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Today I read an article by our friend Crystal who authors the site Budgeting in the Fun Stuff who has a goal to be blogging full time by 2012. To reach this goal she is taking a month by month approach to achieve results and she is documenting her progress as she gets closer and closer to her desired state.
We have already been updating our readers on our status in the Yakezie Challenge and having completed the Yakezie Challenge (at least in terms of getting our Alexa Rank under 200,000) we still want to track our progress. Now, we’re not like BITFS wanting to blog full time (although if we made crazy revenue I wouldn’t shy away from exiting the rat race!) but like our net worth and portfolio status, I want to track our blogging progress as well. I did mention to BITFS that i’d like to make a similar post and received her blessing, so we’ll just call this a “borrowed” idea!
We started our blog in late November of last year, so this first update will compare November to year end with how we did in January of this year. From here on out I will look at our progress on a month to month basis. However, unlike BITFS, we’re not going to display our revenue generation as our goals differ from BITFS, at least for now, and as such a new blog there is little to report on monetization that is worth while sharing!
So with no further adieu, here is our progress from last year vs January of this year!
| Metric | Nov/Dec | January | Difference | Difference % |
| Alexa Ranking | 285,129 | 144,623 | 140,506 | 97.15% |
| mozRank | 4.1 | 5.2 | 1.1 | 26.83% |
| Visits | 2146 | 3092 | 946 | 44.08% |
| Unique Visitors | 1271 | 2063 | 792 | 62.31% |
| Pageviews | 7550 | 12637 | 5087 | 67.38% |
| Pages per Visit | 3.52 | 4.09 | 0.57 | 16.19% |
| Bounce Rate | 19.76% | 11.9% | -7.86% | -39.78% |
| Average Time on Site | 4:54 | 5:11 | 0:17 | 5.78% |
| RSS Subscribers | 28 | 53 | 25 | 89.29% |
| Twitter Followers | 148 | 170 | 22 | 14.86% |
| Referring Sites | 1362 | 1896 | 534 | 39.21% |
| Direct Traffic | 425 | 611 | 186 | 43.76% |
| Search Engines | 209 | 257 | 48 | 22.97% |
| Other | 150 | 328 | 178 | 118.67% |
We’re happy with these results and find we are keeping up with our blogging resolutions for this year!
| Metric | Nov/Dec | January | Difference | Difference % |
| Alexa Ranking | 285,129 | 144,623 | 140,506 | 97.15% |
| mozRank | 4.1 | 5.2 | 1.1 | 21.15% |
| Visits | 2146 | 3092 | 946 | 30.60% |
| Unique Visitors | 1271 | 2063 | 792 | 38.39% |
| Pageviews | 7550 | 12637 | 5087 | 40.25% |
| Pages per Visit | 3.52 | 4.09 | 0.57 | 13.94% |
| Bounce Rate | 19.76 | 11.9 | -7.86 | -66.05% |
| Average Time on Site | 4:54 | 5:11 | 0:17 | 5.47% |
| RSS Subscribers | 28 | 53 | 25 | 47.17% |
| Twitter Followers | 148 | 170 | 22 | 12.94% |
| Referring Sites | 1362 | 1896 | 534 | 28.16% |
| Direct Traffic | 425 | 611 | 186 | 30.44% |
| Search Engines | 209 | 257 | 48 | 18.68% |
| Other | 150 | 328 | 178 | 54.27% |
Well done. I think I need to do that to. I sort of have been doing it in my head for a few areas but I should really track it the way you have done it. Thanks for the idea.
The Passive Income Earner recently posted..Dividend Yield- CIBC TSE-CM
Well done!!! You’re having a very rapid growth and, after looking at all the effort you put on your blog, I’m sure that will accelerate even more.
Finanzas Personales recently posted..Diversificación – una estrategia de protección
Twitter: brokeprofession
Congrats guys! It is great to see talent and hard work payoff…..the sky’s the limit!
Twitter: HowToSave
Some of your numbers make me seriously jealous! I seem to have incompetent at building back links, getting twitter followers, and lowering my bounce rate!
Jealousy aside, I am very happy to see you post such wonderful numbers. It’s truly an inspiration!
SavingMentor recently posted..Shopping Online Is Safe- Easy- And Saves Money
Twitter: SustainablePF
Thanks for the feedback SM.
Back links: we have about 95. What we do have is a lot of Yahoo Inbound Links. I don’t know how this matters, but I think it is due to the fact I subscribe to close to 100 RSS feeds and I read all the articles every day while commenting where I feel I have something relevant to say.
Twitter Followers: What I did was follow the Yakezie list and a lot of the members/challengers followed us back. Many did not (unfortunately) but it sure did help. Also, Tom Drake (Canadian Finance Blog) included us in his 2 lists which gave us a bunch of other Canuck blogs to follow, which led to some other followers. Lastly, I think the comments I leave all over the web earned us some twitter followers. For example, FrugalTrader @ MillionDollarJourney doesn’t follow a lot of people but he followed us! We comment on his site, include some articles in our Weekend Reading etc and he reciprocated. When you get big name followers I think it may help.
Bounce Rate: I have NO explanation. None. Ours is tiny. I’ve read that if you can get to 35% you’re doing well and we blow that number away. I’d love to learn how we manage such a low rate.
Our site isn’t about blogging or blog success. But I somehow think putting everything together that we’ve done could help some folks. Perhaps I should guest post somewhere …
Anyhow, feel free to email any questions readers - i’m happy to share anything I know (and stuff I don’t know too!). I’d love to see everyone do well who reads our stuff.
Twitter: RealizedReturns
Nice numbers. Very impressive growth in such a short time..
Jaymus (RealizedReturns) recently posted..Introduction to short selling
Twitter: SustainablePF
Thanks Jaymus! Hopefully we can continue to build onward and upward.
Wow, you numbers are awesome!!! Great job.
I can’t believe your incredible bounce rate!
retirebyforty recently posted..Happy Groundhog Day & Chinese New Year!
Twitter: SustainablePF
Thanks! From what I gather a low bounce rate means our visitors don’t just check in and then go to another site - they look at more of our articles!
Twitter: prairieecothrif
Congrats you two! Those starts are amazing considering how young your blog is. You two deserve to be very proud of yourselves. I just hope I can keep up with you and be as successful. Keep up the good work and best of luck with your growth.
Miss T @ Prairie EcoThrifter recently posted..12 Ways to Increase Your Productivity
Twitter: SustainablePF
Thanks Miss T. Without the support of folks like yourself we’d not be where we are at. If there is anything we can do to help you along don’t hesitate to ask!