It was just yet another Autumn evening, when back in the October 10, 2013 I registered my domain name www.ReinisFischer.com, but in fact I started my blog some 7 days earlier on October 3rd, 2013. I had my blog been setup and it already was filled with a few articles, before it was actually launched. Yes, such strange behavior probably can be explained that geeks do geek things, though I don't see a geek in me.
I started this blog thing with a goal - To blog 365 consecutive days and when I launched I was looking to reach about 6,000 monthly users by the end of my first blogging year. The fact is, after 365 days of consecutive blogging I reached just 3,364 monthly users (September 2014), what was about just above of half of my goal.
6,000 users, buddy? It's nothing! I hear you, you are right, 6,000 are not much, but it was worth of it to reach and crack that milestone in November 2014 (9,096 users).
As you can see - I did have my goals defined even before I launched, and that's what I can recommend to any one looking to dig in into this amazing thing called blogging - set your goals and work out hard to reach them.
Traffic (October 10, 2013 - October 9, 2015)
Blog Traffic for two years Data source: Google Analytics
Two years and 261,335 users, two years and 400,921 pageviews, two years and 296,545 sessions. The most valuable data for me are unique users, instead of pageviews or sessions, because they are the lowest ones, I always prefer to look on lowest not highest numbers. Wait, did I just said a quarter or million of unique visitors to my blog? It's about the same population in French Polynesia. OK, me too first heard of such place just now. Better let's keep on that a quarter of million thing. Wow.
The real growth happened in second year of my blogger carrier, take a loot on following image:
Blog traffic - first year vs second year (Data source: Google Analytics)
- During my second year of blogging I have reached some awesome growth - 1,547.00% growth. In my first blogging anniversary I reached pretty humble 14,966 user audience, then in my second year it is already 245,490 users. It's 16.5 times more traffic in second year compared to the first year.
- The blogs traffic have grown from 39 user in October 2013 to 36,668 in September 2015.
Does it's a good traffic? It's hard to answer. Obliviously 30K per month in far better than just 30, but it depends on many other aspects.
Top 10 Countries
Top 10 visiting countries (Data source: Google Analytics)
- Native English language speaking countries (United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia) dominates on my blog. Well India as well is English speaking country.
- Georgia - That's the country I have been living for the almost past five years, I share a lot of articles on Georgia related topics.
- Lithuania is a surprise for me on this list, but I actually got a ton of Lithuanian traffic on article about minimum wages in European Union
- Germany - I probably sound German (my surname at least)
- Spain - I have a lovely travel guide series on Spain and Andorra, as well my article on getting a pre-paid sim card in Spain is among TOP 10 articles (see bellow)
- Netherlands - Probably some Drupal related stuff and Dutch people most probably are searching for information in English.
Monetization
Monetization is important part of my blog's life, every month I do income reports to cover details I have done and how did it went last month.
It took me some 3 months to start thinking of my blog monetization and I started simple - choosing Google AdSense, and in first month I earned very serious 24 dollar cents. Well, on the other hand 12 months latter I ended with more than two thousand dollars (which under this day is still my best result so far). During last 24 months I have tried both display ads (Google AdSense, Amazon CPM, Svorn) and affiliate marketing (Amazon Associates, Bluehost, ThemeSnap, Booking, Linode and some others)
- Affiliate marketing was a game changer for me. Those last two years have earned me more than $10,000 already
- In my first blogging year I made $457,53, which equals to about $1.25 per day, now the second blogging year helped me to earn enormous almost $10,000 ($9,903.55 to be correct) which equals to $27.13 per day.
As you can see there has been some important growth both for traffic and income during last 12 month
Articles
During last two years I have published in total 947 articles:
- First year: 478 articles
- Second year: 469 articles
As you can see the difference is very small, it has been just 9 articles less in my second blogging year.
Top 10 Articles on My blog (October 10, 2013 - October 2015)
The following top 10 articles have generated about 41.97% of my blog total page views.
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Nine out of ten articles from this top has been created back in 2014, just one article is made on the 2015 (current year), no posts from 2013 has reached TOP 10.
Beyond the Blog
Blog is a very important part of my life, and thanks to it I have developed some other interests, made some money so I have to invest in.
Probably the most important thing beyond the blog to mention now - is a new project called home remodeling, in which I spent 6 months this year, and probably will spend another 5 years one. Travels take a lot of my time as well. Exactly travels made me to think about developing my photographer skills. So recently I started another new project - 365 days photo challenge (You can track my success or failures on Flickr).
Day 16/365 - Turning 2
I created above HDR image in frames of my 365 day photo challenge to celebrate this blogs second birthday.
Here are some interesting travel guides I have done in my second year of blogging (all is covered on blog)
- Spain and Andorra (October 2014)
- Germany and The Netherlands (April 2015)
- Georgia (Almost every weekend for the last 5 years)
- Armenia, then and now
- Latvia (Summer 2015)
Actually recently I started a new travel guide notes on US trip I did in Summer 2013 (before launching blog)
I'm still doing Drupal development on freelance base, but during last year it has been more consultancy, less actual programming, and by now I feel that I'm my biggest customer (This blog is built on Drupal from scratch)
Plans and goals for third blogging year
- Traffic - I'm looking to break 500,000 user milestone for a next blogging year (October 10, 2015 - October 9, 2016). It would mean to double traffic I did in the second year, or about 41,166 users/montly. Since I have ended both August (2015) and September (2015) with more than 30K monthly users I believe this is a reasonable goal and could be achievable.
- Monetization: I would like to average about $1,000 per month or $12,000 for next blogging year. Although I believe there are a lot of opportunities to double that figure, in money things I'm very humble and cautious. Things can go wrong overnight.
- Selling Royalty Free Stocks - I have a plan to sell my photography. I already have some ideas on that.
- Write an eBook - yes, I feel mature enough to start teaching other how to ...and sell for $29.99. Have some ideas, but I'm not so sure about this. It's more 50/50
Screenshots for history (Turning 2)
Front Page of Blog (October 10, 2015)
Category pages as on October 10
Travel Map as on October 10, 2015
The Bottom Line
The second year for this blog I can describe with one word - Growth. It has been a year of growth, traffic, money and most important growth of me as a person. That said, I would like to thank you for being with me for last two years and lets make another two together.
What about you? Do you have a blog? How did it felt turning two? Are you still on your way on that? Leave me a comment!