Operation Vegas: 2020 - March Update
I don't know if I'm excited or sad that it's April already! I love the Spring (and the summer), but time is moving quickly, and that's a bit scary.
The thing is, I'm making progress and solid things are happening.
But not enough.
(Is it ever enough?)
And that's the scary part.
But let's get into it.
The Upsides
Some cool things happened to me last month (um, last week), and some of you may have read about them already, but here they are in case you didn't:
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cld111/blog/something-incred...
https://my.wealthyaffiliate.com/cld111/blog/something-incred...
My website traffic is growing nicely.
I'm getting some decent clicks to my site. (I can't wait to show you this month versus last month Search Console graphs. We'll get to that in a minute.)
The ball is starting to roll!
But...
The Downsides
I missed a lot of my goals last month.
No referrals have turned to Premium.
I'm not making many sales.
My email STINKS.
And my Pinterest has all but died.
But...
That's Business!
I think that's just the nature of this business and of business in general. You have things that are working well, and others that are tanking.
All you can do is keep moving forward.
That's what I plan on doing.
I think one thing I'm struggling with is that I have SO many ideas, and so many things that I want to do that I'm kind of getting disorganized and scattered.
Like many of you, not only am I running this business and trying to learn 5,000 different things, but I also have a household to run and I'm a mom and a wife. (Not to mention that we practically have a mini zoo at our house...)
There's only so many things we can do in a day!
Honestly, I'd love some ideas from you. How do you stay focused? How do you prioritize?
Goals I Missed Last Month
- I wanted to get 25 posts up in March. I only got 20 up, plus 2 landing pages, including one epic Wealthy Affiliate review (that one took me a couple of days to put together).
- Increase email subscribers. I did increase it slightly, but I really am struggling with email. I almost want to scrap my list and everything I'm doing and start fresh.
- Finish going through a training that can help me focus on my target audience. I didn't even look at this training this month.
- Increase Pinterest engagement. Nope. Barely looked at Pinterest. I did create a few pins, and all of those are "hits" according to Pinterest, so that's at least good.
Goals I Hit Last Month
- Improve my bounce rate. It did improve a bit, but it needs more work.
- Improve on some old blog posts for better SEO. I did do some of that. In fact, I actually messed up one of my posts doing this. I'll explain in the traffic portion...UGH.
- Create a new Instagram account. I did this, but I can't keep up with it. I'm letting it go for now. I am using Twitter and Facebook consistently though. (And Pinterest semi-consistently.)
- Increase traffic to 1k per month. Yes! This I accomplished.
Traffic & Status Updates
OK, this is the fun part. Things are finally starting to move here and it's great! (By the way, last month I got locked out of my Google account. I was able to get back in finally, but my traffic stats were messed up for a week.)
Last month's Search Console stats:
And this month's stats:
What? I went from 279 clicks to 834? In a month? I think that's cool! You can see my average position went way down too. Although, so did my CTR. Womp, womp.
Remember when I said I messed up the SEO of one of my posts? You can right where it happened in the chart. Around mid-March, I was ranking for 2 posts, and they were bringing in a good amount of traffic.
One of them, I created a new post with a different keyword and a different product (but from the same company), and I think that just confused Google and now my really good-ranking post isn't ranking for the same keyword that it used to be, and that traffic fizzled a lot. :(
The other one was ranking for 1 keyword, and I wanted it to rank for a different keyword, and I did something that I forgot you should NOT do. I tried switching up the keywords in the meta title and description and asked Google to re-index it.
UGH.
I forgot you shouldn't do that until your post is at least 6 months old.
That totally killed all the good progress I had with that post.
Well, you live and you learn.
Don't touch your posts until they're 6 months old. Remember that. Learn from my error.
For fun, here's the progress on my site for the last 6 months:
For those of you just starting out, I started working on this site consistently - daily - in October. You can see nothing happens for a while. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Then things pick up!
I have approximately 162 keywords ranking in the top 10 of Google.
You know what's funny (sad)?
I don't even rank #1 for my own dang name!
My traffic looks like this:
Very up and down. My bounce rate is still too high.
I enjoy looking at this chart though:
Referrals
January = 10
February = 11
March = 25
7 people added their profile pic, description and goals, but no one has moved to premium. Why aren't people seeing how awesome WA is? lol
I'm starting to feel slightly worried.
But I won't give up. I'll keep trying things and see what works.
Goals for April
I'm going to reduce the amount of posts this month. #1 because we have a Spring Break vacation in the Outer Banks coming up. #2. I'm going to create some landing pages and fool around with Bing ads.
- At least 15 posts up
- At least 3k visitors this month
- Create a few different landing pages and try Bing ads
- Create a funnel and possibly buy some leads (or use Bing ads)
- I have some plans for the bot on my site, so I'll be working on that (I'm currently creating my bot, but I'd also like to do some page-specific bots and an exit page bot.)
- Do something with my email?
These are starting to become as long as books, so I thank you for reading and hanging in there.
If you have ideas for me about prioritizing, I'd love to hear them! If you have ideas of how to show people how great Premium is, I'd love to hear that too. I'll take all the help I can get! lol
In the meantime, have a great April 1st!
- Christina
Recent Comments
23
Mini Zoo Ha ha ha!
Thanks a lot for the detailed and inspiring post.
My WA Referral status...
January = 9
February = 12
March = 24
Only 3 set up their account.
No premium referrals yet but not to worry we will get it.
Wishing you great success!
Sounds like we're on the same path, Paul! Let's keep it going. April's going to be a great month for us!
- Christina
I need to do the same thing -- prioritize. I can't do everything at once. I only post every 3 days, but at least that is scheduled. All else has to be built around that schedule. I need to post more, I suppose, but want extra time to work on social media, plus need to start an email list. There is always another thing to do!
Good luck with your journey...you seem to be doing well. Hang in there. Hopefully it will all fall in place.
There's so much to do, right? And the more you do, the more you learn, which makes even more things to do! lol
It sounds like you have things pretty well organized though. Better than me!
Thanks for sharing. :)
- Christina
I need to learn to make better lists. I do practice a lot, but it is important to be consistent.
Hey Christina, this looks fab!
Premiums are going to come soon, for sure. I'm in the same boat...
I had to do some prioritizing since I noticed that in January and February I tried doing so many things, nothing got done properly.
So, in March I decided to just publish a post every day, and make a video for my YT Channel every day.
Everything else will just have to wait.
I do post occasionally on my FB Page, and Insta but only when everything else is done. And Pinterest...ah I hate it... so it wasn't very difficult to forget about lol
And you know what, I am much happier, more organized (as much as one can be organized with 3,5yr old twins around...).
Wishing you a great month of April!
:)
Alenka
Did you see improvements in your traffic in March? How's it going for you anyway? Any premiums yet?
I wish people just *knew* how awesome Premium is!
I'm glad to hear about your progress! Keep me posted on how it's going for you!
Let's make April awesome!
- Christina
Alas, no. My traffic in March wasn't great at all. Trying not to get too depressed about it lol.
I guess, patience is the key here.
I had three Premiums. Two were here only for a month (as far as I can gather) and one is Premium still. So that's at least something. But faaar from great.
Still, I intend to work like crazy this year and won't let one month get me down.
I really like doing YT videos, so that's something that has renewed my enthusiasm.
Yes, we SHALL make April awesome! (there's nothing else to but to make it awesome!) ;)
Alenka
Congrats Christina on your hard work paying off. I know the feeling about being spread so thin. Two contnents for me. lol I plan on correcting that and focusing on 4-5 things instead of 20-30. Being a mom and wife are two huge jobs in itself. Keep it up! Your persistence and tenacity are an inspiration to all.
Make a living, make a difference.
Mark
Christina, Congrats on the big increase in traffic. That is great.
Although I'm ready for spring, work wise I am disappointed that it is April already.
Unfortunately, I am still trying to learn how to focus myself. If anything, March was a month one of those months where I feel like I took two steps back. Yet on the positive side that means this will be a month that I take a several steps forward. That is how the dance works.
Our goal is Vegas 2020.
I hope that you have a awesome month.
Looks like we're kind of in the same boat, Sondra. Let's make April the BEST month yet.
Vegas 2020!!
- Christina
Thank you for sharing this information. I think it's helpful and encouraging to see what you are doing and where it's working for you. I'm struggling with focus and prioritizing too, so I will be interested to what suggestions you get on this topic!
Just keep swimming!
Brooke
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I went through a period recently where there was so much to do and not much got done because of that. I now do a plan for the week on Sunday. I start working on it on Sundays even though the first thing is scheduled Monday. The reason I find this works is that I only put on the plan what I need to do and what I think I can do as a stretch. Does it get everything done - no but a lot more than before. This sets my priorities and seems to work. Maybe give it a try?
That's a great idea! That reminds me of something Bob Proctor said about one of his mentors. He said that you can't manage time, you can only manage activities.
He said that his mentor, every night, would pick 3 main things to get done the next day. And that's all he focused on.
So I think you're right. It's a matter of picking a few priorities, whether it's on Sundays for the week, or nightly for the next day, and just focusing.
- Christina
Hope it goes well, certainly worked for me.