So what happened in April?

1. Don’t know.  April is a total stalemate.  Granted, the time devoted to Blog Income has been scaled back.  What this means is that the automatic growth engine needs a lot of stoking yet cause it certainly isn’t steaming on its own energy.

2.  Traffic via Twitter is now noticeable.  This is a mixed blessing as the bounce rate is now in the 70% range.  Gulp!

3.  Average time on page is 4.38 minutes – OK, those that stay read.  Thank you.

4. More and more pages are getting pushed up in rankings both on Google and Yahoo (I  don’t check the stats for the other search engines).  This is encouraging.

What’s up for May?

FUN.   Not just for May but for June and July as well … participating in Alvin Phang’s Super Blogger Reality Show.  We will be given tasks each Wednesday and have to report on results every Tuesday.  Results are then awarded points.  The higher the points, the further along towards winning the prize.  The challenge starts today.   The first set of tasks that need to be accomplished is to post daily on a blog of our choice.  I have decided to work on Blog Income as the blog of choice for the challenge.

SIMPLIFY.   I have way too many blogs that are just sitting around doing nothing.  Some of them have commercial value so they are going up on the auction block.  I can always expand again when the time is right.

COMMITMENT.  Playing 100% in the Super Blogger Reality Show.  I think it would be cool to win, but more importantly I will have to exercise discipline to keep up the pace.  That will do several things for me, not the least of which are:

a.  Increase speed of critical thinking

b.  Improve efficiencies

c.  Learn new things and implement

d. Focus

I look forward to swerving out of the stall and to reporting much better results for the month of May.

How about starting with the end?  The Olympics.

The Olympics Closing Ceremony was on the last day of the month – yesterday.  We in Vancouver had the distinct honor of hosting the world to the 2010 Winter Olympics.  What an exhilarating experience that was!  I have to admit that many a time I absented myself from my computer and spent the hours glued to the TV, watching as the best of the best squared off each other for that most desired of metals – gold!

There is so much I could write about these 17 days.  As always I am amazed at the strikingly small difference between the finalist and the last – fractions of seconds.  That would beg the question that perhaps this is just a crapshoot, that on any given day the last place athlete could just as easily be a first  place finish.  But then you need to look deeper – and when you look at the performance of each athlete at world class events leading up to the 0lympics, the results have typically been consistant across the board.  Top three almost always place top three.   It makes me think that the athletes have the same potential, their talent is outstanding – so what is it that makes the ultimate difference?  That would make for a good topic for a Sunday Morn Musings … and perhaps it is something that we internet marketers could take a page from.

And speaking of which, there was no Sunday Morn Musings this week!  Nor was there a The Week that Was.  For that matter there were precious few posts in February (just 15) and only 2 in the last week!

You know how they say that the road to hell is paved with intentions – and they do.  My intentions were to post on Saturday and Sunday.  Early Saturday morning my trusty albeit museum vintage laptop expired!   Yup!  It just died!  Now I have to admit that this was not as sudden as I would like to believe, for several weeks now Dear Laptop had been giving me clues that it was not long for this world, and after four and half years of loyal service with no breakdowns or glitches of any sort it wasn’t just being capricious, its just that I was  hoping that it could last another month or two – or miraculously six!

Have you ever spent a whole two days without internet?  Addiction is one thing – but the falling behind in everything is another and most frustrating.  The good thing is that I now have an awesome machine that is sooooo much faster, has lots more bells and whistles and my goodness!  Have the prices of PC’s come down!  I had a MAC as my next machine but with a difference of $2000 for the time being I thought that sum would be better put to use for marketing and earning shekels … another time cher MAC!

I have to say that I am grateful that Dear Old Laptop performed well during the two-day workshop I attended on Thursday and Friday.  Matt Astifan from my Monday Night Internet Marketing Mastermind which I mentioned in my Power of Mastermind series put on an excellent workshop on social media (more about that in the future) otherwise I would have been up the proverbial creek!

One thing about brand new computers – it takes time to get used to the new programs, the idiosyncrocies if you will.  On my old computer I had Gadwin for my printscreens.  I downloaded it here so that I could include the screen shots of my February results.  For some reason it isn’t working in the way it did – it captures everything including tool bars at the top and the sidebars.  I am sure there is a way to capture only that which is relevant, but it will probably take time.  So I’ll just give you the results below along with my comments.

#1.  Traffic:  Visits:  475 – up from 360 for January which is a healthy 36.89% .  My goal is to increase traffic by  10% – 20% each month.

#2.  Search engines delivered 5.68% of the traffic.  You may recall in my January report that SE had fallen to below 1%!   So the move up to almost 6% is encouraging.

#3.  Alexa moved up from 404,842 to 307,910.  I know that there are those who put little stock into Alexa rankings, but it is still a measure that is taken into account when the value of your website/blog is assessed – you can charge more for ads, you can sell your site/blog for more, and besides, I accepted Sam’s  Alexa Challenge at Financial Samurai to reach a ranking of under 200K by July.  Remember, with Alexa, the lower the number the better.

Lessons learned:

#1.  Publish.  Publish,  Publish.
For blogs still trying to establish themselves, daily posts make a big difference in traffic.  I have noticed that on the days that I have new content the visitors increase.  Most successful bloggers do not scale back their publishing from daily until they are well established with the search engines and have amassed a good loyal following.  Some stay with the dailies, think Darren Rowse of Problogger

#2.  Carry Inventory
Have a stash of articles ready to publish for those times when other activities (Olympics) divert your attention from your business. Carlos  Velez of Conscious Me wrote an excellent two part article over at Website In a Weekend –  Benefits of Prewriting and he’s also thrown out a Prewriting Challenge.

What’s Up for March?
My focus continues on traffic – that will be a recurring theme not only for this quarter but for the year as a whole.
- Staying within the 20% growth per month, that would be 570 – so I’ll stretch that to 600+ in traffic
- Gee, wouldn’t it be great to reach the under 200K Alexa by end of March?  Lets see how close I can get to that.
- Finally, definitely, increase frequency of posts, in February the trend was 1 for each two days – well if I can make that 1 per 1.5 days it would make a huge difference.
- Put into practice some of what I learned on social media at Matt’s workshop.

That’s it folks!

To Your Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

First day of a new month.  That means  a review of the month that was.  This has been a busy month and a lot got done.  One of the main objectives for 2010 is to grow traffic on Blog Income.    Traffic increase is goal one for 1Q.  I go for a monthly increase of 10% – 20%.  When the numbers are scant to begin that is not exactly a stretch.  I have chosen this rate of increase for two reasons:

1. I read in one of Darren Rowse’s posts that that is how he began.  I like to follow in the footsteps of success.
2. I am creating a mindset and therefore a pattern for results.  As traffic increases the 10% – 20% will be tougher, but by then it will be a pattern that my brain is set for and will inform my actions accordingly.

So, how did January stack up?  I am pleased to say that it was a good start to a good year.

#1.  Google Analytics Traffic up by 78.22% = reached 360 visits

#2.  .One of my goals for this year was to be on page 1 of Google for the keywords “blog income.”  I can now cross that one off.  This was a June 30 goal.  I gave myself that much time because I was so far down in position and found that it had wide and wild swings – now that may happen again, but it seems to have settled in on page one for several days now.  Here is an excerpt from my post of  September 28 which explains why I chose “blog income” as the keyword phrase that I wanted to dominate.

Blog Income is already a crowded playing field as I expected it to be.  Needless to say Blog Income was not available as a domain so I added the word “life”. The two key deciding factors were the two figures:

SEOT = 91
SEOC = 39,200

I learned at 30 Day Challenge to go for a niche (read that keywords) that has more than 80 SEOT and 30,000 SEOC (OK… this one is higher).  I have been peppering my posts with other keywords and now have to decide which is the next one that I want to get on page one for. (Blogger to Wordpress full article.  Whichever one it is it will be far more competitive than Blog Income.

OTHER HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MONTH

-         Played host to Mike Paetzold for a week as he published 5 guest posts here on his “Blog Tour”

-         Played guest blogger at Dave Doolin’s Website In A Weekend with four posts on MasterMinds

-         Published 18 posts

Sam over at Financial Samurai has thrown down the gauntlet (or whatever it is that samurais wear) for his community to get their blog to an Alexa of below 200K by June 30.    I started the year with an Alexa of 504,964 and ended January with 409,922.  I know it gets tougher and tougher as you approach the 200K mark, but I am confident that 200K will be toppled … of course, there are some awesome bloggers in that community that will be brandishing their “katana”  with impunity to get to that benchmark!  I have no katana, which is a samurai sword … maybe I should become a ninja (oh yes, isn’t there a course on Ninja Online Tactics … did not buy that one)

WHAT’S UP FOR FEBRUARY?

Staying focused:  Traffic increase by 20% =  432 so I’ll make that 450.  It’s a short month … amazing what a difference 3 days can make …nevertheless, the stretch is 500 plus.

I also need to work on my SE.  A few months ago I zigged in the backend – the admin area, and lost links etc.  and my SE plummeted to below 1% – gulp!  Now when I look at the actual number that come in via SE, it is not far behind what it used to be.  My referral stats have really gone up.  I read somewhere that a perfect pie chart is equal parts of 1/3.  Being as that the world is not perfect … I don’t think I’ll be seeing that any time soon, nor is it a big item with me.

I have noticed that as I keep pushing myself, my concentration is improving as is my output, not just here on this blog, but in my other businesses as well.  This is a neat game.  I like it.

Enroute to reaching that number I am sure there will be other highlights that I will be able to share with you at month end.  I wish the same for you.  In the meantime please visit often – the door is always open here and your comments are most welcome.

To Your Blog Income Success!

Valentina

The goal for December was 200 visitors – DONE and bettered by 8.   What was interesting about December is that the traffic by and large was very even.  The search engine percentage however plummeted to an embarrassing 2%.  I had previously noticed a month over month decline in search engine results and mentioned it in my reviews.    Earlier this week I posted on bad links. My friend who found the bad links in the categories section thinks that this may have a strong bearing on the downward search engine results.  Now it seems I also have some dead Contact Us, TOS and Privacy pages so those need to addressed.  I’m thinking that this may have happened when I changed templates.  Hopefully once all the links are live and pages are up, this statistic will improve.

Staying on the conservative Darren Rowse plan of 10% – 20% traffic growth per month the goal for January is 250.  I’m going to stretch it to 300.

I did have a bit of an income in December – even Adsense delivered a smidgeon and an affiliate sale.  As mentioned in my last review however, I have decided for the time being to put the earnings aside and concentrate on traffic.  One thing at a time.  When that gets good, then the next one.

A reader who had downloaded my ABC’s of Blogging for Money wrote way back in September

“Absolutely Great !!!!!

I have just finished reading your ABC's..........

I believe your book is the best and easiest to understand of all the info
books on this subject that I have ever read over the past couple of years
or so.”  RD, Kitchener ON. 

That same reader was very disappointed when the results for September were posted a few days later.  Blogging is simple, but it is not easy.  When I started this blog I had no idea where it would take me.  I am not a guru, not even an expert (yet); what I am is an apprentice.  My ABC’s e.book was borne of information gleaned from taking courses, this blog is borne of experience and gained knowledge and the desire to share and to learn.

Let’s grow and live an Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas.  I celebrate Christmas – two of them.  My ancestral heritage is Russian.  The Russian Orthodox Church never switched over from the Julian to the Gregorian, so Christmas falls on January 07!  How cool is that?  This is a month of many celebrations, and whether you celebrate Christmas or something else, I want to begin by wishing each and everyone who comes here, joyous celebrations, goodwill and blessings for you and your loved ones.

It is the first of the month which means a review of the month past for Blog Income Life.   My goals for the month of November were:

1. Increase traffic by 20%+ (I’m following Darren Rowse’s formula here.
2. Get back on to earning some dollars.
3. Spend less time checking my daily stats.

Let’s look at the traffic first:

Last month’s visitors = 130
Target: 20% increase = 156
Actual results                = 158

Just squeaked in!  In actual fact it is probably more like 15% growth seeing as last month’s stats did not include the first 5 days of the month!  I know this is anemic compared to many newbies who are getting that and more PER DAY. I am a great fan of Darren Rowse’s (is there anyone who isn’t), and I read with great interest that he focused on growing his blog traffic by 10% – 20% per month.  I am also a great believer in building momentum.  On that note I will be trying something in the new year that is meant to increase the traffic significantly – 200 per day by end of QI of 2010 is the big stretch.

Search engines stats fell from 15.38% to 8.3%.  I ascribe this to my letting up on my focusing on the keyword that I am fighting to get on page one for.  I am of two minds here.  Everything I have learned stresses the importance of optimizing your posts with the main keyword and sprinkling others here and here.   I feel that to do so for every post is somewhat artificial.  Yes, I want more search engine traffic, I also want to write in a non-forced style.  I think that my readers are intelligent enough to be able to tell the difference.  My readers are my guests.  Foremost in my mind is to treat them as welcome guests.  This probably comes with experience – write keyword optimized posts and make it flow in the most natural of ways.

Income:  Alas, none to report from this blog.  As mentioned before my performing blogs are my stable of doggie sites — even Adsense is delivering.  But I did have an awesome day – my first ever $1000 day!  This was in one of my other businesses.  What I loved about this experience is that it is now in my system.  Once experienced it’s in your DNA.   I look forward to many more $1000 days in 2010.

Checking Daily Stats:  Done!  The temptation, especially at the beginning was hard to overcome.  Eventually I just got fed up with myself in wasting time checking stats on my various sites.  I figured that I was wasting at least an hour.  Now, I check the stats in the mornings – it gives me a sense on what I need to concentrate on for the day and make adjustments to the plan I wrote the night before if needed – and leave them alone for the day.  Yes, sometimes I still sneak a peak before the end of day, but that too is declining.

Popular Posts:

Rock Stars at Frank Kern’s Mass Control
Keywords:  A Spider’s Buffet!
Link Exchange Strategies that Work

What is December to look like?  I realize now that focusing on income is premature for this blog.  I am going to concentrate on other factors and as these improve, I believe the income will too.  I will concentrate on that area that I have a greater control over and that is traffic.  I am also working through the Secret Affiliate Weapon course and implementing the steps along the way but then I am not anticipating results until QI of 2010.   So for December:

1. Traffic:  20% increase = 190.  Up the ante to 200
2. Add a subscription/email registration plugin and a “Tweet Me” button too!

Here’s to an Awesome Blog Income Life!

Valentina
Writing for an Awesome Blog Income Life … and yummy cheese!

October was a challenging month but so well worth it.  Visitors are up 27% over September.  Search Engines delivering 15% is decent.  Actually, I read somewhere that the ideal traffic pie would be equally divided into 33% from each source.  So that is something I am going to keep an eye on.  Clearly, more search engine traffic is needed.  Most “exotic” visitor was from Tanzania.

No income to report for this month but some important changes and the results of those changes are chronicled below.  While you may not be in the same boat, if ever you want to make “changes” to an existing  blog, my experience may be helpful:

1. Changed  Domain Name:
   Former domain name: Blog Along With Me.
   New domain name: Blog Income Life.
   The driving force behind this was the realization that Blog Along was not a keyword optimized domain for anything other than blog, which is extremely competitive and already well entrenched in the top 10 of Google’s list.  Blog Income as the main keyword for the new domain has a fighting chance to get top positioning with Google, and by default, other search engines.
2. Change of  Platform
   Exported from Blogger to Wordpress Direct.  The transfer was painless.  To think that I had put it off for some time literally trembling at the thought that somehow all would get lost in transit.
3. Domain/URL Redirect:
   http://www.blogalongwithme.com redirected to http://www.blogincomelifie.com
   This was a small tactical error.  While all the content of the original blog transferred to the new one, the hard fought for backlinks did not.   There were over 230.  For one scant moment I thought of reversing the redirects.  Chose to stay.  Chalked it up to experience. Fresh beginning.
4. Analytics
   Forgot to add the analytics code to the new site until October 05. Consequence is that the above chart is for October 06 onwards. Wordpress Direct does gather similar statistics however they seem to include my own visits, so the accuracy is flawed.
5. Monetization
   Banner for ABC’s free PDF installed right way.  Half way through the month added an affiliate banner.   Am still ambivalent about Adsense; still not here but have noticed that a blogger no less than Alvin Phang continues to use Adsense.  Maybe I’ll add it for November and see what happens.  More banner ads to be added.
6. Course Purchases
   Have bought several new courses addressing blog improvement and affiliate marketing.   Will review in good time.

This has been a useful exercise.  While the transfer of the blog from one platform to another was painless it was not without its growing pains – mainly, getting familiar with Wordpress Direct, or more to the point, not all templates are created equal.  More on choice of templates in the future.

Traffic Bug is now part of my blogging tool kit.  It’s a great little program and has freed up a lot of my time.  This little bug is my introduction to automating some of  the daily tasks such as  post and article submissions to search engines and directories.  The escalated growth of backlinks is encouraging and I am confident that the number will soon catch up to and outpace the previous number.

Market Samurai is another valuable program in my tool kit.  It is invaluable for research and keeping track of marketing campaigns.   The more I use this software the more I realize its value.  Cannot recommend it highly enough – everyone, in my opinion should have it.  If you are just starting out and dollars are scarce, a ramen noodle diet for a week would be worth it to just be able to buy this program.

What are my goals for November?

-         Increase traffic by 20%+ (I’m following Darren Rowse’s formula here)

-         Get back on to earning some dollars.

-         Spend less time checking my daily stats which is so addictive now that I can see the needle move, either up or down, daily.  Maybe the novelty will wear off and I’ll do this just once a day, in the morning.

And speaking of the needle moving – it is amazing how volatile Google’s ranking/positioning can be.  I guess until you earn your stripes you are susceptible to swings that take you up or down by several hundred.  I was surprised when I checked the statistics for a competitor which had a PR of 2, and now suddenly no PR!   It could be a glitch or is this the famous Google Slap?

Happy Blogging!

Valentina
Blogger for Money
… cheese servings were scarce this last month

This is a modest start. When you start your blog, I venture that it too will have similar results at the beginning. Comments on the above chart:

1. Strong dates are Jan 08 when there were 21 visitors and again Jan 23, when there were 22 visitors. What happened on those two dates? Scrolling down the right hand sidebar you can see that the following posts were made:

January 08 – Blogging – How the Money is Made
January 23 – Choosing Your Niche Market

2. Average Time spent is 4 minutes and 4 seconds. I like this statistic, it means that visitors who stay are actually reading the content.

3. New Visits = 37.93% which means that returning visitors are slightly over 60%, which again is very encouraging as it tells me that there is a following forming with this blog.

There is another encouraging statistic form the screenshot below:

Once again, modest as the statistic is at 1.18%, search engines are beginning to take notice of this site.

My goal for February is to:
1. Double these results
2. Fix that annoying blank space on the side bars which should be google adsense.
3. Put up a prominent invitation to subscribe to blog updates
4. Launch the new blog
5. Add some valuable resources

Happy Blogging!

Quick Links:
Blogging – How the Money is Made
Choosing Your Niche Market

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