Sophomore Jinx Strikes!

01 Nov

Posted by YC as Blogging, Announcements

Well, not exactly, as halfway into the month, I knew what I was getting into. But before I go on further, here are my stats for October ‘07:

October Stats

8,294 Page Views
5,466 Unique Visitors
35 RSS Subscribers
Alexa Ranking of 120,583
Technorati Ranking of 35,747
30 Published Posts
3 Guest Posts (HomeWithHeather, Tao of Blogging to Wealth, Money Making Scoop)

Overview

I 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 output decreased. The relationships within various communities strengthened as well, as I got to know more friends and enjoyed the relationships more.

Now, the main reason for a poorer result was my decision to start on other side projects. All the numbers, except No. of Pages/Visit and Avg Time on Site, actually improved despite not hitting their targets. It could be the aims were too high, but honestly, it was due to not having planned on these projects at that time.

While this site remains my main blog, I don’t foresee it being enough for my aim to grow my online income. It would serve more as a springboard to sharing, ideas and community building. Thus the plan to branch out to other areas. In due time I will reveal more as there is still a lot of experimenting going on.

November Goals

That said, I still have goals for November:

Publish more feature-length posts than what I have produced for October
Increase the number of RSS subscribers to at least 70
Attain 10,000 pageviews and 8,000 unique visitors (more conservative figures this time!)
See the No. of Pages/Visit and Avg Time on Site figures improve this time round
Alexa Ranking of above 110,000 (this one seems hard to crack)
Return to more frequent community building

I fully expect to get a better handle on things this month as I start to settle down with the other projects. Therefore, more quality time spent on this blog. I had to cut down on the amount of time visiting and reading other blogs in October, but this should return to pre-October form this month.

Other stats for October

Top 5 Traffic Referrals (other than direct traffic)

StumbleUpon 3,596
Google 228
Sphinn 163
DanaWallert.com 96
Technorati 60

Top 5 Trafficked Articles

StumbleUpon continues to be my best source of traffic referral. And I do not believe that it is low quality traffic as its bounce rate was lower than the average. Technorati actually offered the best quality with an average of 2.28 pages/visit. In case some of you are wondering how traffic could be achieved from Technorati - there are 2 main ways I know of - posting blurbs and through blog reactions.

Dana also sent me a bit of visitors when my SU post was listed. If anybody has heard anything from her, I would like to know. I do hope she is fine.

Writing about a hot current topic also guarantees visitors. Which was what I got when writing about Google’s PageRank penalties. Take part in some guest blogging or group writing projects as well - they help a lot in terms of exposure and at times, traffic. How about signing up at Vandalay Website Design’s blog for an article about social media, for starters?

I think this has been a long recap so I shall end it here. But before that, I wish to sincerely thank each and every one of my visitors and regular readers, without whom this blog would not be able to continue growing. Keep commenting - I love those! Special thanks as well to those who subscribed to my RSS feed - great to know you guys are putting up with me. I welcome all of you to leave me more feedback and drop me a note anytime you wish to discuss on anything!

Finally, if you have not yet done so, do subscribe to my RSS feed now - achieving your enjoyment is my satisfaction!

9 Responses

Steven Snell

November 1st, 2007 at 10:52 pm
1

YC,
Thanks for mentioning my current project with social media articles, I appreciate it. Good look with November’s goals!
Andy Bailey

November 2nd, 2007 at 12:01 am
2

setting goals is one great way to build something, kudos to you for having a plan for your blog! I look forward to seeing the increase for next month :-)
david

November 2nd, 2007 at 3:30 am
3

You can get higher page/visit using the related post plugin.
ZHereford

November 2nd, 2007 at 4:22 am
4

It’s interesting to see a blog’s stats and very brave of you to post them.
As I mentioned to you at one point YC, I believe that blogs are rated differently from websites. I guess you can call it a different format. Oh well.
RAC

November 2nd, 2007 at 6:44 am
5

I am new to blogging but already I can see why so many people love it.
I would never have found great places like this without it!

*sigh* So many blog, so little time :)
YC

November 4th, 2007 at 8:54 am
6

@ Steven - Thanks and you’re most welcome, Steven!

@ Andy - Thanks Andy - I hope I can hit them :)

@ David - I’ve been using that for awhile already - you don’t see it?

@ Z - Thanks Z - it could be down to the community between blogs and the frequency of content posting - but as I’m not an expert on that - we’ll need to test it out.

@ RAC - Glad you liked this - hope you enjoy blogging and wish you the best of luck!
Caroline Middlebrook

November 4th, 2007 at 10:17 am
7

I think it’s a good idea to branch out into other areas as well as your blog. I have talked about this in podcasts recently - when a ‘make money online’ blog hs only the blog itself as the income, there isn’t really much to talk about is there? By having other projects you can talk about those which means that not only do you have another source of income, but it increases the quality of your blog too - double bonus!
YC

November 4th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
8

@ Caroline - Not only is there nothing much to talk about if that’s the case, the worst thing is it starts at zero. Another way to get round it is to not restrict it solely on making money online. There’re many other variants to that topic, and you can actually generalise it for the benefit of the blog.
Social Media Sites Are Not About Traffic by Internet Marketing Mind

November 9th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
9

[…] sites, traffic-wise. There were some decent results, and I would not have gotten the majority of my traffic stats without them. However, I decided to look closer at why they worked for me, and if possible, how the […]