Good morning. Good morning.
I know that many of you were interested if my blogging goal tactics were going to work so I thought I’d give you the third update.
But first, if you’re new let me bring you up to speed.
I like to challenge myself, so in November I decided that I would increase my blog traffic from 10,000 page views per month to 100,000 per month – all in a six month time span. Easy peasy, right?
Anyway, since blogging is a legitimate (and fun) way to earn some extra cash I wanted to share my progress with you all.
Here are more posts in my blogging series if you want to check them out.
- How to Make Money Blogging
- My Starting Blogging Traffic Stats and Goals
- How I Tripled My Google Traffic In 30 Days
- How to Quickly Write an eBook for Your Blog
On to the strategy.
Search Engine Optimization & Guest Posting
My strategy for increasing my blog traffic is to implement basic SEO practices (done), guest post on several other blogs (work in progress), and better utilize social media (we’ll see.)
The first month I solely focused on working on SEO…..and it totally worked.
This past month I continued to implement SEO in my new blog posts and I also guest post. I had guest posts on the following blogs:
- 5 Accountability Sources to Help You Reach Your Goals @Money Saving Mom
- 3 Practical Steps to Launch Your Freelance Writing Career @Making Sense of Cents
- How a Single Mother Can Gain Financial Control @Mom and Dad Money
- 7 Work From Home Pitfalls (And How You Can Over Come Them) @The Work at Home Woman
Big thanks to the bloggers who let me guest post!!
I also have one more guest post to be published this month and I need to get a few more submitted to other blogs. Website speed is always one of the main factors to help rank your blog higher in SERPS. Having a good, fast and reliable hosting provider is key to success. Finding a decent UK WordPress hosting provider can be challenging as there are many factors to consider before signing up, such as the speed, data centre locations and most importantly, the support.
Check out my other guest posts to help you with the best SEO strategies I used. Hot posts to read on SEO:
- Increase Your Search Engine Traffic: Real Strategies That REALLY Work
- Increase Your Search Traffic: Real Strategies That Really Work
Now, on to the numbers…
How My Traffic Has Increased
I’m nowhere near the 100,000 page view mark and my chances of getting there by the end of my six month period probably aren’t very high, but I have made progress. Without challenging myself there’s no way I’d have already doubled my traffic.
To take you back, when I first made this goal on November 7th my monthly traffic (Oct. 6 – Nov 7) was as follows:
- Visits – 6,505
- Unique Visits – 4,064
- Page Views – 11,680
- Average Time on Site – 2:18
And from Dec. 6 to January 7 my traffic stats are now:
- Visits – 16,764
- Unique Visits – 14,075
- Page Views – 25,356
- Average Time On Site – 1:31
Not too bad for two months and a little bit of work!
And, in case you were wondering my main source of traffic has come from Google. I’m amazed at what a little bit of SEO work can do.
I have a feeling that increasing my traffic from here is going to start to be a little more tricky, but I’m gonna keep at it. I’m perfectly fine with not reaching my goal, too. I’ve already learned a ton of useful information that I can apply to other projects I’m working on and in blog posts I write for others.
On to phase three: social media. (Which I suck at!)
Which brings me to my market research question: what’s your favorite (personal) social media site? 😉
I like Facebook but that is mostly because I haven’t really gotten into other social media. I am trying to figure out other social media so that I can build my blog traffic.
I like Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit.com.
Looks like you’ve done well. I’m a newbie at this so I’m always searching for tips. I use twitter and facebook for my blog but I read another tip that you should focus on one social network at a time before creating a following on another.
Wow it definitely sounds you are doing great! I’m hoping to ramp up my effort to get my name out there more. I’ve been slacking in that department.
That is incredible progress, Alexa! Want to help my site out?
Holy crap! You’ve doubled my best traffic month ever! Not bad at all. I’m going to keep on paying attention to your progress.
I will say that SEO on your posts can work wonders. I’m actually finding too that if you don’t over-optimize that seems to help as well. Perhaps Google finds it to be more natural.
Good job! I really need to learn more about SEO. And I’ve been saying that I’ll guest post but haven’t done it. I will though. That and post more consistently are things that I really need to do. Oh and I’m horrible at social media also. I hope you’ll have a post about how to use it in the future.
That is a wonderful increase and something I need to be better about. I really don’t love any social media outlet, but Twitter is probably my favorite.
Wow amazing! Great job!
Facebook is my favorite for personal use but I do a horrible job of it for my blog.
So interesting to see the results. I am starting to use SEO in my posts and it’s working. I need to go back into old posts and do that, which seems tedious. Seems like it might be worth it though. I personally like Twitter and have connected to many bloggers and others there.
I think that Facebook is the most popular, but not sure how good it would be for a personal finance blog. I am also planning to boost up my social media presence… we’ll see where that goes. Congrats for the increase, it’s really nice to see that your visits have tripled in these two months – you’re clearly doing it right!
My favorite social media site by far is Twitter, but I’m starting to like running a blog on it less and less. I much prefer to manage my personal account, mainly because I feel like it’s hard to find stuff to tweet other than links from the business account.
Oh and congrats on the increased traffic!
Nice work Alexa! I really enjoyed your post you did about SEO and the links you provided. I am working on growing my blog too and found that post really helpful. Also, I would say my favorite social media account is Twitter.
Wow, now that’s some awesome progress! I’ve been using some of your SEO suggestions and have seen some minor improvements so far, so thanks for the tips!
That’s really awesome! Congrats on the huge increase in traffic! I’m trying to improve my traffic right now as well and have found a bit of SEO is the best source so far. I love social media too but I’m not as consistent with it so it hasn’t shown as great an increase.
Those are some great results Alexa! My traffic has taken a bit of a dip over the last month or two, I have to go back and optimize some of my older posts better.
PS – If you ever want to guest post on my blog you have an open invitation.
Mike
You are doing terrific, Alexa!!! I think I’m going to start utilizing the SEO tactics you described. We’re moving upward, but not nearly fast enough for me. 🙂
That is seriously amazing! I want to guest post this year more and have been working to accomplish that.
Great post! I need to learn more about SEO and how to use it.
Facebook 🙂 I like Twitter but I have this strange impression that people share the links to their blog posts and there is no much conversation going on there. I can be wrong, it is just the impression 😉
Congrats on achieving your goal! Well done!
Awesome work Alexa! I’ve just read your post again on tripling your Google traffic in 30 days and have also watched the Jeff Rose video. I’m going to give this a go – thanks so much for sharing!
Hey Alexa and congrats for getting some awesome increases in your organic traffic 🙂 Keep up the great work!
Oh…and if you would ever like to guest post on my blog…I’d love to have you 🙂
Take care and my best to all.
Lyle
Doesn’t matter if you didn’t achieve it as yet , you made progress
I love your blog, maybe cause it hits so close to home, my journey as a single mom of 6 since our lives changed during the last almost 2 years since my marriage ended.
Can you tell me more about SEO and how all that works etc? I have visitors but not nearly as many as I would like. I use tags in my posts and have been found that way but traffic is still slow.
Any help/advice you can lend would be so very appreciated!
Blessings to you & your girls 🙂
Kelly
Facebook is the only social media site I visit on a regular basis, partly because Twitter did not make sense to me for the longest time…
Great job on the progress you’ve made over the last few months! Keep it up! There are plenty of us that are looking up to you for inspiration! I personally enjoy checking out how you got your hustle on and it helps me moving forward. Thank you for that!
Its amazing that every time I read your blog, I find something new. Our paths have been so alike, it’s strange. I kinda started stalking your blog and have come to realize you started yours 11 months before mine. I looked at the “before” stats you are sharing here as your blog is around 1 year and 1 months old (correct me if I am wrong). my blog is currently 1 year and 5 months old. My numbers look like this:
Visits – 4,710
Unique Visits – 4,076
Page Views – 12,930
Average Time on Site – 1:39
So, I guess you could say I’m following in your footsteps. (I hope that’s not creepy) lol