Operation Vegas 2020: June Update
ETA: I wanted to go back and compare where Grace was in her Vegas journey at 9 months to where I am now. I use Grace because she's a busy mom and therefore we probably have similar things that we're juggling. Comparison below.
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Hello! And happy July everyone! I absolutely love summer, but it does come with its challenges, which I'll mention in a little bit.
In the meantime, here is my update for my 9th month in the Operation Vegas 2020 Challenge, which I'm about to rename Operation Vegas: 2021. lol
Things are...
Going.
haha
I really thought things would happen a *bit* faster than this, but honestly, I'm having a blast anyway. I LOVE this type of work. It's so much fun and I love learning all the new things that come up!
I have had some great successes and some not-so-great successes this month. :) But, I think that's everyone in every month, right? That's the fun of it.
Again this month I didn't set any really hard goals. My #1 priority was to still feel as good as possible, get my mind as positive as I could make it and then get to work from a happy point of view.
I love working in this way because the words just flow out of my fingertips onto the page, and it feels almost magical.
Here's what I accomplished this month:
- I wrote 16 posts. That's a little less than last month (17 posts), but I find these ones to be my best work yet. My posts are coming out to be anywhere from 1500 words to over 3k words. I feel that I'm creating complete content and I'm providing as much value as possible
- I created 1 new page
- I update my homepage into something completely different (but am about to change it again. haha. I'm never satisfied.)
- I reworked my menu
- Reworked some past content to try to make it better
One thing I did last month was revamp my email, but now I'm thinking of how to revamp it again to make it even better with more value. That's something I'll be focusing on in July.
So the extra challenge of summer is that my kids are home from school. They're older, so pretty independent, but I often to run them around here and there and everywhere. I feel like I'm juggling many things at once right now, and I'm sure everyone can relate to that feeling...
The beauty of this business is that I CAN run my kids around and be flexible. So I'm not complaining at all.
Interesting Things That Happened This Month
In case you missed it...
Those were fun times. :)
Traffic & Status Updates
UGH. This is where I want to throw my hands up and surrender. What is happening to my traffic? Can anyone offer suggestions?
I feel like Google just closed the door on me and locked it with a key, then threw the key out into the middle of an ocean where a shark promptly ate it.
May's Search Console Stats:
Things were looking pretty good in May, but down from April.
And now in June...
I mean, what is happening??
To be fair, I am writing fewer posts, so I guess that could be a contributing factor. But I would think that the posts that I AM writing would be getting somewhere.
Past 6 months:
You can see I was really starting to hit a sweet spot, and then I declined so much. It's coming back up a little now, but...UGH. lol That's all I can say about it.
Traffic in May:
Traffic in June:
Isn't my traffic supposed to be going up instead of down??
This is quite the roller coaster ride. Good thing I like roller coasters!
Daily / Weekly / Monthly Traffic:
Because Bing put me in that box, my traffic is taking a bit of an upswing right now. Thank goodness for Bing!!! haha
Referrals
January = 10, 0 Premium
February = 11, 0 Premium
March = 25, 0 Premium
April = 30, 2 Premiums
May = 25, 3 Premiums
This month:
So my traffic is down, but referrals are up. Commissions are up, but sales are down.
As I'm writing this, I'm considering a couple things:
1. Bump my articles back up to at least 5 per week.
2. Keep my articles where they are, but work on different websites with different ways of making money
Because I am feeling a little stuck right now. Whatever I'm doing is only semi-working. It's OK. I know it'll work out great in the end. And I won't abandon this site at all. But clearly I need to do something different...
Don't you worry. I am totally enjoying this entire process. All the ups and all the downs. It's a great learning experience, and I'm having fun with it. :)
But, I need to step it up a notch....
Thanks for reading!
See you in August!
- Christina
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Just adding the Grace comparison here. Around her 9 month mark she was celebrating getting 10k visitors to her site.
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/littlemama/blog/okay-not-370...
I'm only around 2k, so nowhere near that! I WISH! lol
But in the next post she vented her frustrations about Google rankings going up and down. Yes, I relate to that!
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/littlemama/blog/google-man-o...
Grace had 43 subscribers in August, which would have been her 11th month, I believe. I have somewhere around 85.
She hit 200 posts in August. I just hit 200 today. How did she have so much traffic??? Maybe I'm not doing the right keyword research.
I can't completely tell what her commissions were at that point, but she mentioned in all of 2017 she had 300 referrals (vs 5400 the next year.) I'm at 137.
So, not too far off from Grace from her first year, except for her traffic. I don't even get it?
Recent Comments
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Ray, I was writing my post and the second paragraph went to bold and I don't know how to make it not bold...please tell me how to do that.
Hi Christina, Thanks for the update. It sounds like you are having some success, that's good. You are really doing well adding posts, at least from my perspective. It probably would be good to add a new niche as long as you don't get distracted from the challenge, just thinking.
Keep up the good work, your progress will follow.
Ray
I have some other sites that I've started, and I have directions that I want to go for all of them. I want to add them in the mix just to diversify a bit and hopefully if one is slower, another one can pick up the slack.
I'll let you know next month if I get it together enough to get all that done. :)
- Christina
Hi Christina,
In life and also in business there are ups and downs. I guess this is where our patience comes in. Sometimes things do not happen on our timetables.
However, keep the faith and know that the process works and you will reap the rewards of your labor in due time. Keep on keepin' on!
Much success to you!
Kind regards,
Nichola
Thank you Nichola. You are right. We have to keep the faith because, as you said so perfectly, things to do not always happen on our own time tables.
Great reminder.
- Christina
Wow you are an absolute machine! your determination is infectious. And your resilience is inspirational, I am sure at the time of these things happening, you weren't as 'calm and collected' Amazing how you have picked yourself up, learned the lesson and got right back on that bike again, only making the decision to peddle harder again!
Well done
Much Love
Sara
Well, I'm still calm and collected through this all because overall, I really am having fun with it all. But frustration can creep in when I feel like i'm providing great content and Google is shutting me out more than ever.
But it could be due to my SEO mistake, or maybe Google's latest update. I really hope Google gets it together in August... :)
Thanks for reading and commenting!
- Christina
Wishing you all the best for August. I have a feeling it will all turn out to your advantage in the end xx
See more comments
Christina, building a business can be so frustrating. I tend to compare online business to what is happening in my brick and mortar shop also.
My websites don't have as much traffic as yours, but I too have noticed a similar pattern. April was awesome and then not so awesome.
My brick and mortar shop has had an almost identical pattern and it is not affected by Google. It makes me sad. The only explanation that I can come up with is is now that weather is nice is that maybe people are spending time outdoors and not shopping or spending as much time online.
Although I see people shopping and going to lots of fairs and summer events. So, some retailers are getting traffic. Maybe when it gets super hot, more people will be going online?
I did see you website this morning as I was offering comments. You really do have a great website and your personality shines through. My personal thoughts are that you just have to give yourself the time to develop naturally a loyal group of followers.
Your manifesto will speak to your target audience.
Hang in there..... Don't give up.
Interesting to hear about your brick and mortar store being down too. I know when I worked in online marketing previously (in a "real" company haha), our sites would always slow down this time of year. So it could just be that.
Thank so much for checking out my site and I think you are so right about developing that loyal audience. It's something I'm constantly thinking about and considering...
I appreciate your words of encouragement!
- Christina