That time again for our monthly, and 1st annual blog update!
Image via Wikipedia
First, we want to revisit our big announcement!!!!
Almost 3 weeks ago we celebrating the 1 year anniversary of Sustainable Personal Finance! Hard to believe a whole year has almost come and gone. The experience writing for you, our readers, has been fantastic. To celebrate we are holding a MASSIVE contest where you, our readers, will have a chance to win well over $1200 in prizes! A hint: there will be tech prizes that are eco-friendly and pretty cool.
Our second announcement is that after a full year of blogging anonymously we have decided to reveal ourselves to the world! Names and a picture. You won’t want to miss it.
So it was our busiest month EVER for Sustainable Personal Finance in October. Things slowed a bit in November but we had our best non-Consumerist referenced month to date.
This month I am going to show our statistics for November but as a special treat our yearly stats, broken down by quarter. And we’ll include our most viewed articles for the year plus our top referral sites from our first year.
A special thanks to the following sites for including us in their carnivals:
Canadian Finance Blog1, 2 and 3. Afford Anything, Frugal Family Life, Price Positive, PT Money, Retire By 40, Stock Market Basics, The Saved Quarter, Bucksome Boomer, Faith and Finance, Good Financial Cents, My Dollar Plan and My Personal Finance Journey.
Interested in our stats for November? 
| Sept | Oct | Nov | Diff | Diff % | Avg | |
| Alexa Ra | 62944 | 63722 | 58152 | -5,570 | -8.74% | 61,606 |
| mozRank | 5.32 | 5.32 | 5.32 | 0.00 | 0.00% | 5.32 |
| Visits | 7159 | 14514 | 10278 | -4,236 | -29.19% | 10,650 |
| Visits Per | 238.63 | 468.19 | 342.60 | -125.59 | -26.83% | 349.81 |
| Unique Vi | 5238 | 12389 | 8084 | -4,305 | -34.75% | 8,570 |
| Visitors P | 174.60 | 399.65 | 269.47 | -130.18 | -32.57% | 281.24 |
| Pageview | 12606 | 23794 | 17242 | -6,552 | -27.54% | 17,881 |
| Pageview | 420.20 | 767.55 | 574.73 | -192.82 | -25.12% | 587.49 |
| Pages pe | 1.76 | 1.64 | 1.68 | -0.12 | 2.44% | 1.69 |
| Bounce R | 70.55 | 76.68 | 76.17 | 6.13 | -0.67% | 74.47 |
| Average | 2:18 | 1:45 | 2:03 | 18s | 0 | 0 |
| RSS Subs | 420 | 468 | 598 | 48 | 27.78% | 495 |
| Twitter F | 604 | 661 | 788 | 57 | 19.21% | 684 |
| Referring | 2823 | 8004 | 4066 | 5,181 | -49.20% | 4,964 |
| Direct Tra | 1185 | 2495 | 1522 | 1,310 | -39.00% | 1,734 |
| Search E | 2961 | 3978 | 4649 | 1,017 | 16.87% | 3,863 |
| Other | 24 | 37 | 41 | 13 | 10.81% | 34 |
Things we’re happy about …
- We knew October was an outlier. As such, we’re very pleased with the September -> November jumps. I will discuss these.
- Alexa ranking down almost 5000.
- 2800 more visits.
- Search traffic keeps increasing nicely.
Our top 10 viewed articles in November:
- 1st Blogoversary, Identity Reveal and Mega Contest (new)
- 5 Tips to Downsize Your Lifestyle (new)
- How to Sell Your House Quickly
- Netflix Sucks in Canada
- The Latte Factor. Only Better. (new)
- My Journey to the Best Canadian Rewards Credit Card
- How to Make Deodorant
- Quick and Easy Dividend Calculators (new)
- Best Time to Buy a New Car
- Why we Chose the 2011 Subaru Outback
Top 10 Referring Sites in November:
- Million Dollar Journey (549)
- The Consumerist (246)
- Free Money Finance (231)
- Give Me Back My Five Bucks (103)
- Financial Uproar (69)
- Bank Nerd (52)
- My Own Advisor (48)
- Buck Inspire (46)
- Nicole and Maggie (32)
- Financial Samurai (31)
| Dec-Mar | Mar-May | Jun-Aug | Sept-Nov | |||||
| Metric | Total | Avg | Total | Avg | Total | Avg | Total | Avg |
| Alexa Ranking | 178,012 | 87,324 | 78,856 | 61,606 | ||||
| mozRank | 4.66 | 4.66 | 5.10 | 5.32 | ||||
| Visits | 10,342 | 3,447 | 12,495 | 4,165 | 19,197 | 6,399 | 31,951 | 10,650 |
| Visits Per Day | 117.52 | 135.58 | 208.07 | 349.81 | ||||
| Unique Visitors | 9,319 | 3,106 | 9,382 | 3,127 | 15,066 | 5,022 | 25,711 | 8,570 |
| Visitors Per Day | 104.95 | 101.80 | 163.28 | 281.24 | ||||
| Pageviews | 31,764 | 10,588 | 24,240 | 8,080 | 36,315 | 12,105 | 53,642 | 17,881 |
| Pageviews / Day | 356.10 | 263.04 | 393.90 | 587.49 | ||||
| Pages per Visit | 3.35 | 1.94 | 1.91 | 1.69 | ||||
| Bounce Rate | 28.52 | 68.97 | 70.59 | 74.47 | ||||
| Avg Time on Site | 4:40 | 2:31 | 2:18 | 2:02 | ||||
| RSS Subscribers | 68 | 230 | 364 | 598 | 495 | |||
| Twitter Followers | 179 | 341 | 494 | 788 | 684 | |||
| Referring Sites | 6,223 | 2,074 | 5,928 | 1,976 | 7,999 | 2,666 | 14,893 | 4,964 |
| Referral % | 61.26% | 47.26% | 41.16% | 44.71% | ||||
| Direct Traffic | 2,528 | 843 | 2,719 | 906 | 3,441 | 1,147 | 5,202 | 1,734 |
| Direct % | 28.67% | 21.87% | 18.00% | 16.18% | ||||
| Search Engines | 974 | 325 | 3,595 | 1,198 | 7,704 | 2,568 | 11,588 | 3,863 |
| Search % | 5.55% | 28.92% | 40.52% | 38.00% | ||||
| Other | 617 | 206 | 253 | 84 | 53 | 18 | 102 | 34 |
| Other % | 7.12% | 1.95% | 0.32% | 0.33% | ||||
Our top 20 viewed articles in our first year (# of views):
- How to Make Deodorant (7625)
- How to Sell Your House Quickly (4876)
- My Journey to the Best Canadian Rewards Credit Card (2995)
- Why we Chose the 2011 Subaru Outback (2930)
- 365 Green Tips (2666)
- Why we use Holistic Blend Healthy Dog Food (2024)
- 34 House Staging Tips (1692)
- Netflix Sucks in Canada (1556)
- How to Stop Smoking Cigarettes (1402)
- Not Another Top 10 Reasons to Cancel Cable List (1156)
- 1st Blogoversary, Identity Reveal and Mega Contest (1141) ENTER!
- 16 Driving Tips to Increase Gas Mileage (1015)
- Best Time to Buy a New Car (920)
- 5 Tips to Downsize Your Lifestyle (913)
- A $12.43 Electric Bill for a 2600 Square Foot Home (846)
- How to Install a Low Flow Toilet (748)
- Paypal Currency Exchange – USD to CAD Workaround (745)
- Making Money Online – 4 Decades of Deals (721)
- A Green Cycle – Alternative Feminine Hygiene Products (677)
- Buying a Home (675)
Top 10 Referring Sites in our first year (# of views):
- The Consumerist (5250)
- Yakezie (2122)
- Million Dollar Journey (1873)
- The Globe and Mail (911)
- Canadian Money Forum (764)
- Give Me Back My Five Bucks (760)
- Canadian Capitalist/Money Sense (676)
- Free Money Finance (668)
- Mom’s Plans (533)
- Money Index (396)
- THE Canadian Personal Finance Blog (356)
- The Dividend Guy Blog (328)
- How to Save Money (278)
- Invest it Wisely (246)
- Prairie Eco Thrifter (232)
- Financial Consumed (225)
- Canadian Finance Blog (223)
- Financial Samurai (195)
- Retire by 40 (189)
- Time.com (188)
If you like our writing and want to follow us further please follow us on twitter @SustainablePF, like us on Facebook and subscribe to our RSS feed in a reader or via E-Mail.
Impressive. You really have accomplished a lot in a year. Thanks for laying the numbers out like this for us to see.
Thanks KC. Growth is fun!
Growth is most certainly fun! Congrats. Keep up the great work!
Congratulations! Keep it up.
Congratulations on a an impressive first year. I’m a big fan of your site and look forward to seeing you grow in the coming year. Blog on!
Awesome effort guys, so much to be proud of there. I bet the year to come will be even better for you!
Congratulations. What a year. I am so happy for you. I hope year two is just as successful.
Congratulations! You have accomplished so much in such a short time!
What a strong year! Congratulations on your great accomplishment. I’m sure 2nd year will be even stronger. Best of luck!
Well done on a strong first year. Virtual toast to the next one!
Thanks for the kind words folks!
TBH, I am not sure if we’ve had a fair/decent/good/excellent year in terms of traffic or what not. I do know that the Yakezie Network has been instrumental in any level of success we have attained. Some elbow grease doesn’t hurt either. ;)
We love having these conversations about PF and/or Green/Sustainability topics with all of you. Blogging about things you really care about, coupled with a fantastic community, dwarfs any site metric measure of success.
Congrats! These numbers are amazing and a tribute to your diligence!
Congratulations Simon on a successful year! Best of luck in the new year.
Great results, SPF! I’m glad to send some referrals your way. :)
Killer year # 1 :)
I look forward to many more, interacting with you!
Cheers,
Mark
Oh, I love these. What a great year you had. Congratulations.
Thanks so much for the mention of the carnival I hosted!
Just got back from vacation. This is a great post summarizing your first year. You should be very proud about what the two of you have accomplished!
That’s awesome! Your blog is doing great. It’s a nice blend of environment and finance. I’ll look forward to your photos!
There is a photo in our 1 yr anniversary post! (link at top of the article)
Congrats SPF!!!
Congratulations on your great stats!! You’ve got a solid base of readers. (It feels great to break into a 5-digit monthly readership number — I just got there myself.) Keep it up!
I remember very well how you started a year ago. And now, a year later, it is not just amazing, it is pretty much incredible and unbelievable. Your blog shows what a hard work combined with a remarkable creativity can do. Congrats guys!
Congrats on a great month!
Nice work buddy! I think the direct traffic indicator is the most impressive number up there!
Why the direct traffic Evan? I’ve been working to improve the SE traffic …
Because it means that people are loving your site so much they are making a conscious move to put it into their explorer
Very well done! I like that you post these stats here so we get some insight, congrats on a great year!
Great numbers! Great search engine traffic numbers!
Super impressive first year!!
Keep up the great work- I’ve highlighted this in my link love :)
I just noticed this post… glad to see that CFB made the list of referring sites for the year, but it looks like I’ll need to link to you a bit more in 2012 to work my way up that list. Happy new year!
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