A year ago I started a journey called - blogging. I'm not that kind of guys who likes to imagine - what if.. and so by starting my blog a year ago - I asked a question
Can you blog 365 days in a row?
Here is a quick answer a year latter - Yes, You can!
Longer answer - there is no problem to blog every single day 365 days in a row, except force majeure cases, so I skipped 2 days of blogging this year, because I was in the place were no internet connection was available at all.
In my first year of blogging I wrote in total 478 articles
The Graphs:
Now - I year ago - I expressed my modest goal to achieve around 6,000 unique visitors a month to my blog - it didn't happened
One year of blog stats (daily)
Above you can see my blogs daily statistics for a time range 10.10.2013-09.10.2014.
As you can see - at start I had a really really slow start - at the last quarter of 2013, my blog attracted less than 200 unique visitors I mean it's damned pretty slow start.
The huge spike - happened at the end of January 2014, when someone posted a link on Reddit - that got me - astonishing more than 1000 unique visitors on that day.
In following months my blog traffic started to pick it up. So average daily visitor (unique) count in the month of September was 112.
Blog stats for a year (weekly)
Now - from above screen we can better oversee my traffic gains. The week with traffic spike in January still is the best week so far (in terms of traffic)
Blog stats for a year (Monthly)
Now these are the statistics like the most - monthly.
So what might look like a giant traffic gain in January, doesn't looks so impressive any-more in September?
The good thing - my blog had growth for almost every month, the bad thing - 14, 966 unique users in 12 months - isn't it a modest result? It's - I know!
My average daily unique visitor count for first 12 months was around 41 unique visitor a day.
Top 10 countries
Top 10 countries visitors from visit my blog
My blog haves a very international audience, with United States in lead with around 24% of unique visitor coming from there. In the list you will find a country where I'm living - Georgia as well - since I cover topics related to Georgia - it's no surprise for me to have Georgia on lists 4th place.
India? hmm - I guess Indian Drupallers follows my blog.
Poland, Russia, Ukraine? Hmm - Visitors from those countries like Georgia - and probably find interesting content related to their needs on my blog..
Thus on the another hand - my most popular article on blog compared Poland and Ukraine - maybe it has some effect.
Sweeden? I found that some Swedish users shared some articles on their FB and I got a mini-kick in traffic from Sweeden.
In overall - English Speaking audience dominates my blog's traffic, followed by Slavic speaking countries. Good!
TOP 10 most red articles
- Ukraine vs Poland by GDP 1990-2012
- Drupal Flex Slider gallery with thumbnails
- 17 Best HP Laptops You Can Buy Online - Amazon.com
- Image hover effects - how to change background on mouse over
- GDP Per Capita in European Union 2013
- Embankment of Mtkvari, Tbilisi
- How to automatically add watermarks to uploaded images
- Georgian Bus - Great way to travel from Kutaisi to Batumi or Tbilisi
- Views lode more pager with Ajax for Drupal
- 13 Best Budget Laptops / Notebooks Under $250
Those 10 most viewed articles makes around 31.18% of total unique pageviews my blog had in last 12 month
Monetization
Another goal I made for my blog - was to monetize it!
I started monetization with New Year of 2014 (from January).
In total for last 12 months my blog has earned $457.53 what makes around $1.25 in a day.
At start I stocked with plug&play Google Adsense - what brings me in couple of bucks each month, latter on (starting June) I started to play with Affiliate partner programs - for a start I chose Bookings.com affiliate, then added Hotels.com and latter Amazon Associates program.
In a result - I found that hotels affiliate marketing is way too competitive, and I opted out for further hotel promotions.
My best finding this year is Amazons Associates program - shortly I applied for it and started to promote their products my earnings sharply increased, so in month of August - I earned my first $95 solely made on internet, exclusively with my blog.
Month of September so far has been the best - it got me $287.00 with Google Adsense and Amazon combined.
I'm still new to affiliate marketing and blogging as well - I do believe the money you make on your blog, can be 2, 3, 4 or 10 times bigger than my best month ($287.00) and on internet there are a bunch of folks making more.
Goals for next year:
My goal for this year was simple - to attract around 6,000 unique visitors to my blog at the end of first blogging year - it didn't happened, I attracted 3,364 at the September, what is about 50% of my starting goal. Ok, not a big problem - I'm actually very happy with the results so far.
Now - I must set some goals for next blogging year - this time I will set two goals: Visitors and Monetization
Visitors:
I want to have by end of September 2015 in one month 14,966 unique visitors (why 14,966? Well that much I attracted in previous 12 month - I want to have in one month - what I had in 12)
Now - I understand - it might not happen as planned, so my minimum goal is to have around 50% of that count (Again, why 50%? Well - For this year I have reached 50%, so it set this for next year as well - margin of error ) 50% would be around 7,500 unique visitors per month. Sounds pretty realistic!
Monetization:
I have 2 simple goals - first to reach $500 per month, second to reach $1000 per month.
For Memory
I'm attaching a front page screen - how my blog looked alike turning 1:
Front page of blog 2014
P.S. I'm continuing to blog 365 days in a row - non stop!
