MaxIt’s time to take stock.
How much traffic arrived at this site during the seven weeks since I started it? What did I do to generate this traffic, and what kind of results did this produce?
The Start
First things first: I count April 19, 2010, as the day this blog was born. It was the date of Alex Jeffreys’ first training webinar. You can see from the graph that even a few days into the course visitor numbers were still beautifully aligned at zero.
Traffic Generation
In the seven weeks to June 7, 2010, I published 16 blog posts that received 102 comments. I admit, 2.3 posts per week weren’t all that onerous.
The main traffic sources to my blog during this time:
Twitter produced a fair chunk of traffic, and I was, if we include Twitter automation, reasonably active.
Oil Rig Hopping generated the biggest chunk of the total but, pleasingly, the share of traffic from Alex Jeffreys’ MWA .30 program declined to under 40%. I say pleasingly, because it shows that with increasing traffic, sources outside the coaching program became more important.
Video is king, at least for me, and that not only because I really enjoy creating videos. I posted a few on on Youtube and Animoto. They do generate results, especially in combination with
Ezinearticles. 3 articles, all on blog topics, carry the URL of this site plus a more specifically targeted one in the resource box.
I also have a Facebook account and a Squidoo lens but, I’m afraid, that’s as far as my very poor efforts in this area of social book marking went. There is definitely still huge scope for vast improvement.
The Numbers
Here is a snapshot:
473 visits by 214 unique visitors generated 1,407 total page views and 926 unique views.
Is this good or bad? I don’t know. My guess is that it is commensurate to the traffic generation effort put into a brand new blog.
Here is the breakdown for the traffic sources of the 473 total visits:
Marketingwithalex.com generated just shy of 40% of total traffic, followed by Youtube, Twitter and organic traffic from Google. That’s why, for me, video is king. I assume that I am responsible for a fair amount of direct traffic by typing maxalter.com into the Firefox or Chrome address bar.
Once you are at this screen in your Google Analytics, set your kitchen timer! The amount of information that you can generate by drilling down into the details of this table is almost infinite. It’s particularly rewarding, and meaningless, when you’re mulling over numbers as low as mine.
Only after you get into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of visitors or page views does tweaking a few percentage points generate significant income results. At the current stage of my blog, though, it looks like elbow grease and list building will be more effective than changing the headline font of an opt-in page.
What do you think? Please, let me know in your comments.
Hi Max,
I am a student of Mark Terrell’s coaching and I am glad i stopped by you are really good at videos thanks for the info this is a really good post
I would like it you stopped by my blog and check it out thanks again
Much to your success
Karen
Not bad mate not bad at all I’m sure those numbers are looking even better since you posted this and that deserves a huge thumbs up 😉
Still cant figure out this twitter thing but i see youtube pulled back some super results so i think I’ll take you approch and focus on video before diving too deep into social media 🙂
Keep me posted man you’ve got a great site here filled with many resourses and i cant wait to sink my teeth in it all ^_^
Talk soon Ashawndra Michelle
hey Max
i read your “story” and i think a lot of us can identify with it.
it looks like videos are the way to go and have worked wonderfully well for you.
i’ve obviously got a lot of work to do in that area so your blog is very timely
enjoy the journey
allan
Hi Allan,
Thanks for visiting. Yes, video is rapidly becoming a ‘must’ for Internet marketers. The fun thing about it is, the more you do it, the easier it gets, and that also translates into quality.
Best of luck and see you on the road.
Max
Hi Max,
Your videos are great and you make lots of them too.
I haven’t made that many videos and just when I was getting into it my camera lost the blue color and everything that came out of it was unacceptable from then on.
Knowing the importance of video I got a Flip HD and found out that my computers are too old to be able to download the videos from it.
I’m almost ready to buy a new computer and after reading your post I’ll be even more motivated to make use of videos as soon as the computer issue is removed.
Take care,
Vance
Hi Vance,
You ‘re absolutely right about getting a Flip HD. I still have the old format which is fine but I wouldn’t go for it any longer as everything is moving towards HD.
I read with interest your post on Windows PC vs Mac. I use a PC with WIndows 7, which makes Windows about as good as it gets. But I just got a Macbook for my daughter and must admit that I had a bit of a problem handing it over to her. 🙂
My next goal is: Get a Flip HD or Kodak Zi8 and a Macbook for all my video related work and live in the best of both worlds.
Best of luck with your platform decision.
Max
Hey Max
My first visit to your blog (sorry).
Your stats are great, I have a 56% bounce rate so that needs some thinking about.
You have good traffic from Youtube. I’ve been putting video off but I think I might “give it a go” now I can see that it’s bring in some good visitors. 🙂
I haven’t done any Ezine articles either so that’s something else for me to think about.
Thanks for this post, It helps a newbie to see these things on screen.
Gert.
Hey Max,
Good breakdown on your blog traffic. I’d say that you did pretty good! I also definitely agree that elbow-grease and list-building is going to do a lot more than anything else. Thanks for posting the breakdown of your stats, really interesting to see.
Peace,
Darren L Carter
Max,
Can’t wait for your eBook. See? The ‘buzz’ is there. Nice breakdown of your stats. I never did get Google Analytics to work but anywho, … it was a great contest and I enjoy coming to your blog.
-Jules
.-= Julie Watson´s last post was The Broken Link Checker- A Review =-.
Thanks, Jules.
Following up with Cubestat (http://www.cubestat.com/) from your blog post really made my day, and this is no hype. Basically, it showed that the path we are following leads somewhere. So, now more of the same.
I’ll hope over to your blog soon again.
Max
Hi Max
Great numbers, I also have done a status update about my blog and I’m just right behind you. Isn’t it amazing that in only one month we came from nothing?
Your numbers about video are really amazing, I didn’t do any serious experiment with video yet. Must include that on my plan.
Cheers and keep the excellent work.
Jorge
.-= Jorge´s last post was I’m in World Cup Giveway =-.
Hey Max
Wow you are the video king!
Cant believe how much traffic you got from videos, I really need to start doing that sooner rather than later.
Your ebook was great by the way, anyone who is struggling to create videos should grab a copy especially now you have quite clearly shown that videos do generate traffic.
See you soon, Sally 🙂
.-= Sally´s last post was David Walker, Sally’s First Skype Interview… =-.
Thank you, Sally.
Sadly, VideoKing.com is already taken 🙂
The ebook hasn’t actually been launched yet but I guess the secret’s out now.
See you at the big event,
Max
Great post and video! I think you are doing very well in taking advantage of social media sites like twitter/facebook and getting more traffics to your site. Thanks for sharing & good luck.
Thanks, Justin.
Just for the record (and alsonot to contradict what I just wrote in reply to Brandon), I have a Facebook account but still have no idea how to work with it. And although I have high Twitter numbers, my results are far from impressive because I did not provide the content and engage with my followers as I should have done.
Number most definitely are not the answer to it all. Quality is, and I am hugely relieved that Alex is teaching precisely this.
Max
Hey Max,
Thanks for the stats breakdown. I like your YouTube results. By the way you have a pretty decent followers base at Twitter. I do agree about your comment about building a relationship to benefit the followers base. I have posted my stats at the blog. Do leave a comment when you have time.
PS. Thanks for the copywriting recommendation. I have emailed the fellow enquiring about his services and gave him your name as a referral.
– Louis
.-= Louis´s last post was Building Internet Traffic Using Squidoo Lens =-.
Thanks, Louis.
I’m glad you found the copywriting contact useful. I’ll hop over to your blog and have a look at your stats.
Max
Max,
Hey, you are doing fine. Don’t worry too much about the stats (I know…it’s hard for me also…I’m obsessed). Just keep pushing forward. Put out more content, and keep driving forward taking action steps every single day.
Later,
Brandon
.-= TheInfoPreneur´s last post was Affiliate Marketing – Be A Profited Centered Middle-Man =-.
Hi Brandon,
No worries, I’m not worried about my stats, just wanted to show those who’re interested what I got with the level and kind of activity I did. I always baulked at comments and blogs that were all hype and no hard fact. You can’t learn from that sort of stuff. Transparency is a great teacher.
I like your blog and your kitchen video. Great work.
Max
Max,
Thanks for showing your stats in so much detail. Just by doing this you have given me a great amount of help on where to concentrate my traffic efforts.
Youtube is really powerful it seems. I’ve made a video on my blog but I’ve not submitted it anywhere yet.
Definitely going to start posting videos more regularly.
Thank you Max.
Reach new heights,
Nathan
.-= Nathan Rufus´s last post was Blog Traffic Generation And Why Couldn’t Rome Be Built In A Day!?! =-.
Hi Nathan,
Yes, video is really powerful. Why else would all the big guns (aka Gurus) be using video now instead of sales letters?
Even better, it’s easy to create video and it doesn’t have to cost a penny! My ebook on creating videos is just about finished so watch out for an avalanche of videos from MWA 🙂
Max
Max:
Great job on driving traffic.
I have yet to do any video but from your results I really need to get it going. I think 83 hits (17.5% of total) from YouTube is great. Did you promote your YouTube channel?
How active were you on Twitter? How often did you Tweet?
I did not get much traffic from Twitter but I only Tweeted once a day and I only have about 220 followers. So I did not expect much.
Again, Great Job!
– Rick
.-= Rick Byrd´s last post was Why Do You Want To Make Money Online? =-.
Thanks, Rick.
No, I did not promote my Youtube channel … (did you just hear that D’OH! in the background?) As you can see from this site, I have a few videos on Youtube, and I’ll be growing the collection. I guess this helps, too.
I am fairly active on Twitter if you include automation. Starting last summer, I spent quite a while being very active and growing my follower numbers aggressively. Effort and result didn’t balance, though. Right now, I am just ticking over albeit from a reasonably large base.
Twitter needs to be done right. Numbers alone isn’t the answer, relationship building is. Check out this link for starters, if you wish (it’s my page, for what it’s worth).
Cheers
Max