100th Post – Blog Statistics

Hurray – my first 100th blog post. Of course I have other blogs close to the range of 100 posts, but I figured that a blog about blogging would be the best place to put a 100th post meta-post. 100 posts doesn’t count pages, categories, forum posts, etc… 🙂

Regardless of those little technicalities, let’s pull back the curtain and see some of the vital signs of WebsiteBuilding.biz

History and Intent:

I got my first hosting account in August 2007. Prior to that I had written exactly one html page back in the mid-90’s when a local BBS gave us dial-up internet access and a whopping 1 MB of online storage space we could publish on. That was back in high school and I was more worried about memorizing history books than making money.

Anyway, by August ’07 I had graduated college and taken on my first post-education job – working for a website. The job started off with writing, but as I learned more about how the business model of online publishing works, I started to apply these techniques to my own interests in politics, education, and society in general.

This particular domain dedicated to building websites got started because everyone else was doing it. Really, I figured everyone else was making money with make money blogs – so I might as well write one in my own no-nonsense no-hype style.

I knew a bit about how to turn traffic & ads into revenue – how to get the traffic – and how to write compelling prose, but I knew very little about the details that go along with pagerank, SERPs, advertising, and social networks. As much as I know about any topic, I’ll be the first to admit that I have a lot left to learn.

The blog sort of stumbled along for a while, mostly ignored. I think I sat at about four posts for at least three months. What little bits got published were mostly a stream of consciousness or a job journal.

Eventually I returned to it, seeking a revenue model – a product I could sell and feel good about. Since I’m a cheapskate, I have to assume my readers are too. In that case, the only purchase one really needs to make to get into the website building business is hosting.

And I don’t regret picking that product for a second – in fact, the product is so perfect that this has recently become my primary blog, rather than a reflection of what I’m doing elsewhere.

Links:

• Yahoo SiteExplorer reports 3,454 external links to all pages
• Google Webmaster Tools reports 4,063 external links

Traffic:

1,163 for the last 30 days. That’s right – my traffic is terrible by most peoples’ counts. You expected more? I’m actually pretty happy with the average of about 40 visits a day and I’ll tell you why in the next heading…

Income:

This website is now averaging more than $500 a month for the last four months – and all trends indicate a higher revenue going forward.

Yeah, 1,000 visits and $500 – I’ve never really heard of a $500 in earnings per thousand visits. Its like fifty cents a surfer! This month is well on track to hit $600 – $700: And when it is combined with my other blog income and online contracts my monthly revenue will leave something left over for savings – what a concept!

Unfortunately, none of those other sites are pulling in $500 ECPM – not even close! Luckily they pull in more traffic, but this conversion & income rate obviously gives me something to work on and aspire to elsewhere 🙂

Pagerank:

While my pagerank for the top of the domain briefly hit “medium” in Google’s webmaster tools (that is, PR5), it shot back down as a few few sites began implementing nofollow links in their user-generated content. Hopefully, a lot of this will be back soon – but there’s no need to rush pagerank or obsess about it too much.

In fact, out of all the metrics, income and revenue are the only ones that really matters from a business perspective.

So one year later as I’d be running out of savings from my last regularly scheduled job, I’ve managed to turn writing and website promotion into a full time profession that more than pays the bills. No debt, just profit – and now these domains are serving as the capital infrastructure that practically guarantees more income in the future!

Luckily I’ve avoided debt & consumerism like a plague, and I manage to live a pretty comfortable life at a pretty low cost. I’ve always wanted to be a writer – so its really like a dream come true.

(fingers crossed and knock on wood)

How is your website building business going along?