1-Month Progress Report: Followers Gained, Money Made

byExLawyer

147 followers

Updated 9 years ago

Having taken the plunge and spent a lot of time as a complete rookie, I / we (we're a two-person team: me, the content author, and my SO, the "web design whiz in training"), here are some highlights:

• In LESS THAN AN HOUR after we purchased the domain, chose a theme, and wrote a "Hello, world!" post, a reader commented on how ecstatic she is to see the site! That was a bit of a rush, to say the least.

Full Disclosure: there's a bit of a backstory here. I used to have tens of thousands of followers on a social media site ("used to" because my political incorrectness--saying that being overweight is NOT, in fact, just as wonderful as being at a healthy weight is--got my account terminated without warning), and I wrote a book that came out two years ago. I haven't gotten the followers back (not willing to indulge the site anymore), but several people have been trying to hunt me down (like the aforementioned reader).

Content: I've been writing so much in my spare time, it's a little crazy! Keyword research takes its toll, too, especially because this site is not even close to being a "niche" (weight loss), but I hope to create a niche within the industry. Regardless, I've authored just over 30 posts / pages (over 15,000 words).

As far as readership and $$$ go, we don't yet understand how to read data, but here's some:

• Average session duration is 8-10 minutes, with 6-8 pages viewed. That sounds pretty good for a start.
• Amazon associate link clicks: 84, with one tiny conversion (24 cents). Over 40 of those appeared overnight, so we're thinking it might have been from when we were checking to make sure the links worked. Note: none of the Amazon links comes from a Squeeze Page (yet), they've just been inserted in spots where people aren't necessarily looking to buy anything.
• Adsense, which we've had up for 9 days, has produced 44 cents.
• Google Analytics, which we've had up for the same amount of time, shows 95 sessions by 39 new visitors.
• A small handful of visitors have resulted from "Organic searches"--this means we're showing up on Google searches for something? Unless it was just me googling my own page, haha.
• The site has received 28 comments (half are my responses)

So yeah, there it is! Onward and upward.

Summary: it's actually a little frustrating / depressing to put all this work into the site for such modest results. If not for all the advice from WA, we'd be quite disappointed. However, realizing that success takes at least 6-12 months of consistent output really helps. Also, knowing that we're helping people is worth a HUGE amount of personal satisfaction. I'm sure I'll never tire of hearing "Your book changed my life!" (Yes, that was a "humblebrag" haha)

Anyhow: We'd love to hear all your thoughts and, of course suggestions!

-A