The first thing to note about ClickNewz Stats this month is the recent PageRank update. I'm not sure if its settled yet or not, but ClickNewz has dropped from a PR5 to a PR4 according to the Google Toolbar.
No major worries from me, as I consider it "vanity green", and the statistics for ClickNewz continue to rise steadily. Last month (October 2007) saw a 12% increase in unique vistors, and a 31% increase in overall visits...
October 2007 Stats for the ClickNewz Blog:
- Unique Visitors: 14,064
- Total Number of Visits: 34,111
- Inbound Links (main page): 32,500
- Inbound Links (total): 35,400
The number of Feed Subscribers and Email Subscribers are about equal, fluctuating between 400-500 (each).
I noticed my Inbound Link stats jumped back up to normal. They were way down in September and I wasnt sure if it was a temporary fluke or a permanent update to link tracking. Seems all is well now.
The 5 most popular topics during the month of October were:
- Day 19 of the 20-day Challenge (Part 2)
- 20k In 20 Days
- Writing Reports for $$
- How I Make Money Online (An Inside Look)
- Understanding Resale Rights
Google and StumbleUpon continue to be my top referrers for new traffic, and Windows Live is beating Yahoo by almost double. BlogRush sent 86 new visitors to ClickNewz during October too. While a smaller number in the grand scheme of things, that's 86 blog readers - which is just the kind of visitors I would want to attract. 😉
Top 5 Referring Websites:
note: this list doesnt include my own website and discussion forum, which are generally always the top referring websites...
- The Warrior Forum
- Michael Green's How-To Forum
- Aweber's Blog
- Deal Dot Com
- The 4-Hour Workweek Forum
Viewing the websites that are referring visitors is probably my favorite part of analyzing statistics. It will alert you to blog posts and forum posts and other website links where people are talking about you and/or linking to your site. Google Alerts is great for this too, but I do like to see the amount of traffic certain 'mentions' send each month.
Top 10 Keyword Phrases:
These are the top keyword phrases used to find ClickNewz in the major search engines that resulted in actual click-through's (ie visitors).
- lynn terry
- internet marketing blog
- how to capture a screen shot
- us postal rates
- free sales letter templates
- create a flyer for free
- blogger vs wordpress
- logitech rebates
- watch movies online free
- online marketing blog
There are currently 882 posts and 4,677 comments contained within 20 categories.
I have just created a new category for the ClickNewz stats so that you can easily browse back through the months, as I have been tracking the stats since the first month. Its been fun to watch the blog grow and test various ways to increase traffic and income levels.
I will be promoting ClickNewz more agressively during 2008, now that it is securely established. My initial goals are to double Email & Feed subscribers to 1,000 each, and to double the number of Unique Visitors to a steady 25,000/month. I expect I can accomplish that easily in 4-6 weeks, and will journal the strategies and the progress. Keep an eye out for that in early January!
Best,
About Lynn Terry
Sorry about the PR5 bump down to PR4. For my blog, which is only 4 months old, it took it from PR0 to PR2. But as we know, PR does not tell the entire story for the popularity or readership of our blogs.
You are doing right by studying the traffic reports and making decisions based off of them.
Keep up the good work.
Mike
It just goes to show that you don't need to worry about PR when you have a steady growth in visitors.
I really appreciate the detailed way you share how you analyze your statistics, and I look forward to hearing your strategies for doubling your subscribers and visitors.
Thank you for sharing this information Lynn...Interesting...
Hi Lynn,
thanks alot for sharing the stats for your blog.....but could i check with you, what free tools / website/ software do you use to measure such details of your site ?
I use AWstats for my website statistics, which comes free with most web hosting accounts. I host with HostGator which has cPanel, so I imagine most hosts that offer cPanel would include that.
To measure inbound links, I use Yahoo's site explorer: http://siteexplorer.search.yahoo.com/
Sometimes I wonder what is the main point or benefit of high PR?
Why did I ask?
When my site was PR0, it was making sales via traffic from search engines. Now it jumped to PR2, the traffic has remain the same.
What then is the difference? What are the benefits?
Honestly, in my opinion its just a vanity tool. The one major benefit being the value it gives to text links or advertising. So if you sell links or ads on your site, it could be very beneficial. Otherwise, not such a big deal.
Why does Google even have page rank? My blog jumped from PR0 to PR2 and I have seen no rise in visitors or anything, you're doing well to study your traffic... I should try HostGator! keep up the good work!
Why was page rank even created, I gone from PR0 to PR2 and still have seen no rise in visitors... Is there something I'm missing?
PageRank is the algorithm by which Google ranks web pages for search queries. The Toolbar PageRank (the number displayed in Google's toolbar) is more a vanity tool - its not actual PageRank. Its a broad guage, but like Alexa it is not real indicator of traffic or site success.
Well I notice other major search engines do not bother about this PR things. Maybe it's one of those google way of proving the 'big brother' of search engines online 🙂
I noticed a drop in some of my sites too. But not to worry, every time it drops on a page, my visitor count seems to go up. 😉
Although on the plus side, have you noticed backward links updated too? I have hoards of new links on all my sites!
Are you seeing those through Yahoo's Site Explorer - the inbound link numbers?
No I'm talking about Google's backward links. It seems they were doing nothing but dropping for months, then all the sudden I've seen a huge increase the last few days. And not just on one site, but several of my sites. Could be some of my own sites just now appearing (like our blog, that was moved), I'm not for sure.
Interesting. I havent looked at theirs in so long I wouldnt have noticed. I've been using Yahoo, as Google is known to be skewed. But last month (September, I mean) Yahoo showed a major decrease (dropped over 10,000 of my incoming links that were showing previously). The numbers were back up this month though - around normal. Strange...
Thanks Terry,
I have noticed many times through the year, when google decided to shake up my pagerank (and everyone elses), that my SERP's increased, and so did sales. That green bar has been more proof that it means nothing.But it sure impresses some people!! Good law'rd, I have even been hired by people that were impressed by nothing but pagerank. So, then the next step is usually to create alot of worthless inbound links to make that green bar go up. A laugh, isn't it!
That it is 😉
Well this post proves anotehr thing to me: Simply go ahead promoting your site(s) hte best you can without taking any heed about those Google games such as high/low PR, backlink appeating on Google search or not etc.
You really only have to worry about all that stuff if you are doing questionable marketing methods or trying to manipulate the search results. Otherwise, write good content and link appropriately and promote your website...
Thanks for sharing your stats. at least i know what kind of traffic should i expect to measure success. i believe tracking our site's stat and do some analysis on it would give us invaluable feedback. at least we know which traffic should we focus more. so i'm looking forward for your traffic journal.
Hello Lynn,
Could be that Google dropped your blog from PR5 to PR4 because of participating in ''pay per post' you once talked so much about on your forum?
See this post by Neil Shearing: http://www.neilshearing.com/2007/11/07/the-truth-behind-the-big-pagerank-slap/
I have no doubt that it was likely a combination of PayPerPost + Text Link Ads - both of which are online advertising brokers for paid links.
Google dislikes paid links. We all know that.
I'm not so sure how I feel about that, or whether my personal feelings on that really need to be aired publicly. Perhaps a good topic for a blog post - I'll consider it.
But I'll say this - I've been online more than a decade, and online advertising has *always* been a big part of the internet. All the way back to paid listings in Yahoo's directory (before it was a search engine) and before...
Hmmm ... this is food for thought!