7,977 Blog Traffic And 60 Days Later – My Blogging Journey

Today is 13th August 2013 and this marks exactly 2 months since the day this website is created.

This blogging journey had taught me a lot especially when it comes to building authority, increasing traffic to blogs and foster relationships with other bloggers.

Before that, I had created a simple video (yes, my second YouTube video) as a summary of this whole article:

Did you enjoy the video? I hope you do! (p/s it would be great if you could just give me a ‘Like’ on YouTube)

Let’s see how far this website had gone, shall we?

Total traffic: 7,977 (100%)

Organic traffic / Google: 2,446 (30.66%)

Direct traffic: 2,302 (28.86%)

Referral traffic: 3,229 (40.48%)

On an average,  the website is getting about 132 traffic a day or approximately 3,988 traffic a month. No biggy right?

I got to admit, I am ashamed of publishing the stats but for the sake of learning and sharing, I believe this is the best interest for all 🙂

Here’s a quick summary of what this whole article is all about:

• My website traffic experience (organic traffic vs referral traffic)
• Monetizing my blog
• Satisfaction issues as a blogger

It all comes down to blog traffic

If you are planning to start blogging, then you got to know that traffic is the lifeline of a blog. It doesn’t really matter if you are blogging for money, passion or as a hobby.

You need traffic to sustain and maintain your site. Moreover, running a self hosted domain isn’t that cheap after all.

When I started this blog, I wanted to make this blog different. This means that I do NOT want to do the same mistakes I did years back with probably a dozen or more websites.

Instead of focusing on organic traffic, I wanted to focus on referral traffic instead. Let’s see what makes them different. 

1. The differences between organic and referral traffic 

Organic traffic vs Referral traffic … what?!

Let’s see what the web has to say about them:

Organic traffic – Visitors who come to your website from unpaid organic or natural search engine results

Referral traffic –  Visitors who come to your website from other domains (and pages in those domains)

Source: Google

In my own words …

Organic traffic can easily be defined as traffic gained from search engines. If you are getting more of this, it is safe to say that you are doing the right search engine optimization techniques to rank well on SERP’s.

Referral traffic (aka referred traffic) is traffic that comes from a second party and it doesn’t come through search engines. This type of traffic usually comes from social media, other domains and blogs who are sharing your links.

2. Why I decided NOT to be normal – focus more on referral traffic

Some bloggers say focusing on organic traffic is risky and I got to agree with this.

Google can easily change its algorithm several times a year but building a website from scratch would take months or maybe longer. You can’t just change your game plan overnight even if you have the manpower to do so.

So yes, I took the road less taken and I know what I did would actually be beneficial for my organic traffic as well (indirectly).

This brings me to the next related point below. Before that, ask yourself why did you do blogging. Could it be:

• Earning some side income?
• As a hobby?
• Living your dreams?

For me, I blog because I love it and the ability to earn some side income is definitely a good plus point.

Okay you will be asking, “So, what would these have to do with referral traffic?”

I want to make sure that every traffic that lands on my blog counts. This means that if I can have 100 readers daily who really enjoy my writing, then I would have struck the gold mine … literally speaking.

Here’s what I think. Readers won’t click on a link shared on Twitter or Facebook if they are not interested with the topic. Therefore, is it safe to say that referral traffic means targeted traffic?

Yup, you can say that!

Now, do you see where this is going?

Monetizating my blog with referral traffic

Personally, I think I did rather okay even though I wish I could do more 🙂

Here are the stats after 60 days of uptime:

Google Adsense: $ 1.69

Affiliate sales: $ 209.96

Again, I know most of you guys could be earning more than this. Shame on me!

But here’s the thing. For those who been visiting my site during June would realized that I have more Google Adsense banners.

Compared to now, I only place Google Adsense banners on several spots or categories. But why? I had replaced them with specific banners that are closely related to the said categories.

For example, I will be featuring a web hosting affiliate banner if that category is about website creation. Chances is, those targeted readers will be probably looking for a cheap hosting to go with their self hosted domains.

Oh yes, this is rather crazy as I ended up with 68 widgets on my blog.

Like what I said, the earnings above could just be a fraction of what many other bloggers are earning. Nonetheless, it is a good start. At least, I know that what I did (mostly) are bearing fruits 🙂

Recommended freemium tool for social media management: Socialoomph

You can’t please everyone. So, stop trying!

 

1. Making your readers happy …

As a blogger, you can’t possibly make everyone happy and you are bound to have lots of enemies when you are above the rest.

When I wrote “3 Disappointing Truth About MailChimp Email Marketing Solutions“, I was so sure that what I wrote is going to spark anger among MailChimp fans.

And for the record, I do receive hate mails and some super epic comments (which sadly, still lying in my moderation folder due to too many 4-letters words).

Here’s the thing about blogging. As long as you are doing it right, you don’t worry about what others think.

I very interesting quote I would love to share from someone I really respect:

The above is taken from Pat Flynn (the guy behind SPI) and the author of the eBook, ‘Let Go‘ which explains how unemployment changed his life completely and currently earning more than $100,000 monthly.

2. Unforeseen issues with blog subscribers

I had just a small number of followers for my newsletter and I too, received some feedbacks from them. Here are some of those:

1. My emails are either too long or too short
2. Wanting more freebies
3. 15% of them subscribed as they thought I was doing more reviews instead
4. Some of them were expecting me to email them during specific days of the week
5. And the list continues …

Disclaimer: Feel free to think if I’m BS-ing but these are the things that REALLY happened to me recently.

My reply to them are the same (including the ones who leave comments on my blogs); I am not forcing you to subscribe to my newsletter and you are free to unsubscribe at any time.

I’m sorry if it might feel a little cocky but I am just one man and obviously, I don’t have super powers to make everyone happy.

Note: It is still rather sad to see that there are people who doesn’t really appreciate you and your writings.

Brighter sky after some stormy days

I am sure that all of us have our ups and downs.

Being a blogger is very fun and I am very honored to meet up with some seriously great friends (bloggers).

There are definitely more than this list but they are the ones that truly make my day:

Adrienne Smith ~ Lovely woman who never STOP giving you encouragements especially in blogging and life.

Barry Wells ~ Nice guy and pretty good in IT related stuffs. LOVE his writings too! He’s also one of the guys behind Marketing Mini Classes.

Corina Ramos ~ Another nice lady. If I would give her a nickname, it would definitely be ‘Work From Home GURU’!

Adam Connell ~ Great writer and one hell of a marketer. Learned from him a lot especially when it comes to building authority and Internet marketing.

Harleena ~ One of the most inspiring bloggers I ever seen. She teaches me that you can be good in anything as long as you have the passion.

Again, I felt truly honored to meet up with so many bloggers and lovely friends. I would possibly given up last week or earlier but thanks to them, I felt that everything will be just A-okay for me.

60 days and 7,977 website traffic later …

So, what did I actually learn about blogging after this life changing experience?

We need to:

1. Focus on the right traffic for our blog.
2. Make friends with other bloggers and most importantly, learn from them.
3. Mistakes are common in blogging. Use them to improve yourself.
4. If you want to make money blogging, start improving your blogging skills and focus on traffic first.
5. There are many ways to build your blog traffic. Choose the one that fits you best.
6. Don’t ever give up on negative feedbacks. They will make you stronger!

Before I end

I truly hope that you enjoy this blog post as much as I do. So, did I miss out anything? Hit the reply button below and tell me what you think!

*p/s If you like my writing, feel free to signup for my newsletter and could you please share it for me using the red button below?