April 2009 Site Update

Last month I posted the first monthly Wealth Itself progress update. Today I am posting the second update. I intend to continue to report the key site stats as I think that there are a few people who will be interested and it forces me to review the goals and objectives of the site.

Expenses = $0

• No new expenses incurred.

Income = $47.75

• I have sold a six month ad for $50.00, yielding $47.75 after PayPal fees.

Blogging

• I participated in another blogging carnival at Ask Mr Credit Card.
• My post on saving money through selecting alternative energy suppliers was linked to by two blogs, including an MSM Money blog which sent 32 visitors in April.
• Google has ranked my posts on eyeglasses highly and has sent many visitors to the site.
• Visitors:
  • 244 first time visitors, up from 174 for March
    • 18 visitors on the peak day
  • 25 returning visitors, a significant increase from the 4 returning visitors recorded in March
  • 371 pageloads, up from 234 pageloads in March
• Comments – none
• RSS subscribers (Feedburner) = 5, an increase from 4 in March

Search Engine Rankings

• Google PageRank = 1, no change
• Alexa rank = 523,102 up from March’s ranking of 1,101,771

General impressions

• Last month I mentioned that I had not fully settled on the focus for the site. I am still sorting this out, but I do recognize that I will have to post more regularly.
• I still have not actively promoted the site by participating in forums or posting comments on other blogs. I am still not sure about how much I will do this.

March 2009 Site Update

I have always been drawn to blogger’s posts when they review the relative success of their site.  If you have a similar interest, please continue reading.  As a monthly feature, I will be providing a brief overview of visitors, post activity, income, expenses and key insights I have gained in developing Wealth Itself.

Expenses = $380.29

• I purchased the site during March for $299.00 on Sitepoint via an auction.  I purchased a site rather than starting a new site for the following reasons:
  • I thought that it would minimize the WordPress learning curve.  With a limited technical background, I couldn’t quite imagine starting from scratch.  I think that I made the right decision, although I have spent hours understanding how the site works and making changes.  The prior owner was very cooperative during and after the transfer.
  • I wanted a site with some presence in the search engines.   The site continues to get visitors because of articles and activities of the prior owner.  After changing the domain name, the site was indexed by google within days.  On April 1st, the PageRank of 1 of the prior site was assigned to Wealth Itself.  Sometimes, it can take months to get a PageRank value assigned for a new site.
• Domain registration fees = $33.86.  This is for two names, one abandoned, both with privacy registration.
• Host fees = $47.43 for one partial month and one year paid in advance.

Income = None

• I have included ads and links from Google Adsense, Commission Junction and Amazon.
• One link remains on the site that was sold by the prior owner; I agreed to keep this link as a condition of the sale of the site.

Blogging

• In addition to the two posts announcing changes to the site, in March I posted three original articles.
• I participated in one blogging carnival at MoneyNing.
• Visitors (tracking began on March 18th):
  • 174 first time visitors
    • 40 on peak day (due to my post on the the blogging carnival)
  • 4 returning visitors
  • 234 pageloads

  
  Comments – none that specifically addressed the content of one my posts

• RSS subscribers (Feedburner) = 4

General impressions

• I have not fully settled on the focus for the site.  This is evolving and I think that it is worth letting this happen over time.
• I am still trying to settle into a routine so that I post more frequently.  I underestimated the amount of time it takes to prepare a 1000 word post.  The two most substantive posts were probably too narrowly focused to have broad appeal.
• I have not actively promoted the site by participating in forums or posting comments on other blogs.  I have decided that it is more important to post content and settle on a strategy than spending time promoting the site.
• Alexa rank = 1,101,771