffic come from other blogs compared to last month. I already listed some of the big ones in the above list, and I like to link out to as many as possible, so here is my top 15:
- ProBlogger, 721
- Net Profits Today, 573
- Search Engine Guide, 549
- Entrepreneur’s Journey, 489
- Newest on the Net, 328
- DoshDosh, 267
- Steven Aitchinson, 226
- 45n5, 224
- Labnol, 186
- Read Write Web, 186
- Web Worker Daily, 163
- Josh Spaulding, 146
- Vandelay Design, 94
- Bloggadollar, 91
- Stephens Lighthouse, 79
Most Popular Posts
These have been the most popular posts throughout November and the numbers come from an aggregation of Google Analytics and Feedburner. I have put all of the Twitter guide posts together as they dominated my top 5 otherwise.
- Twitter Guide (main page & posts together) - 55, 133 views (!!)
- Do You Thank Your Stumblers? - 14,212 views
- Do You Have a Blog Commenting Strategy? - 3,474 views
- Stats & Analysis for October ‘07 - 3,152 views
- Boost Your StumbleUpon Traffic With Outbound Links - 1,480 views
What interests me about this is the sheer amount of traffic that has come into the good posts. What this tells me is that it is worth putting in the effort to creating outstanding pillar content such as the Twitter Guide because it brings a tremendous amount of traffic, links & RSS subscribers.
As much as I try to post daily on the blog, I think going forward I will worry less about post frequency and concentrate more on post quality. I am starting to get a feel for what people like to read, which is instructional-style guides and my progress reports such as this very stats post.
Business Stats
Drum Roll…. in the month of November I earned a total of: $343.47
Money Earned From This Blog
- $300 in 20 Days Challenge - $250.57
- Zen to Done ebook - $42.75
- Blog Mastermind - $35
- Deal Dot Com - $7.52
Money Earned From my Niche Site
- Adsense - $7.63
Now it’s obvious to see that the biggest earner was the $300 Challenge and of course that was a one-off promotion, as was the Zen to Done ebook. However I am hoping that in December I will earn money from the challenge itself and I also have a couple of other affiliate products that I will to promote (ebooks that I have bought). Plus I have my own ebook coming out soon which I hope will generate some revenue.
A couple of other things to note - firstly, not all of this money is in my bank. In fact, most of it is not and with services such as Adsense there is a minimum commission so if I don’t make it, I’ll never see any of the money. Which brings me to my second point - the only revenue earned from the niche site so far is the $7.63 from Adsense which is hardly worth the time spent so far! However, I am learning a lot and wish to continue with this site.
One last point about money - last month I said I was going to get ads on this blog and open up direct advertising spots and the only thing holding me back was getting a new theme. I didn’t get around to it so that hasn’t happened. So that’s annoying because direct advertising is usually sold on a calendar month basis meaning that it is probably closed off for December so that could delay that source of income until January! That is becoming a priority now.
Other Bits & Bobs
I started to track my time during the first half of the month but that all went out the window when I got ill earlier. I have been staying with family, borrowing laptops and just trying to do whatever work I can do here and there and haven’t used the timer. So the second half of the month really has been a total mess productivity wise as I suspect the first half of December will be too.
Anyway, onwards and upwards! I am thrilled with the progress this month in every area and it’s really encouraging to see some actual revenue. What’s interesting is that I expected revenue to grow very slowly, I didn’t expect to go from $0 to $350 in one month.
But that is good because in my original income projection, I imagined I would start earning from the first month and of course I didn’t so it has evened itself out in the end and I am actually ahead of my original target now. If I stay on target I will be earning a full time income within my first year in business.
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December 2, 2007
Caroline, I don’t think that’s too bad, I made about 80.00 and so now its on to December. Looks like the challenge worked. As for your RSS Subs, thats is incredible by any standard, I am happy for you and frankly envious of what you have accomplished.