Operation Vegas 2020: July Update
August already?? My kids are dreading this month because it means we're getting closer to back to school time. I don't blame them!
I'm dreading it a little because I love summer and it's coming to and end soon. So we'll all have to enjoy it while it's still here. :)
Let's get down to business and see how everything went in July.
Things I've Accomplished in July:
- Bought a new theme and switched my site over to it (This was due to Kyle's note about site speed. However, that improved when I was added to the new servers, which I wrote about here. I like the new theme anyway, and Kyle gave it compliments! ;) )
- Created new headers for Facebook, YouTube and Twitter to promote my e-book and get more people on my mailing list.
- Expanded my email series by 11 emails
- Bought and started a course on Facebook Ads Mastery
- Bought and finished a course on Bing Ads (I wrote about Bing ads here)
- Finished a course on Pinterest (and wrote a review on it)
- Bought a course on Google Ads, but didn't start it yet
- Created a new pop-up
- Got back on Pinterest and started creating and scheduling pins again
- Wrote 18 Posts
- Wrote 1 page (a FAQ page - trying to get that into Google's new FAQ schema thing.)
- Updated my Wealthy Affiliate Review
- Created an HTML Sitemap
UGH Google
Google has not been letting me rank for anything significant lately, and I'm trying to find out why. I wrote about it here: https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cld111/blog/on-a-mission-to-... It's possible that MMO is just a bit too competitive.
With that in mind, I may take my posts on this site down a notch and start working on another site of mine. Or I'm going to have to dive into paid ads a little sooner.
Traffic & Stats
Now the fun stuff (or the stuff that makes you cry...either way...).
June Search Console Stats:
July Search Console Stats:
July is slightly better than June, but still pretty disappointing.
Past 6 Months:
This chart says it all about how my traffic's been going.
Traffic in June:
Traffic in July:
Traffic is up over last month, but I can't seem to break past this point. It just goes up and down...
Also, why is my bounce rate so darn high? If you're in MMO, what is your bounce rate like? I thought my site being faster would help this, but so far it hasn't.
Daily / Weekly / Monthly Traffic:
Referrals
January = 10, 0 Premium
February = 11, 0 Premium
March = 25, 0 Premium
April = 30, 2 Premiums
May = 25, 3 Premiums
June = 37, 2 Premiums
June's sales:
July's sales:
We are increasing bit by bit on this... I do like how these sales build on each other month over month. Wealthy Affiliate has a great retention rate, which helps us affiliates out.
Thanks for being so awesome, WA! :)
I took this screenshot from a training of Jerry's, and I thought it was interesting to note his growth:
Jerry had a CRAZY amount of traffic that I can't seem to get to, but it's still fun to see the growth that's possible.
Other Things to Note
My email list is up to 121.
Of course I could grow this much more if I had more traffic. I'm going to continue to add to my sequence and have my email mostly be automated.
Other Sales:
I had another mystery sale from my dead website. (I wrote about that originally here.) This is the third one. I'm seriously thinking of reviving that site and adding back a couple of my review posts that did very well.
I mentioned Bing Ads above. I experimented a little with them in July with direct linking. It actually went OK at first, but then I had trouble drumming up any new sales.
I've stopped that for now. That created an additional $192 in sales, but I ended up spending almost $100 in ads. Still, not bad for a first try. (These sales won't be "available" to me until after the 60-day return policy expires.)
I'd like to get back to Bing Ads soon and work on promoting WA.
I also woke up to a payment this morning from Thrive Themes! That was a nice surprise.
Site Speed:
My Site Speed has been really bad, but I asked Site Support to put me on the new beta servers, and I'm glad I did! My site is super fast now. You can read about that here.
First 6-Month Premium Sale / First Yearly Premium Sale:
One of my referrals decided to get the 6-month deal this month. And then later decided to go for yearly. (Smart person! ;) ) These are my first 6 month / 12 month premium sales.
These sales have a bit of a wait time, so their payment will be reflected in later months.
Thank you for reading this novel. These get longer and longer every month, right? It doesn't look like I'm on track for Vegas this year, but I'll keep trying until I get there - at some point. I freaking LOVE Vegas and I need to go. Also, what a great experience it will be!
Until next month... :)
- Christina
Recent Comments
87
Christina you are doing an amazing job.
You still have time for Vegas remember in September the airplane drops to 100 and if you have 37 premiums now, it looks like to me you can still make it. I myself only got 4 this month. So I’m way behind.
And the traffic - my traffic does the same thing it goes way up and then back down. I read a post by Benjisdad and he said that there were days that his traffic would almost be non existent.
So I can only assume it’s natural but I don’t know.
Plus, I read other outside WA blogs because I too was concerned about my traffic and other bloggers have wrote articles that summer traffic can be challenging.
I guess it’s due to traveling, kids being out of school, and not as many people sitting still.
I agree MMO does seem a bit competitive. I wish I had the Code for the both us. I can’t seem to crack it either.
Does your YouTube channel drive traffic? I have been thinking about trying YouTube out but, every time I start a video my kids seem to get overly hyped..lol.
Anyhow I started just uploading premodern videos from Lumen5 and to my surprise I I get traffic from YouTube but no engagement on YouTube but of course the videos aren’t personal so, I expect it.
Pinterest is a good traffic source but it’s another search code to crack. I am thinking about using Tailwind because I have read that many bloggers see great success with it. They claim there is no possible way to increase Pinterest traffic without but again I have no clue if it’s true.
Either way, I wanted to congratulate you on all your success. I think you can make it to Vegas, just keep going...
Thanks so much, Kisha!
I don't have 35 Premium referrals. Those were just referrals. I only have 10 so far. I'm going to keep working on it, but it's OK if it doesn't happen this year.
I haven't worked on YouTube videos in a bit because - same thing - kids are home from school and it's weird. lol I only have 4, but one of them has gotten a good amount of views, and I've brought in 3 referrals from it.
I know the potential is there, just have to focus on it.
I have Tailwind. I don't know that it makes your pins easier to find, but it does save a lot of time. I would recommend it if you're going to be doing a lot on Pinterest.
I appreciate your support so much! I do hope we can meet in Vegas at some point! :)
- Christina
Christina, no worries we will meet in Vegas some day.
Just keep pushing.
Hmm..I wish I could crack the code for us on Pinterest. I hear so many people say how it drives traffic. Maybe one day soon, we'll figure it all out.
Anyhow, well congratulations on your referrals. I think you still have time, just keep going...
I hear you about the kids, I can't even get one personally made video out..haha..
I can tell you there are some successful marketers in and out of WA that don't do YouTube at all. I know one for sure is a WA super affiliate. So, I wouldn't stress too much for now at least. Take it one step at a time...I wish you continued success...
I started doing well on Pinterest - kind of. I had a lot of views and pins, but not really traffic from there.
I recently had a pin do really well there and bringing in a lot of clicks, but I don't think it's the right message because the people clicking seem to bounce right off my site.
So, back to the drawing board with that! :)
- Christina
Hi Christina!
MGaspary wrote a post about reducing bounce rates... How I Reduced My Bounce Rates To 64% .
She is a prolific writer like yourself and understands a little tech. She might be a useful person for you to follow maybe?
Stella
Summer is beautiful and fun but it is challenging to work as much as desired since there are so many activities... especially with kids and family BBQ's or fam get togethers and yard work. Loving summer!
Christina, you seem to be on the right track and are an inspiration. Vegas will be waiting for you ;)
Hi Christina
Thanks as always for taking the time to post, it’s really helpful to see what you are doing and what is and isn’t working. I can’t think you are doing anything wrong and I'm pretty sure your persistence and hard work will come through in the end.
For me personally its really helpful. I spent 6 months learning the basics and getting my niche site up and running although never really with the intention of being able to earn significant sums. I have however made sales and saw the process works, hence now being close to month 3 on my mmo site!
So although frustrating for you your trials and tribulations are really helpful! Your issues with Google are a strange one, I wonder if it is as you say the theme or even the topic after their recent updates. The traffic on my niche site for example has almost doubled in the last 6 weeks just from organic google searches. My new site however doesn’t exist as far as they are concerned yet is already page one on Bing on couple of occasions.
Out of interest do you link your posts/reviews to your review of WA or a landing page as it’s something I’m currently looking at. Mine are currently just linked to my review but the consensus seems to be a landing page might be better.
I really want to try Bing ads but feel I need to focus on content for the next month or so. How easy was it to find/choose good high value products? I still have Bing waving a free $75 dollars in my face that I must try and use but to be honest don’t know how to start!
Anyway just wanted to say thanks for taking the time to post. For me personally and I’m sure many others they are really helpful.
Enjoy the rest of the summer hols!
Oh good, I'm glad this is helping someone other than me. :)
To answer your question about where I link my reviews, I link them to my WA review.
I do see some people link to landing pages. I'm willing to give it a try!
- Christina
Certainly is!
Not sure how much of a difference a landing page makes to the initial sign up but I just think my WA review is quite "heavy" so a landing page might be more focused.
I'm looking at what Jerry did for sucess and I know it was one of his tips. Plus I need the practice building pages!!
Keep us up to date if you get back on with Bing ppc. Its another thing on the list!
Kevin
I think you are doing great.
Also for the Bing Ads.
You actually make almost 2$ out of 1$ - that is almost 100% if I get it right.
I have spent about $250 and no sales... I must be doing something wrong.
Also I was wondering how you keep the tracking. I mean how can you find out that the sales came from the Bing Ads... ?
Anyways, congratulations and keep up the great work
cheers :)
Mike
Hey Mike! I was using ClickMagick tracking. But also, I was only promoting ClickBank products through Bing Ads, so I knew the sales came from the ads. I wasn't promoting those products anywhere else.
- Christina
This is not so disappointing. One of my bootcamp sites has been since 2015 and I have 500 pages. Only high quality content, no manual actions. All seems to be ok. Would you believe if I tell you my traffic yesterday was only 39 visitors? Google is unfair player. No one knows what Google is doing.
Oh yikes! Google is a little crazy. I just wonder how they decide which sites to choose? I'm constantly researching it. Maybe I'll crack that code someday. (Probably not since the code is always changing.)
- Christina
I have an article about this topic on my site. I have two ideas. Either Google has a team that checks sites manually and decides which site to rank or Google ranks sites randomly. They have to rank someone eventually. They have some kind of a ranking filter. I don't see any other explanation. When it comes to authority sites Google can't ignore them because of their large audience. Their ranking is a little different story.
I think overall you are growing and it is true that if it was not for the changes in Google, you would have better growth. But as long as you did not go lower than where you were in June, it is positive.
Keep it up!
Thanks so much! I think if I work with Pinterest and YouTube a little more, I can get more traffic without Google.
- Christina
See more comments
Great write up Christina! As I was looking over your post, I was comparing yours with mine, and these are the main things I've noticed...
My search console says 17.7k clicks, 659k impressions, 2.7% CTR, and average position 34.8. Comparing my search console with yours, it looks like you're writing on topics with less search volume. You have a higher average search position, but you're getting less clicks and impressions because the topics aren't that popular. I'd change the content strategy to find higher demand topics.
I don't think you should worry so much about your email sequence or your bounce rate right now. An 81% bounce rate isn't bad and I've been looking at quite a few people's stats to tell you that.
Get the traffic to your site, then worry about conversions.
Also, which traffic channel are you going into next? Why not focus on learning about maximizing the traffic from your main one and possibly the next one you'll be expanding into, and hold off on diversifying your time with various different courses so much?
If each course is 5 hours and you have a 40 hour work week, you're probably spending more than 10% of your work time on courses, right? 4 courses x 5 hours each = 20 hours (and I'd bet some of the courses are longer than that). That might be a little high especially if the courses aren't ones you'll be taking immediate action on.
Are you really going to be drumming up a budget and time to jump into all of those advertising platforms right now, or even in the next 3-6 months? Most people say it takes 6 months to stabilize one paid traffic channel, so why study them all if you won't be applying that knowledge right now?
Instead, I'd recommend you throw every second you can into solving the traffic issue by creating content on higher search volume topics, and possibly picking one additional traffic channel? I tell you this advice because I know I'm often tempted to do the same thing, but for my productivity's sake, it's best when I focus.
I want to meet you Christina so get to Vegas!
P.S. - I'm not sure if I'll be going this year either, but I'm still giving it my best. Give it your all (even if you feel like you're in a pinch right now). I still think you can make it.