If you follow this blog, you know that turning this blog (and other websites) into a sustainable, growing income stream is a huge priority for me. I document my progress each month with a monthly blog update. The blog updates typically include traffic growth, income numbers and other general strategic thoughts on the blog.

Traffic & Readership

I like to break my traffic down into three categories: visits, page views and eye ball time. Since page views per visit can depend on a look and feel and how a blog is organized, the eye ball time is probably the most accurate number when comparing blog to blog. Let’s look at each…

Total Visits

October 2009: 6,387 visits
November 2009: 6,996 visits
December 2009: 7,735 visits
January 2010: 12,354 visits
February 2010: 11,947 visits (3.3% decrease overall) but increase in daily traffic (427 visits per day vs. 399 visits per day – increase of 7%)

The above total visit numbers break into the following categories: search, referral and direct traffic. My goal is to show monthly increases across the board in each category.

Search Traffic

October 2009: 3,570 visits
November 2009: 4,075 visits
December 2009: 3,954 visits
January 2010: 5,922 visits
February 2010: 5,533 visits

Direct Traffic

October 2009: 1,245 visits
November 2009: 1,230 visits
December 2009: 1,738 visits
January 2010: 2,370 visits
February 2010: 2,035 visits

Referral Traffic

October 2009: 1,572 visits
November 2009: 1,691 visits
December 2009: 2,043 visits
January 2010: 4,060 visits
February 2010: 4,378 visits

Overall, I saw a small decrease in traffic, but much of this is due to the fact that there are 3 days less in February than there were in January.  As such, if you look at the daily traffic, the numbers were actually higher so February was a successful month.

Page Views

October 2009: 19,155 total page views
November 2009: 20,500 total page views
December 2009: 23,418 total page views
January 2010: 36,023 total page views
February 2010: 33,725 total page views

Eye Ball Time

October 2009: 1:44 per visit = 664,248 total seconds = 184.51 hours
November 2009: 1:57 per visit = 818,532 total seconds = 227.37 hours
December 2009: 1:48 per visit = 835,380 total seconds = 232.05 hours
January 2010: 1:49 per visit = 1,346,586 total seconds = 374.05 hours
February 2010: 1:43 per visit = 1,230,541 total seconds = 341.82 hours

Please note that I used Google Analytics for the above data. I tend to think Site Meter is more accurate, but I couldn’t get all the data that I wanted for the above metrics from Site Meter, so I chose to keep it consistent by getting all information out of GA.

Blog Income

Adsense Revenue

October 2009: $38.60
November 2009: $75.40
December 2009: $59.28
January 2010: $171.79
February 2010: $68.39

This month proves the volatility in Adsense revenue.  After a huge month in January, we dropped back toward a more normal month.  Perhaps, the best metric in this area is a 3 month average.  Three month average is currently $99.82.  We will want to see an increase over time in the 3 month average.

Private Advertisements

November 2009: $285.00
December 2009: $90.00
January 2010: $90.00
February 2010: $290.00

I had a good month with private deals and have definitely seen an increase in requests for advertising.  I have also raised rates recently.

Overall Thoughts

Nothing ground breaking this month, but simply continued progress.  Traffic held up great after a huge increase last month.  Blogging is all about steady gains consistently month to month.  We’re right on track.

2010 Goals Progress

As I mentioned at the start of the year, I have the following goals for 20smoney.

• Alexa ranking under 120,000 by the end of 2010 – As of writing, I’m at 126,857.   Almost guaranteed that I reach this goal.  I may adjust this goal to under 100k.
  
• Google Pagerank of 5 by the end of 2010 – I’ve gotten a lot more quality backlinks in recent months. I feel very confident about hitting PR 5.
  
• 25,000 visits a month by the end of 2010 – I believe I’m on track.  The next couple months will be very indicative of the likelihood of hitting this goal.
  
• Averaging over $100 per month in Google Adsense income by the end of 2010 – Very Likely.
  
• Averaging over $400 per month in total blog income by the end of 2010 – Very likely with the traffic growth trajectory currently.
  
• 1500 RSS subscribers by the end of 2010 – I passed 800 at the start of February and have tinkered between 810ish and 850ish for the month, I should probably hit 900 this month.  We will continue to monitor this progress.
  

Additional Resources That I Recommend For Other Bloggers

• My January 2009 report – similar to this one
• A blog post on a recent offer to buy my blog
• My thoughts on Blogging In The Personal Finance Blogosphere
• My article that explains a great deal of the growth process – “The Slow Grind of Growing A Successful Blog”.
• Recent article: “No Free Lunch For Aspiring Bloggers”

Do you have similar reports for your blog detailing your traffic and income? I want to know about it and link to it. Leave a comment with the URL.