Due to the overwhelming amount of spam I get on this blog… I’ve decided to axe the comments. From now on, no new comments will be able to be posted here. If you have a comment or question for me, please feel free to use the contact form at the top of the page - I do read my email daily, and I’ll get back to you ASAP.
You can’t browse webmaster or blogging related blogs without reading about how important it is to get your traffic from different sources, and not rely entirely on Google. I can attest to this personally - I’ve had blogs that got ~75-80% of their traffic from Google. One day, the traffic faucet just turned off, and that caused some serious problems, that took a long time to recover from.
The biggest problem with Google traffic is that it’s unpredictable - you can get a ton one day, and none the next. Whenever the Big G changes their algorithm, things can start going sideways, and your traffic ( and income ) can drop like a rock. That is no good for anyone, and certainly no fun. So, the obvious answer is to focus on getting your traffic from other sources. What other sources are their besides Google?
Besides search engine traffic ( I say Google because it’s so dominant usually ), most of your traffic is likely to come from links on other sites. Whether they’re large directories, blogs, static websites, forums, or whatever. There are tons of places to get links, and I could get so sidetracked by talking about it that I’ll save that for another post. The point is that links bring you traffic - the more links, the more traffic.
Now, since you’ve worked hard to gather a lot of quality links, you’re now less dependent on Google traffic. You have a steady stream of traffic coming in via your links - not a bad situation to be in. But, that’s not all - there’s a hidden bonus in this. While you were busy building those links to get link traffic, Google was keeping tabs on you. As we all know, Google loves links - the more, the better. In addition to all that link traffic that you just worked so hard to build, Google is likely to rank your sites higher, and send you more traffic.
So in the process of building up your link traffic, you also built up your Google traffic - not a bad deal is it? So while Google traffic and link traffic aren’t technically the same ( perhaps I picked a bad title for this post ) , they absolutely go hand in hand - it’s hard to work on one without affecting the other.
Leroy has officially retired this blog, but recently Garry Conn (Online Marketing) posted a comment that makes some sense. He points out that this blog is worth maintaining due to the good stats and that a post once a month would be enough to keep it alive. This brings up a great question: Is once a month posting enough to keep a blog alive?
A common question in blogging is how often a blogger should be posting. In order to grow the traffic and income potential of a blog, a very general answer to this question is 3-7 times per week or more. Obviously, the more posting on a blog, the more visitors can be expected. But, what if you have an established blog that already has some age and statistics built up?
BloggingBlog has a Page Rank of 4 currently and while the Alexa Rank isn’t all that impressive right now, there are still some good links to this blog according to Technorati. So, what do you think? If any of you loyal readers are still checking back in the hopes that Leroy will start posting here again, let us know in the comments. If Leroy or I will post at least once a month here, is it worth it to you to come back?
Part of blogging successfully is knowing when to shut down a blog. With just 7 posts over the last two months, I’ve known this day was coming for awhile. With all the other projects I have going on right now, I simply don’t have enough time to dedicate to Blogging Blog. I will be blogging regularly over the Green Llama however, and any blogging related posts I have will make their way there.
Will Blogging Blog ever be back? Well, it’s not going anywhere, per se. The archives will be here, and I think there’s some good stuff in there. I won’t say that I’ll never post here again, because I don’t know what the future holds. Hopefully one day I will, but for now, I’m going to let it rest. Come visit me at the Green Llama when you have a chance.
I’ve posted an update to my popular Top 9 Wordpress Plugins. This time, you can find the post over at the Green Llama. Here’s the link directly to my post - Top 9 Wordpress Plugins Part 2. Enjoy!
Performancing Metrics is dead - closed up shop. Right after the Pay per Post deal fell apart, Performancing announced that they were closing the Metrics program. So if you were a member of Metrics, remember to remove the code from your blogs. No reason to slow down the loading anymore, if you’re aren’t gaining anything useful in the process.
Me, I’ll miss Metrics. I prefer Google Analytics overall, but Metrics gave some information that was specific to bloggers, so it made it very useful. I’m definitely sad to see it go… and I hope someone will pick it up and re-open it.
If you’re a Blogger user that wants their own domain, but hasn’t made the move yet due to hosting costs, now you have no worries. Pony up the $10 or less per year for a domain, and Blogger will provide free hosting. If you’re a non tech-head and want easy blogging, with your own domain, Blogger is probably the easiest choice for today. Via Duncan Riley.
December turned out to be a pretty good month, after all. I had a few scares, and a tough start, but things ended up a on a good note. Overall net profit was green, with a 4.78% increase over November. That doesn’t set any worlds on fire, but as I always say, green is green, and I’ll take it.
The big winner for December was Adsense. I had a very good Adsense month indeed - with a hefty 38.9% increase over last month - now that’s what I’m talking about. What contributed? Well, mainly one site again. I hunkered down and hammered out over 50 posts on that one site, and it looks like it paid off. I know 50 posts in one month isn’t a lot to some folks, but to me it’s absurd. I’ve never even come close to that number on a single blog before. I’m sure going to try again though.
Text Link Ads showed a 3.1% increase. Again small, but positive. A 3% increase every month for a year or two adds up to real money.
Unfortunately, December didn’t bring affiliate profits. In fact, it brought a loss that was nearly 3 times the loss from November - that hurts. However, there were a few bright spots in that ugly pile of red ink. I’m learning what not to do, and I’m learning it pretty quickly. I’m looking to post a profit in January of 07 here.
Overall, just two income sources made up my December profits. Adsense accounted for a whopping 80%, and TLA for 20%. I’ve decided to skip the chart this month, as 80/20 is pretty easy to visualize. Again, I am leery of my dependence on Adsense. While Adsense is a great program, I don’t like to see 80% of my profit come from this source alone - it’s risky!
What next for January? Well for starters, I’m going to attempt to match my post count on my most profitable Adsense-earning site. It worked well in December, and I hope it does the same for January. I will hopefully have a few more sites qualify for Text Link Ads, which would be fantastic. I may be a few months away in that regard, however. On the affiliate side, I’ve cut a few programs completely since they were just bleeding red ink. I’m going to revamp one major project completely, because I think it has potential. I’m also slowly ramping up a potentially huge project - I want to make sure it can be profitable before dumping too much time and money into it.
Well, that’s my December. I’ll have a year-end report out soon, once I have a chance to tally everything up and outline some goals.
I just got tagged by George - so I figured I better get this post up quickly. I’m going to do my top 5 movies - so here they are, in no particular order. I may miss some, as I have the memory of a goldfish ( which isn’t very good ) , but hopefully I don’t miss any major ones.
“What are my 5 favorite movies?”
Here is a list of my five favorite movies:
1. Blow
2. Kingdom of Heaven
3. Xmen 3 - The Last Stand
4. Tombraider ( 1 & 2 )
5. Lord of the Rings ( all 3 , hard to separate them )
There you go, my top 5 ( or 8, depending on how you read it ) favorite movies, in no particular order. Judge away.
Let’s see, I tag Roy ( yes that was on purpose ), Pedro, Rob, Sheila, and I can’t think of a fifth person!
2006 has been a very interesting year, but I think 2007 holds even more promise. Here’s a few of the things I am planning for the grand year of two thousand and seven :
Continue to diversify my income streams
I will target 50% of income from affiliate programs for 2007. I currently rely too heavily on Adsense, which we all know is rather unstable. I will continue to work on finding profitable affiliate programs to diversify, and hopefully proceed to direct advertising on some sites.
Streamline my projects
I will not start projects I can’t see through. I will not start projects I can’t see through. I will not start projects I can’t see through. I can’t stress that enough - it has been a problem of mine this past year. Good, solid ideas that failed not due to feasibility, but lack of time to see them produce results.
Focus on profit
This means cutting some projects that, while ’successful’ in some ways, don’t contribute meaningfully to my bottom line. I am in this game to earn a profit, and hopefully have some fun in the process. Not the other way around.
Manage my time better
I have precious little time to work on online projects due to the demands of every day life. I need to continue to focus on using the time efficiently, and not wasting a second of it. This is a huge obstacle that I need to overcome, and it can have a very positive effect on my success.
