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My fourth month with this blog - and the first whole month with WordPress - is now behind and I’d like to have a look at where I stand. I’ll first show and analyze some of the stats and then discuss the future.
Traffic for October
Probably the most important metric of a blog’s success is the traffic it gets. My traffic for October increased to approximately triple what it was for September, or from 1,500 to 4,800 monthly visitors. 16,000 page views makes over 3 views on average, which is ok.
The main sources of traffic were Google, StumbleUpon and direct links from other websites. Most important keywords to find my site were “long tail keywords” and “website profit” in different variations. I’m on first page in Google for both of them.
Other Stats
I now have over 80 published blog posts with a total of over 300 comments. That means I have posted five posts a week on average. That’s the rate I’m currently planning on maintaining.
There are many other ways to rank websites. Here’s a table of some and this blog’s rank in them:
| Alexa Rank | 234,197 |
| Technorati Rank | 158,109 |
| Google PageRank | 3 or 2 |
My weekly Alexa rank is around 100,000 so that should increase on its own, if traffic continues at the same level. Before the domain change I was ranked 90,000 in Technorati and I’m slowly climbing back there. My PageRank score for the domain is 3 and for the blog front page 2.
Earnings
October earnings are about $40 is total, so this blog is not a great money maker yet. Most of that is from direct ad sales, and the rest from AdSense. I have also made a few referrals in BidVertiser and a couple of other affiliate programs, but they haven’t made the minimum level yet.
Plans for November
I’m determined to continue posting a minimum of five posts a week even though I do have some studies to complete. I will focus on getting some more traffic and RSS readers, and stop caring about the meaningless stats for a while (PageRank, Alexa). To improve traffic I’m planning to run a blog contest (more on that in a few days), target my social marketing better, and to write a couple of guest posts on other blogs.
One big change that’s going to happen this month is a new theme, which I’m developing. I should be able to complete it in around a week. I’m also planning on releasing a modified version of the theme as a free download.
On the money side I’m going to focus even more on direct ad sales. I’ve updated the pricing, and there are some very good deals to be had, if you’re looking for advertisement. CPM of the 125×125 banners will be below $1 - that’s as cheap as it can get. I’ll fix the prices upwards as positions begin to be filled.
I don’t like to set specific goal posts for two reasons: firstly, they often make one focus on wrong things; and secondly, I don’t want to see myself without a goal halfway through the month. That’s why my only goal for November 2007 is to improve every aspect of my blog.
by Sutocu | November 1, 2007 
well you got good traffic already. congratulations. i think as you posting more regularly and make good backlink you will get more traffic. so need to worry about monetization that much yet. it is better to test ads that work while you already receive good traffic.
well done for October, much about same stats as mine…keep it up
Congratulations on your numbers. Getting traffic is at least 80% of the battle, and what I find to be most difficult. I think personality plays a part too. Being much of an introvert (offline) self promotion and social networking are areas that I really need to work on.
Thanks for the comments and the encouraging replys.
Social networking is something that one may need to learn. It isn’t always simple, even if you do it offline. The online social networking world is quite complicated, but diving into it will pay off in the long run.
$40 is a good start. I believe Steve Pavlina, one of the most successful bloggers said just $10 a month is a good start, before you know it you will be up to $100, and $1000 with smart work and dedication. Also consider using home made ad images and links because many more people are using Adblock these days entirely ripping all ads off a page. Good luck in your endeavors.
[…] traffic and earnings were both up from last month, but not quite where I would have liked to see them. Despite not setting any goals last month, […]