My First Month In Blogging

01 Oct

It has been just over a month since this blog was started, and I thought high time to share its statistics with my readers. While I published my first post on August 25th, I decided to put up the traffic statistics for September.

I was also not sure of what I was reading, as I have been using StatCounter on a daily basis for my blog, while boarding Google Analytics about 11 days into September. I have known Awstats to show inflated figures, so I decided to use the former instead.

Overview

So these are InternetMarketingMind.com’s statistics at the end of September:

6,369 Page Views
4,515 Unique Visitors
17 RSS Subscribers
Alexa Ranking was 257,027
Technorati Ranking was 48,528

Over the month, 40 posts were published with (I believe) over 200 comments.

These are my Google Analytics figures for September, starting from September 11th:

Google Analytics Stats for September 2007

Well, if you ask me, honestly I am not sure what to make out of all this. Especially it being the first month of my blog. However, I do have certain goals I aim to achieve for October:

Publish better quality posts over an even wider range of related topics.
Get at least double the number of RSS subscribers. I am just aware that there are a few things I should put in place to increase the willingness of readers to subscribe, so these will be tested.
Attain more traffic (who doesn’t want this) - hitting 12,000 Page Views and 10,000 Unique Visitors.
Increase the No. Of Pages/Visit and Avg Time On Site figures (this should be easy since I only have figures for about 20 days in September) :)
Boost my Alexa Ranking above 100,000
Improve my relationships with current communities, and build more with new ones.

Not too many goals, and a few lofty ones I suppose for a new blog. But I certainly expect to achieve them come end of October. Let’s hope I do not suffer the sophomore month syndrome.

I would also like to thank all of my readers and regular commentators that have made all the above possible and done their fair bit to bring this blog to where it is currently - without you guys spending your valuable time here, I would probably be out in the fields more often than I could imagine.

Feel free to leave comments on what more you would like to see, and certainly what you think I could do to further improve this blog. Feedback is always valuable and much appreciated.

If you wish to exchange links and build greater relationships with me, do leave a comment here as well. Or you could contact me to remain annonymous.

Finally, to keep up to date with what’s happening on Internet Marketing Mind, do not hesitate to subscribe to my RSS feed now.

20 Responses

WarriorBlog

October 1st, 2007 at 11:43 pm
1

Hey congrat YC, thats awesome! Keep up the work :-)
45n5

October 2nd, 2007 at 12:04 am
2

I think over 4000 uniques your first month is pretty good. congrats ;-)
Nathania - Bold Interactive

October 2nd, 2007 at 12:35 am
3

I would love to know what posts received the most traffic and what sites refer you the most traffic.

And pretty much any tips for getting such great blog traffic!
shaun

October 2nd, 2007 at 1:13 am
4

WOW! congrats man :) you have your goals clearly defined and you have really accomplished a lot this first month! Can I suggest something that will help increase RSS subscriptions? haha we’ll I’m going to say it anyways! You should have at the end of each post something that says “If you enjoyed this post please feel free to subscribe to my RSS feed”. When I put that up on my blog my subscription rate increased dramatically. Other than that man you have an excellent blog going here, 4,000 visitors your first month is amazing :) . My first month I had 800 lol so you are doing great. Keep it up you write high quality posts.
September Top Contributors and Posts : Warrior Blog dot Net

October 2nd, 2007 at 1:25 am
5

[…] First month blogging awesome result from YC […]
Chris Jacobson

October 2nd, 2007 at 1:50 am
6

Those are some good numbers there. Congrats!
Heather Masson

October 2nd, 2007 at 3:41 am
7

Wow YC - Those are some great numbers. Congrats!

When you said this was your first month, I had to think about it. It seems like this blog has been around longer than that… probably because of the quality content you put out.

Keep it up! :)

Heather
Monika @ The Writers Manifesto

October 2nd, 2007 at 11:48 am
8

YC,

I nearly feel over when you said your first month. I could have sworn you have been around much longer! Well done, these are great stats and I was particularly impressed by your Technorati ranking. 48,000 something in your first month. How the heck did you get that so high? :-)

Monika
ZHereford

October 2nd, 2007 at 12:46 pm
9

Good job YC! I’m not surprised. You write well and with credibility which inspires trust in the information you’re disseminating.
Keep up the good work!
Josh Spaulding

October 3rd, 2007 at 3:42 am
10

Not bad at all for your first month. I’m not sure what my stats looked like the first month my blog was in existence, but I’d say they were lower than that.

It’s good to hear you have goals and you’re not just blogging to blog. It sure is exciting to see your own blog grow. I just started blogging a few months ago myself and I wish I would had started sooner.
YC

October 3rd, 2007 at 4:17 am
11

Thanks everyone for the kind comments, support and encouragement! These statistics were as much from your efforts as they were from my own - I’m looking forward to better delivery of content and relationships in the future :)

@ Sean - hey your results were brilliant as well - be sure to teach me more :)

@ Mark - Thanks Mark - your site has contributed a lot to that as well - I’m looking forward to the blog network!

@ Nathania - SU, Sphinn and 45n5.com actually refer quite a bit of traffic to my site due to the various posts and my being in on a 45n5 list. I think you’ve got a good point there, I should put up a short post on here soon (preferably this week) about what content referred me more traffic, and also in future summaries!

@ Shaun - Hey bro I was hoping school would have ended already this month ;) Yes, thanks for that RSS tip - I learnt it from you actually by looking at what you did!

@ Chris - Numbers are great, but your money making skills are even better! Thanks for the tip yesterday ;)

@ Heather - No way my blog looks too bare it can’t be old! :) When I look at your blog and the content, now, -that’s- what I call being an experienced blogger! :)

@ Monika - Thanks Monika heheh I’m not that old am I? I’m not too sure exactly about the Technorati increase as well - apart from that viral linking which started it, basically my traffic also increased daily and provided a corresponding Technorati performance. I think the increase in no. of authorities and blog reactions also helps? Although I haven’t seen much of that being mentioned elsewhere. But it gets much harder when 50,000 is hit.

@ ZHereford - Actually I think I’ll need to learn more about writing from you - I like the professional but simple style of yours!
CHESSNOID

October 3rd, 2007 at 6:24 am
12

Hey YC,
Thanks for sharing. I am always curious about stats.
Congrats on your blog.
=)
nXplorer

October 3rd, 2007 at 8:03 am
13

4.000 visitors in your first month is rally great. But its a shame that you could onyl convert 16 into feed readers.
YC

October 4th, 2007 at 1:54 am
14

@ Josh - Thanks for dropping by and commenting! If I don’t set goals for myself, my attention can get drawn away easily due to the thousand things that continually run around in my head. Also with such results it motivates but at the same time it makes it even more challenging to sustain the pace.

@ Chessnoid - Will you be posting your stats in the near future as well? It’s always good to see different sites’ results and viewpoints - a lot of learning points there.

@ nXplorer - Yes, in fact I never expected such numbers in the first month, and admittedly didn’t put much thought into RSS subscription. But seeing now that it’s really quite important, I’m thinking how to put in a few changes.
Maura

October 4th, 2007 at 2:24 am
15

Congratulations YC!

I think it would be great to see a list of your “Popular Articles”.

Hope you have an awesome October!
Josh Spaulding

October 4th, 2007 at 2:26 am
16

4.000 visitors in your first month is rally great. But its a shame that you could onyl convert 16 into feed readers.

That’s not a fair comparison. The RSS subscriber conversion rate is always very low for all blogs simply because believe it or not, not many people use feed readers. I’m one of them. I bookmark blogs I like and visit them that way.

Look at ShoeMoney. He has a little over 11,000 RSS readers (as of today). He probably gets 11,000 uniques in just a few days. Now take a guess how many uniques his blog has received in it’s life and see what kind of conversion rate it is. I guarantee it’s extremely low.
Alex R.

October 5th, 2007 at 2:05 am
17

YC, congratulations on your first month of blogging. Those stats are mighty impressive. I’ve just ran across your blog, and I hope to read some more great posts. Will you stay with the same stat software? Do you like it?
YC

October 6th, 2007 at 12:30 pm
18

@ Maura - I am working on a short post on this and hope to put it up by the weekend! Thanks for commenting! :)

@ Josh - Honestly, I bookmark blogs too. It’s just something which has been made a habit before there was RSS. :) Anyway, looking at the positives, my blog is new and to even have 16 subscribers isn’t too bad. ;) Thanks for an interesting way to look at things!

@ Alex R - Thanks for dropping by! I will still use Statcounter, but will probably rely more on Google Analytics for reporting, as it seems to provide a more accurate stats analysis and widely accepted by the serious bloggers.
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October 10th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
19

[…] I published my traffic statistics for September, I was asked by Nathania and Maura […]
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November 1st, 2007 at 10:03 pm
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[…] missed about all the statistical targets I set myself for the month except for the number of RSS subscribers. I did however write better posts (I think) even though my […]