Welcome to 17 my blog's traffic and statistics report. This time covering month of February 2015.
I'm doing monthly traffic and income reports to measure were I was, were I am and were I am heading too. Those reports keep me track my progress (or bounces), and hopefully can inspire some other bloger(s) as well.
This February come with a traffic dip, when overall traffic dropped by -26.36% and totalled in 14,579 unique users.
Blog Traffic February 2015 (Source: Google Analytics)
14,579 users is a -26.36% drop if compared to month of January
It's a -5,219 user drop if compared to previous month
14,579 in a month equals to 520.67 users in a day, again it's a down from 638.64 users in day last month
I must admit, this traffic dip didn't come as a surprise for me, following words I said last month when forecasted results for this month (February):
Speaking of forecast for February - I will keep my forecast modest - 14,000 unique visitors or a little bit less (I'm afraid of traffic drop, and there are only 28 days this month)
Now, why I was afraid of a traffic drop and why it actually happened?
The reason is a plain simple - in month of January my blog had a major traffic spike, when a post about minimum wages in European Union went viral and attracted more than 3,500 users in one day. I was sure there won't be any other major traffic spike this month. And it turned true.
Where I was a year ago
This is another interesting trend I like to measure. My blog now is now 17 months old and since I have been doing monthly traffic reports from the first blogging month, it's easy to compare where I was year ago.
Blog Traffic Report: February 2015 vs February 2014
A year ago my blog was just 5 month old, back then I managed to attract modest 331 users, now a year after, I have attracted 14,579 users - pretty impressive growth, right!?
What I have done in month of February
In total I have written 50 articles last month. I did write a lot about Eurovision - (I'm hopping this will give me some boost in Month of May);
I have reviewed a few Tbilisi restaurants (I'm using Facebook Ads to drive traffic to my reviews during month of March);
I have added a few articles related to Drupal Development (this is what I actually do - I develop Drupal sites);
I have created 4 money post related articles (affiliate marketing);
I have reviewed my savings strategy and have written my concerns about weakened Georgian National Currency;
I have travelled last month in Georgia, so I have added pretty much articles covering topic Living in Georgia, my favourite is about skiing opportunities in Gudauri;
As you can see - February has been a pretty busy month both in travelling and blog writing.
Actually there is no magic or formula - it's just a blog writing and up keeping (maybe a little bit following global trends). In short I have been consecutive bloging each day, starting October 2013 (missing just 2 days in May 2014). Another formula I'm trying to stick with - to write a minimum 500 words article each day.
Traffic sources
Google did send more than 85% of total traffic to my blog last month, followed by social networks (3.28%) and referrals (1.77%)
Road to 100K users in a month
Starting last summer, I have been measuring my success (or failures) to reach 100,000 unique visitors in a month.
Since there is nothing much I can analyse (just actual traffic results) - at end of the February 2015 - I stand at 14,57% level of eventual 100,000 unique visitors. I doubt I will reach 100 K any time soon, but it's good to know were you stand right now.
Road to 150K users in 2015
At the end of December I did set up another goal I would like to achieve this year - to attract 150,000 users to my blog in 2015. It would ask around 12,500 users a month to reach such goal.
Since I ended this month with more than 14K and almost cracked 20K milestone last month - I believe I'm on right track. Technically speaking I should average at least 11,562 users for next 10 months to reach this goal. I believe I will achieve it at the end of 2015.
In Conclusion: Forecast for March
Though I experienced a -26% traffic drop in month of February, it still managed to be second best month in terms of overall traffic, so I'm not looking to this drop as something tragic (as I already mentioned above - last month I got a serious major traffic spike)
Speaking of forecast for March - I have a good inner feeling, it would be awesome to crack 20,000 users milestone this month, but to keep my forecast more humble I will stick with 16,000 users for month of March.