It’s hard to believe that another month has gone by. This has been a rather unusual month from my perspective as I moved from the United States to Cape Town, South Africa! It was a great move because I now am with my beautiful girlfriend!
Unfortunately for my website and other internet marketing ventures, it meant that I was unable to work for about two weeks. I also spent a few working days rebuilding an eCommerce website from the ground up. This meant I had even less time to spend on this website. Now I am just trying to catch up!
Needless to say, I didn't spend nearly as much time working on this website as I would have liked and, consequently, did not meet any of the goals I set for last month. Here is what I was able to do in June.
What did I do this month?
Creating Content
In terms of content creation, I was only able to produce three new blog posts. I did a small, two-post series on plugins describing what they are and how to install them. I also made a tutorial on embedding YouTube videos into posts.
Here are the three posts:
- What Are WordPress Plugins And Why Are They Important For Your Website?
- How To Install WordPress Plugins… The Easy Way
- How To Add YouTube Videos To WordPress Blog Posts And Pages
Website Design
As I mentioned earlier, I also spent a good amount of time building an eCommerce site for a lady who makes cloth diaper covers. The site is pretty cool and her products are super adorable. Not only did I learn a lot about cloth diaper covers, but I may have been convinced to use them on my future children.
If you have children in diapers or are expecting, then you should definitely give them some serious thought…and of course purchase the covers from MadebySallie.com!
Traffic Updates
In terms of overall numbers, my traffic this month was quite a bit less than last month. (Mostly because I didn't do any CPC advertising this month.) However, I am not discouraged, because my organic traffic was just about the same and that is the traffic I care about the most!
Most of my other numbers actually improved which is super exciting. My pages/session, average session duration, and bounce rate have all made good improvements! This tells me that I am doing a better job at keeping visitors on my site!
Let’s look at the specifics. I have included the increase (more desired number) or decrease (less desired number) compared to last month’s numbers in parenthesis.
Total Visitors: 165 (-150)
Unique Visitors: 144 (-123)
% New Visitors: 83.64% (-1.11%)
Pages/Session: 2.34 (+0.24)
Average Session Duration: 2:52 (+0:25)
Bounce Rate: 57.58% (-5.91%)
Traffic Sources
This month my top four traffic sources came from direct, referral, organic search, and social traffic. I did not do any pay per click advertising this month.
Although I can’t be certain, I believe a majority of the direct traffic is coming from other Wealthy Affiliate members following my progress. The referral traffic is coming from a variety of sources, including other blogs, search engines, and directories.
Direct: 100 (-106)
Referral: 34 (+20)
Organic: 27 (-2)
Social: 4 (+2)
As I mentioned earlier, I am very happy with the fact that, despite not producing much new content, my organic traffic has remained relatively stable. To me this means that Google is beginning to consider my site legit within its algorithms. My referral traffic has more than doubled, which is really exciting as well!
Social Media Profiles
Facebook Page: 7 likes (+1…finally someone who I don’t know!)
Twitter: 130 followers (+6)
Google Plus Business Page: 9 followers (+1) & 902 views
Pinterest: 19 followers (+4)
Email List: 6 subscribers (+2) & 3 unsubscribed (+3)
Because I was unable to go through and polish up my social media profiles last month like I planned, I will make that one of my primary goals for this next month. They are rather incomplete and as a result not too attractive to potential followers.
Monthly Revenue: -$78.98
Expenses = -$78.98
- Wealthy Affiliate Membership: $47
- AWeber Membership: $19
- MyThemeShop Subscription: $9
- NameCheap (Hosting): $3.98
Income (Conversions/Revenue) = $0.00
- Wealthy Affiliate: 0/$0
- MyThemeShop: 0/$0
- Elegant Themes: 0/$0
- AWeber: 0/$0
- ClickBank: 0/$0
Totals Over Time = -$245.89
- Expenses: $246.89
- Income: $1.00
- Total Profit: -$245.89
Last Month’s Goals
Hmm…I didn't actually meet a single one of the goals I set for the month of June. Some of them came close, but my move and the time it took to get my internet set up in my new place was longer than I expected. I just didn't have enough time to work towards completing the rather hopeful goals I set last month.
- Post a total of 10 new posts NO
- Get three sales NO
- Get over 750 visitors to my site NO
- Get over 75 organic visitors to my site NO
- Reduce the bounce rate for organic visitors to 70.00% NO…but had improvement
Increase social media following to:
- 15 Facebook Page likes NO
- 150 Twitter followers NO
- 20 Google Plus Business Page followers NO
- 30 Pinterest followers NO
- 10 Email List subscribers NO
My Goals For July 2014
Of course, one of my goals for this month will be spending as much time with my beautiful girlfriend as possible!
I am actually going to just repeat my goals I had set for last month again this month. I really think they are achievable and now that I am settled and back in my routine, I think I can meet most of them!
So…for accountability purposes here are my goals for July 2014
- Post a total of 12 new posts
- Get three sales of any sort
- Get over 750 visitors to my site
- Get over 75 organic visitors to my site (included in total above)
- Reduce the bounce rate for organic visitors to 70.00% down from 74.07%
In terms of my social media profiles my goals are:
- Facebook: 15 page likes
- Twitter: 250 followers
- Google Business Page: 20 followers
- Pinterest: 30 followers
- Email list: 10 subscribers
Here's to another month! If you are working on your own website, I wish you the best and hope we can all meet our goals and work towards a financially successful website! I am super excited to be able to write a monthly update soon that has a positive number in the post title! It’s just a matter of time!
To see how far I've come, have a look at each and every one of my Income Reports.
Do you have any suggestions for me as I proceed with developing my website this month? Do you have any questions about what I've done so far? Please drop me a comment below so we can share ideas and work together on building success!
Hi Dustin, I love the well organised approach that you have to your business. I am sure that the results will come. I would suggest that you consider applying for a Google Adsense account. This will give you an extra income stream 🙂