Month 4 Update – How I Generated 100 Visitors a Day
The month of December was a busy month for me with the Holidays and I did not work on my website as much as I would have liked. However, my site has continued to grow and even though December is typically a low traffic month it has saw over a 100% increase in traffic and I am now receiving more than 100 visitors per day!
In this monthly income report I will show you my income for my case study site (My Case Study Website URL is Now Hidden) and the strategies I have used to get to 100 visitors per day in 4 months.
0 to 100+ Visitors Per Day in 4 Months
Key Successes:
Backlink Outreach – I Received 3 and counting .EDU backlinks! – My strategy based on a post by Neil Patel at Quick Sprout (Link Builders Guide to email Outreach) was to outsource the creation of an epic resource and then contact each of the people on the post. This has resulted in 3 links already and with many people off on holidays I expect for more links to come in January from this effort.
100+ Visitors Per Day – 100 visitors is a decent milestone I achieved part way through the month and I anticipate will continue into the New Year.
Key Mistakes/Failures:
1.5 Weeks Off For Holidays – I am not sure if this was a success or a failure…I took a couple weeks off due to the holidays and being away from my home office. I know I will need to work extra hard in January to catch up!
Authority Website Stats for November
Income = $172.92 (-28%) ***potential commissions($750) have not cleared***
Another solid month for my monetization efforts while I continue to test what mix of offers makes the most sense for me and my readers.
I switched my main affiliate offer to a new company which I have been able to vet and know they offer valuable services to students. This switch has resulted in lower immediate payouts since it is a pay for performance vs pay for lead.
A frustration I have had this month is my inability to get all the data I want to be able to get a clear understanding of…
I can not answer – What links are generating what # of clicks resulting in x dollars?
I know many people struggle with this and there must be a solution which I plan to find in January!
Pretty Links is a great basic tool to collect raw data but it doesn’t connect with my affiliate partner to know of the say 100 people link 1 sent what number converted.
Adsense = $ 40.92 (+16.66)
I have now made the decision to remove AdSense off my website to focus more on my affiliate offers. My reasons for removing Adsense off my website are as follows…
3 Reasons I Removed Adsense:
- Money – The real estate AdSense was taking up can be better utilized with higher earning affiliate offers.
- Control over offers – There were still Pay Day Loan ads on the site that I don’t believe will help my visitors but with AdSense I had limited control over the offer being promoted. Now I know and can vet any offer that makes it onto the website.
- Ability To Build Backlinks – By not having as much blatant advertising I have a higher probability of receiving backlinks from bloggers and institutions when I reach out to them. Many bloggers and institutions don’t like linking to sites who focus heavily on making money so by having more subtle affiliate links I hope to increase my link building success rate. Unfortunately this is only a theory I won’t be able to test with data.
CPA Offer #1 = $132.00 (-$84)
There are still a few links on the site that direct people to this CPA offer but I am now testing another offer which doesn’t provide immediate payouts/feedback.
CPA Offer #2 = $0 (potential = $750)
The main affiliate offer was switched from CPA offer #1 to CPA offer #2. Offer #2 is a pay for performance commission which takes longer for each potential payout to progress through the system.
So although this offer resulted in 0 earnings I will continue monitoring to see what kind of conversions I can expect from Pending commissions to Earned commissions.
Costs = 73.54
Again the majority of my costs associated with my website is content creation using my method I talk about here.
The VA’s do a lot of things for me such as research post material, identify potential guest posting opportunities, publish content, modify graphics, upload and syndicate videos I make and other assignments as they come up.
- VA’s = $20.82 @ ODesk (research for a couple epic posts)
- Content Creation (5 on page articles) = $15.00 @ ODesk
- Content Creation (10 guest post articles) = $0.00 @ ODesk (I wrote all myself)
- Dedicated 1 Article/Wk Writer (4 articles) = $24.00 @ODesk
- Content Creation Management = $6.56 @ ODesk
- Hosting = $7.16 @ HostGator
Running Net Income/Loss
In total this website has not made money yet with still a cumulative loss, however with 2 profitable months I am looking forward to seeing what happens next month.
Traffic = 2,519 (+102%) Unique Visitors
This is the kind of month over month traffic growth I like to see! A 102% increase in traffic is great! Although based on some of the engagement stats I don’t believe the traffic quality was as good as I would like it to be.
New Traffic Not as Engaged/Valuable…
- Bounce Rate vs last month (+9.83%)
- Pages / Visit vs last month (-0.14)
Not all traffic is equal, I have been generating traffic from some related high level keywords like “Teacher”. It is tough to provide a quality user experience for keywords that are that “short tail” and my engagement levels show it.
The positive I take from this is that by ranking for these non-targeted high level keywords I believe Google is currently looking kindly upon my new site.
Email Opt Ins
Still a failure!
Total sign up = 6! (2 in the month of December with 2,519 visitors!)
I have now changed the call to action on the homepage this month to the consolidation CPA offer to better utilize that homepage real estate.
Before:
After:
Using Pretty Links I will be able to tell how many people have followed this link.
Content, Promotion and Backlinks
In this section I will show exactly what I have done over the last month to get 100 visitors a day. If you are looking to achieve the same results than there will hopefully be some actionable information shown below…
On Page Content = 9 Posts
In the month of December I only published 9 articles! Not as many as I would like but a couple were very long and helpful resources.
My method of creating articles has been slightly modified when I hired a contributor to upload articles directly to the website for $5/article.
Outreach – Blog Commenting & Social Media (~30 blog comments & ~30 tweets)
I really focused at the start of this month on continuing to reach out to other bloggers in the personal finance field and did so by leaving valuable comments on their blogs and tweeting their content @their-user-name.
This outreach was instrumental in receiving more relevant guest posting opportunities.
Guest Posts = 6 Posts on Quality Sites
Guest posting continues to be where I personally spend the majority of my effort by reaching out to the blog owners and writing the articles myself.
- GP 1 – Dec 5 – PR3 – Alexa 427k
- GP2 – Dec 7 – PR1 – Alexa 1,733k
- GP3 – Dec 17 – PR2 – Alexa 125k
- GP4 – Dec 17 – PR3 – Alexa 556k
- GP5 – Dec 28 – PR 2 – Alexa 119k
All of these guest posts were achieved using the method I talk about here.
Decembers guest posts were on very similar quality sites as previous months, next month I will continue to try and level up on the sites I am guest posting on…
- Average PR and Alexa Rank for November guest posts = PR 2.2 & Alexa 577k
- Average PR and Alexa Rank for December guest posts = PR 2.2 & Alexa 592k
Contact Webmasters – Received 3 .EDU Links
By creating an epic post (list of 150+ grants) and then contacting each of the grants I referenced in the post I was able to generate 3 backlinks already with likely more coming in January.
The success of this strategy warrants its own post. I have added it to my growing list of blog post ideas!
Backlink Stats
I use majestic SEO to track my link profile and help estimate how my link building efforts are being viewed by Google.
- Referring Domains = 75 (+19)
- Backlinks = 1517 (+833)
- Citation Flow 32 (+2)
- Trust Flow 13 (-7)
I don’t like seeing my trust flow decline to the low teens; I believe the .edu links I have received late in December will help correct this for next month. But it is concerning seeing my trust flow decline the way it has. As a result I will slow down on building any new Web 2.0 properties and focus on the higher quality link building strategies I have been doing.
Image From – MajesticSEO.com
Last Month’s Goals
- Continue Guest Posting – (guest post on 5 high quality sites) – Achieved
- Continue Content Creation at 15 posts/month – Failed – only 9
- Monetize – Test higher value CPA & receive 2 commissions – Failed – 0 earned so far (but they take longer to clear and with the holidays at the end of the month this could be why)
- Social – See measureable traffic/outreach with traffic efforts – Achieved
Next Month’s Goals
- Continue Guest Posting – (guest post on 5 high quality sites)
- Continue Content Creation at 10 posts/month
- Monetize – Get data under control(know how much each link makes) & earn over $500
2013 Website Goal
My website case study (My Case Study Website URL is Now Hidden) will earn more per month than Pat Flynn’s case study site SecurityGuardTrainingHQ.com for at least 3 months of the year
In October Pat’s site earned $3,048.69 and mine earned $105.39
This isn’t exactly fair for Pat (mainly because he doesn’t know) and he has about 100 other things he does incredibly well online. I will be putting the majority of my online efforts into my site.
This goal is only meant to help fuel my competitive side and wish everyone all the success possible in 2013.
My 7 Favourite Articles I Read This Month…
Making Money from a Niche Website
Spencer Haws from Niche Pursuits showed that his niche/authority sites are still able to be making money with one of his post panda sites on track to make over $500 per month – on track for $500/month from a new niche site
How To Create an Auto responder Series
Creating an auto responder series takes a lot of work but when done correctly can be very effective. Here is a 2 part series on how to create a great email newsletter. Part 1 and Part 2
How To Run Mastermind Groups
Jaime wrote a guest post on Smart Passive Income on the benefit of masterminds. This is a really great how to guide on running a mastermind group Read more here. In 2013 I plan on starting to participate more with mastermind groups so this article was great.
Outreach Emails (QuickSprout and SEOMoz)
Neil Patel from the Blog at Quick Sprout is always putting out amazing content. This month the post Link Builders Guide to Email Outreach had some great tips that I was able to implement to generate several high quality backlinks. This topic was also written about by RandFish at SEOMoz in his Whiteboard Friday video here
Broken Link Building Bible
Here is a massive post written over at SEOMoz on how to find broken links and generate backlinks as a result of you finding those broken links. Read the whole article here
Great job on a successful month Jon! I am wondering when the traffic for the keyword “teacher” started…it may have something to do with the tragedy in Connecticut.
Interesting point Steve, I had a look at the analytic’s and the traffic for teachers DID correspond to the dates of the tragedy but Google trends shows only a small increase in the keyword teacher around the date and then a decline over the last 2 weeks in December…http://www.google.com/trends/explore#q=teacher&date=today%201-m&cmpt=q. So I am confident the traffic increase is not event driven.
This isn’t the forum for a discussion on the tragedy but I am glad the traffic increase is not due to it, making money off of something horrific would not sit well with me, I wonder how news outlets justifies it to themselves.
Wow Jon over 100% traffic growth. I think what you have been doing has definitely been working. All the best to you and your family for 2013!
Thanks Kristy, all the best to you and yours for 2013!
Congrats on the edu links Jon, nice one. I also like the summary of top articles you’ve read in the month, going to check some of those out. Re mastermind groups – I’m working on a similar project and looking for a group this year too, perhaps we could link up and start one?
Daryl, thanks for the congrats. A lot of great articles in the top articles last month. Regarding the mastermind group I will send you an email with some details and see if its something we can swing!
Bravo Jon,
I’m always thrilled by the success of your new site, i can’t believe you’ve clocked to 100 readers/day in just 4 months while my site that is up to 10 months now hasn’t received up to 50, its really incredible bro.
I will be starting a new niche site on health related niche early this year and will always contact you if i need your along the way, hope you will help me.
My questions are: Are you making any money at all with this your Autority Website blog? And how many blogs do you have presently?
A very nice stat, please keep it up.
Happy new year.
Hi Theodore, Thanks for the feedback. I am definitely happy with the traffic!
Regarding am I making any money with this site (websiteincome.com) I am making a very little with it. Even if it continues to make very little I will keep publishing here since it really keeps me accountable to working on my main focus which is the (Link is not available) site. I do have about 50 other smaller blogs, some of which got hit by Panda/Penguin/EMD but are still making money, I have stopped building smaller sites and will just be focusing on a few larger sites.
Best of luck to you in 2013!
Please pass my new year wishes to your family.
BTW: How are you enjoying your new apartment? Hope you enjoyed the christmas very well.
All the best and thanks for visiting my blog.
Thanks, I am in the same house just had to move which room my office was in since the baby will be getting the larger room. New office is great though!
Jon,
It looks like you are well on your way! Those .edu links are very valuable and typically hard to get. I look forward to your next income update.
Thanks David, if the first 3 days of January continue than it will definitely be a very exciting income report I publish on Feb 1.
Hey Jon! Congrats on your traffic growth. Getting EDU backlinks is huge!
May I ask what ad affiliate program you use for the student loan consolidation rate affiliate ads? What does the service provide exactly? What is the $750 payout potential? Is that per sign up, or an estimate based on a figure x a payout? You can shoot me an email too.
Thanks ,
Sam
Hi Sam, thanks the traffic numbers and EDU links are definitely positives!
The affiliate offer is for private student loan consolidations, they compare and offer the lowest loan to the lead.
The “potential” $750 represents active leads (people who have completed a form and are working with the company) but have not had the loan distributed to them. The $750 represents the expected conversion of leads to payouts.
If you do your own monthly reporting how to you track payouts from leads generated in one month but then you wont know about them until next month?
Impressive stats and report Jon!
I also recently removed Adsense from my niche blog, but for a different reason. Some of the ads that were being displayed were from the same companies as my affiliate offers. I don’t want a low paying as click to take away from the much higher potential I have with my affiliate offers.
It really is scary how similar we are. Concerning your goal to beat Pat Flynn’s earnings in 2013 – I have almost the exact same goal! The difference being that mine didn’t state for 3 consecutive months and the fact that my goal previously existed only in my head! Cheers to both of us as we work towards accomplishing that goal in 2013.
Thanks Matt, How is your credit card site going? Content on it is looking good!
That’s funny we have almost identical goals! I think the goal is good though, ads a little extra competitiveness to a financial goal.
Also, just have to give your curated content post another plug, I have used the framework with a lot of success lately!
http://dumbpassiveincome.com/my-niche-blog-curated-content-strategy/
100 hits a day is the goal I have for my new big niche/authority site .
How many pages does your site have?
I wanted to get my site up to 100 posts/pages by the end of 2012 but failed. It only has about 70 at the moment and is getting about 20 hits a day.
I was envisioning each post to bring in one visit a day but this doesn’t seem to be the case yet.
Good luck with your goal for catching up with Pat’s site.
Joe
I have 74 posts and 15 content pages. The site was started in September of this year and get around 8-15 new posts each month.
The quantity of posts is great but I really try and change up the type of post I have, some posts are content heavy targeting search traffic, some posts are meant as sales funnels for affiliate products and some posts are outreach posts. I find changing the types of posts to be really important!
Hey Jon, I have to say your analysis is a-ma-zing and very interesting!
I’m very interested to task & article outsourcing, link building and autorithy/niche sites:
I discovered you on nichepursuit by Spencer:)
I’ll read with more attention your posts in the next days,
cheeeeeers!
Ago
Glad you stopped by and liked the analysis…I am looking forward to posting my next months analysis. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to contact me!
Hey Jon!
congrats on the huge traffic improvement! I guess it’s mostly search engine traffic?
besides your guest post strategy and email outreach, do you use any other tricks?
thx!
Mike.
Hi Mike, thanks for the congrats on the traffic…I am looking forward to this months income report with a nice traffic jump in January!
My focus is on outreach and guest posting but I do have a few “tricks”. Primarily it is building out expired domains for some extra link juice and 301 redirecting some highly highly highly relevant expired domains to relevant pages. I hope to share more details on how I have been doing this over the next couple months.
Thanks for the comment!
Hi Jon! I haven’t been here for a while. I see you have progress a lot with your niche website. Keep it up! rinse and repeat is where everything is at! Mostly these type of website start making real money when they break the 1.5-2 years mark.
Hi Miki, thanks for stopping by! I will be working hard on building the current site into as useful a site as possible. In the future I will look at repeating the process but I am not even 10% of the way there yet (I hope).
I am trying to build traffic but after 5 month i have reached only 40/day visitors. Please help me for better.
Hey thank you for the post. I am as well following the monthly goals structure now after reading it from you. Must say it is very useful.
Thanks Jon! For sharing such a useful information. It would really help in business growth and equally important for startups if implemented in proper way. Thanks a ton again!