Freedom Education: 1st Blog Traffic Diary

[smartile]

1. Blog Name: Freedom Education, Personal Development Made Simple
2. Blog URL: Freedom Education
3. Blog Description:
My site is designed to to help you discover your inner power and increase your personal awareness so you know who you really are. It contains articles on personal development to help you uncover false beliefs, limiting thoughts and help you to learn more about the capacity of your mind. Some of the topics covered in this site include:

Universal Laws & the Mind
Self-Awareness
Goal Achievement
Wealth & Prosperity

4. Blog Benefits:
- learn about the science of getting rich, Universal Laws and the power of the Mind from my Freedom Access Newsletter
- access to 'how-to' articles on goal achievement and self-development
- receive tips for creating prosperity consciousness
- receive reviews of personal growth courses, books and ebooks

5. Current traffic: uniques per month=221, pageviews per month=702
6. Traffic goals (short-term): desired uniques per month=1,000, pageviews per month= 3,000
7. Personal goals from blogging:
I'm creating a reputable site on personal development with a niche in The Science of Getting Rich (a book written by Wallace Wattles in 1910)

I would like to start earning an income from affiliate sales and sponsorship programs so I can quit my job. At some point I would also like to develop my own information based products.

My visions is to take this website to a 7 figure business and build a team with 5 employees including: 3 authors, 1 sales copy writer and 1 web developer. I also expect to hire a few contract positions.

A Nation of Inspiration
I also want to use this website to launch a separate business idea. My idea is to help people make money by building a reputable online business and becoming recognized as a published author.

8. Personal Info:
Name: Stephen Martile
Location: Mississauga, Canada (yes, I'm a Canuck)
Age: 31
Sex: M
Occupation: Mechanical Engineer for 5 years, blog part time
Interests: I love hockey (go figure), sports, great conversation, the outdoors, entrepreneurship and personal development

P.S. Any feedback or supportive advice is appreciated...

[smartile]

Blog Name: Freedom Education, Personal Development Made Simple

Blog URL: Freedom Education

Name: Stephen Martile

Explanation:

I launched my blog in May of 2008. I've experimented with a few different traffic techniques over the last two weeks. These are the traffic techniques I employed so far:

1) Forum Marketing: I contributed regularly to a Personal Development Forum. I did this by posting threads and replying to questions asked in the forum. I averaged about 5-8 comments per week.

2) Submit Articles to Blog Carnivals: I submitted 4 articles to blog carnivals in the month of August.

3) Generated Keyword Focused Articles: I published 6 articles in the month of August. Four of them are keyword focused for my niche.

Results:

Here are my traffic results for August,

Uniques per month = 679 (Desired 1,500)
Pageviews per month= 1,997 (Desired 4,000)

Traffic Sources:

58% Referring Sites
20% Search Engines
22% Direct Traffic

It makes sense that 58% of my traffic is from referring sites because I put so much time into Forum Marketing and Blog Carnival submissions. I will continue to do this in September.

The blog carnival submissions haven't been very good for taffic. Around 1/10 blog carnivals actually provide decent traffic. At this point I'm going to keep submitting to the carnivals to encourage referral links. This may have helped with my recent spike in Search Engine traffic.

I was surprised to see that 20% of my traffic comes from the Search Engines. The Google Gods must be listening

Yaro's Great Tip
I also took Yaro's advice. I met him at the Toronto meetup two weeks ago. I've given my ebook away in exchange for an email to my Newsletter.

That one simple change has generated approx 4-8 people to subscribe to my Newsletter every day for the past 10 days! Just fantastic, thanks Yaro.

Newsletter Subscribers = 4-8/day (Desired 20/day)

[derwydd]

Hi,
Your blog looks very professional and clean. I am particularly interested in the subject you are writing about as it goes hand in hand with our own business. I wish you the very best of success in your future endevours and look forward to reading more of your posts.

[smartile]

thanks Julian,

[smartile]

Blog Name: Freedom Education, Personal Development Made Simple

Blog URL: Freedom Education

Name: Stephen Martile

Explanation:

I've continued to experiment with the same traffic strategies I employed in August and the results are showing. My focus has still been in 3 areas:

1) Forum Marketing
2) Submit Articles to Blog Carnivals
3) Generate Keyword Focused Content

Here are the current results for the month of September:

Uniques = 1118 (Desired 2,000)
Pageviews = 4,061 (Desired 8,000)

If you look at last months results you'll see that my pageviews did double and the uniques came pretty close to doubling. Because of these large increases for September I've decided to increase and double my desired targets

Here are the Traffic Sources:

45% Referring Sites
40% Search Engines
15% Direct Traffic

The biggest difference that I noticed in September was a large increase from Referring Traffic Sources. The top referring sites for this month have been SelfGrowth.com, Forum Marketing and Stumble Upon.

Stumble Upon
Based on the average time on site and the pages per visit I can tell that Stumble Upon is not a targeted traffic for personal development. This source of traffic may have produced some interested visitors but for the most part this source didn't result in any RSS Feed or Newsletter subscribers.

SelfGrowth
Forum Marketing and SelfGrowth have been excellent traffic sources. The reason I say this is because the avg time on site and pages per visit is much higher for these referring sites. I also noticed a large increase in Newsletter subscribers which confirms that the people who visit my site are interested in person growth

SelfGrowth sent 147 visitors to my site. SelfGrowth is a great resource for people who write personal development content and want to get their articles to a bigger audience.

Search Engine Traffic also increased for the month of September which was nice to see.

All of this happened while I was away on vacation for two weeks which is what surprised me the most. I even had a record month for subscribers to my Freedom Access Newsletter. Subscribers to my Newsletter for the month of September was 163.

Average Newsletter Subscribers = 5/day (Desired 20/day)

My plan for next month is to continue to Forum Marketing, building content at 2 articles per week, and continue to submit my top articles to blog carnivals and SelfGrowth.com

[smartile]

Blog Name: Freedom Education, Personal Development Made Simple

Blog URL: Freedom Education

Name: Stephen Martile

Explanation:

This is a traffic update for October, 2008. Let's start with the numbers for this month:

Uniques = 919
Pageviews = 3,587

The uniques have dropped slightly from last month by about 18%, and pageviews by about 11%. Not desirable but it is what it is. Maybe those two weeks vacation in September are catching up to me????

Here are the traffic sources:

45% Referring Sites
36% Search Engines
19% Direct Traffic

Search engine traffic has dropped by about 4% and Direct traffic increased by 4%. It's not anything to call home about, just an observation.

My desired traffic goals will remain the same for the month of November:

Desired Uniques = 2,000
Desired Pageviews = 8,000

Besides that my blog has been growing steady this month with new RSS Feed and Newsletter subscribers. I've had 81 Newsletter subscribers this month.

Average Newsletter Subscribers = 2.6/day (Desired 20/day)

I published 7 articles this month. I've put more attention on pillar content and wrote two valuable articles:

Law of Attraction
How to Apply the Law of Attraction

Here has been my marketing strategy for October:

1) Forum Marketing (x2)
2) Submit Articles to Blog Carnivals & Selfgrowth.com
3) Generate Keyword Focused Content

I began contributing to a new Forum this month. This has been effective to create new leads and generate targetted traffic.

Life Coaching

This past month I launched my coaching program which I have been putting off for months. It felt good to finally put it out there. I'm looking forward to working with some new clients.

Focus for Next Month

A couple of things are going to change in November. For one I've registered with Yaro's Blog Mastermind program. I may change my marketing strategy mid-month but I'm not sure. For the time being I'm going to continue with Forum Marketing and publishing pillar content twice per week.

The second thing is that my full time job is officially over as of today. My new contract at work is part-time, 2.5 days per week. This will be a tremendous help and benefit. I'm so grateful to be making this transition.

I have been thinking to niche down my blog for more focus. We'll see what develops as I get started with Blog Mastermind.

I'll begin life coaching this month. It's going to be fun to start working with clients over the phone.

That's about it, any questions or suggestions? Drop me a line.

[AwesomeBlogger]

Hi Stephen...

My name is Hans. I am totally new in blogging. In my blog I talk about my life lessons for me tostay young and look young. I just read about Yaro's suggestion to write a blog diary and managed to browse yours. It is really impressive...your blog..your effort...and your step by step methods...I told myself to follow your way and Yaro's advice to generate traffic this way for my blog. However, I have to admit here that I easily get blurred when Yaro and other professional bloggers mentioned some terms and phrases in blogging. Like in the advice of "blog diary"...what do unique and page review mean? and how do I keep track the things for my blog. I hope you don't mind to share with me of this matter. With that, I'm thanking you in advance...Keep good job!

Cheers
Hans
Stay Young Look Young

[youbetcha1018]

Hi, your blog looks neat and clean. Very professional. I like your blog.

[smartile]

Originally posted by Hans
Like in the advice of "blog diary"...what do unique and page review mean? and how do I keep track the things for my blog.

Hi Hans - These are good questions and I think understanding the answers and acting on them, will help you target more traffic to your blog.

The best way to track the traffic to your site for free is to use Google Analytics. Here are the definitions directly from Google Analytics:

Absolute Unique Visitors - Unique Visitors represents the number of unduplicated (counted only once) visitors to your website over the course of a specified time period. A Unique Visitor is determined using cookies.

Pageviews - A pageview is defined as a view of a page on your site that is being tracked by the Analytics tracking code. If a visitor hits reload after reaching the page, this will be counted as an additional pageview. If a user navigates to a different page and then returns to the original page, a second pageview will be recorded as well.

Starting a blog diary is the best thing I ever did with my blog. It's helped set goals each month. It's also helped me see what works and what doesn't work.

Since joining Yaro's Blog Master mind last month I've learned quite a bit more. You might consider enrolling if you want to create a business from your blog.

Originally posted by youbetcha1018
Hi, your blog looks neat and clean. Very professional.

thank-you,

[smartile]

Blog Name: Freedom Education, Mind Power for Personal Growth

Blog URL: Freedom Education

Name: Stephen Martile

Explanation:
My site contains articles on personal growth to help you uncover false beliefs, limiting thoughts and help you learn about the capacity of your mind.

This thread is an update of my traffic for the month of November, 2008.

Uniques = 1,110 (919)
Pageviews = 5,064 (3,587)

Here are the traffic sources:

53% Referring Sites
25% Search Engines
22% Direct Traffic

As far as traffic goes, it's been a good month. This is my highest month so far. My traffic has been improving steadily.

I've decided to revise my target traffic goals. Aim for the stars and hit the moon sort of logic. Here are my new desired traffic goals:

Desired Uniques = 15,000
Desired Pageviews = 60,000

Selfgrowth.com

Selfgrowth.com has been a great source of traffic for the month of November. I received a nice spike last week from this web site. I've found that pillar articles have been most effective for drawing traffic to my blog. Pillars include 'list' articles with bullet points and 'how to' articles. These have been the most powerful traffic generating strategies so far.

Ezinearticles.com

I was more aggressive with my guest article submissions to Selfgrowth.com I also submitted some guest written articles to ezinearticles. Most of these articles were submitted last week so I expect the traffic will begin to pour in over the next week or two.

Youtube.com

I went with my intuition on this. I started video postings with my "Motivational Mondays". I've found that they generally receive a greater response through comments so I will continue to test this out over the month of December. I'm still playing with tags so I'm not quite sure if I'm getting much Youtube traffic at this point.

Newsletter

Subscribers to my newsletter is also up this month. I had 207 people subscribe to my newsletter this month - another record

Average Newsletter Subscribers = 6.9/day (Desired 20/day)

I published 9 articles this month and one of those was my first book review. You can read it here: Secrets of the Millionaire Mind.

Forum Marketing

The new forum I started marketing in last month has been great for my target market. I find that I'm generally getting more Newsletter subscribers because the Forum is more closely related to the content I publish.

Life Coaching

I started working with my first client with a few other prospects under way. I'm also going to launch a new ebook early next year and have found some partners to help me out.

Blog Title Change

The other change I made to my blog is the title change. I changed from 'Personal Development Made Simple' to 'Mind Power for Personal Growth'. I basically made this change for two reasons.

The first reason was because the words mind power and personal growth seem to resonate strongly with me; and the second reason was because my market keyword research picked up mind power as a common search term.

Added Tags

I also added tags to my articles and pages last week. This may take a few weeks to take effect. This suggestion came through from Yaro, so I capitalized on it. We'll see what happens

Focus for the Month of December

My marketing strategy will remain the same and include:

- guest articles on SelfGrowth.com
- target 4 blog articles per week; 3 of those articles being pillar content
- continue to market daily in both Forums
- possibly 3-4 Newsletter guest article submissions

Have a great week and if you have any questions, drop me a line.