March Update- 39 Referrals, 7 Premium
Wow this month has been a weird one!
With the whole world on lockdown with COVID, you may think that more and more people would be interested in starting an online business or learning how to make money from home.
But here's what happened to my traffic from Google:
This is the first time my traffic has taken a notable dip since it's started growing. It's safe to say this is how I felt at the start of March...
My wife and I were supposed to visit Singapore and our parents had booked a week each to visit us in sunny Qatar so I had thought this month was going to really lack on how much work I could do.
In the end I managed to do much more due to the lockdown and my traffic still tanked! Boo!
But don't worry there is a happy ending as you'll see later. But for now...
Here's the stats
SEO traffic- 6979 (up from 6164)
New posts- 22 (18 reviews)
Total posts- 236 (I also cleared out some dead wood this month)
Words written- 63,357 (including 4 emails to my list)
Refs- 39 (down from 45 last month)
Upgrade- 7 (same as last month)
Recurring- 15 (up from 10)
* Annual upgrades- 4
See my Feb Update here.
Takeaways
So it's certainly been a weird month but here are my takeaways that hopefully can help you too...
- My traffic halved overnight... but I still had more organic traffic from the previous month!
- Being consistent is far more important than worrying when traffic declines... traffic will vary (just be aware of this)
- I checked my main keywords on Google and they were all in a similar position. Therfore, I knew it wasn't Google penalising my website, but just a lack of searches compared to normal (pretty understandable as the whole world is pretty chaotic right now!)
- I'm glad I focus on what I can control more nowadays (how many posts and words written rather than things like position ranked in Google or how much money I make)... funny enough both my rankings and income have increased since I changed my focus!
- I left my sales page/ opt in's the same which has made it easier to track
- Using Thrive Leads and Optimise has helped me split test some pages and opt ins and I plan to update/ adpat some of these again this month
Here's what's happening now
Despite this mini set back at the start of the month here is what has started to happen now...
Plus, a very exciting stage of the journey has happened within the last week...
I've hired a full time writer! He's on his second day of training out of 5 and I'm already super impressed with him.
I used Jerry's amazing training to do this here...
That training is honestly epic! Even if you have no intention of hiring anyone right now I would still recommend going through this and checking out his training (espeically if you are promoting WA, as you are guaranteed to learn something from the young affiliate marketing master)
Anyway I hope that was helpful.
I'm planning on getting at least 20 reviews done in April and I'm excited to see where this traffic heads (I'm predicting my first 5 figure traffic month from Google and double digits from premium members).
How was your March? Is there anything else you'd like to know?
Recent Comments
50
Great stuff Mike! I'm at 112 posts on my IM/MMO review site and I have about 120 visitors daily the past couple of weeks. To be honest I'm not keeping as good track as you are but it's great to see your stats so I can see what to expect in the next hundred posts. Aiming for the magical 400, probably not this year though. Unless I hire a writer that is. What kind of pricing did you settle for with your writer? I've read Jerry's post a couple of times, the lockdown and financial situation has just made me reserved for any extra investments. Then again it's an investment that can pay off quick....
Then again it's an investment that can pay off quick....
100%!
It's a mindset thing and yeah the writer may not work out/ may not do what you want them to be able to do but it will be a learning experience.
Going through that process taught me there is an abundance of great writers that are so affordable out there. If one doesn't work out there will be another one... $400 a month prob won't break the bank for you but it could potentially change your whole future... it's only worth doing it when you're bringing income in though (as Jerry explains)
Stay in touch Jukka I can see you're on the right path
Hi Mike
This is great progress despite the traffic dip at the start of March. I think with so much going on in the world then, it's inevitable that people's behaviour would be different. Searching more necessities perhaps rather than online opportunities or reviews.
March has seen a nice upward trend for my traffic and I credit the review posts we have been doing for that. One in particular seems to be getting lots of interest. Next focus is on getting that traffic to convert into leads and sales!
Cheers
Dave
Awesome to hear Dave!
Honestly, it just took one post that did well and starting raking in traffic, then others followed suit eventually... it's exactly like Kyle explains here... Website Traffic is Like a Mountain, Stream and River
Yeah I'm really excited for you Dave... you're already getting organic traffic!!! That is huge I genuinely don't think you realise what's about to happen :)
Hi Mike
Thank you so much for the encouragement. I’m excited to see what happens over the coming months 😀
Cheers
Dave
In the first two weeks of the month, we saw a couple of trends. People spent a ton of time searching for necessities like toilet paper and COVID-19 information instead of their regular searches. The also spent a ton of time out shopping store after store to build up food pantries and stock up on vitamins and masks, gloves, and more.
Google also had another update that had a temporary ripple effect. Now people are laid off, laden with debt, and in search of new income so your traffic is beginning to spike. Min is too but I don't have near the search traffic. YET!!!
Hey Mike,
Well, that's a great question at the end... so far my March has been sweet tweet nothing... but that's totally my fault. April is much better already!
Thank you for sharing your awesome story here. It's an awesome success and interesting to see how your traffic went down and picking up again.
My goal is to hire a writer but... that's still down the road. I really want to feel good about my writing first and I'm getting there. I'm a wicked perfectionist on the writing but my other personality colour of "just get it done" is kicking in.
I know you're going to Vegas 👍
I'll get there too. I have some referrals but no Premiums and that will happen too.
Got this bookmarked. Yes, Jerry has excellent training.
I look forward to your next success story Mike.
Please take care and stay well.
Monica
Hey Monica, thanks for the kind words.
Glad to hear April has started well for you too! Have you started getting organic traffic yet? I found that was a big change for how things worked with my website for sure.
See more comments
Thought I'd copy-paste my response here, since you might not get my response notification haha
"Oh lala, congrats! ;)
I remember loving Jerry's training when he just released it and this year I'm ready to hire one!
Don't remember the part to ask the final applicants to write a review, so definitely would have to go through the training again haha.
If you don't mind me asking, how much are you paying for your full-time writer, especially with the current economy changes?"
Haha! Thanks Zarina (it's 7 am here so prob was asleep!)
Yeah his training is SOOOO thorough it covers everything you need to do. I highly recommend following it to the T and ticking off each task (I almost missed a couple of things then realised how important they were... such as the 4 interview questions series... that alone was a game-changer for hiring!)
I am paying my writer $400 a month with potential bonuses ($100 for every 100 posts written & $30 if he can rank 15 on page 1 in a month)
I thought it wasn't enough to pay, but that's a question I asked all my candidates during the interview stage...
My writer was expecting $250-$300 per month for this work, so I'm actually paying him more than he was expecting!
Plus he has great English and has a ton of experience working on WordPress and SEO... crazy!
I recall Jerry's training being insanely good! Jerry's training and Dylan's training were perhaps the most valuable resources every created by WA members.
"$30 if he can rank 15 on page 1 in a month" - 15 articles in a month, I guess that's a pretty good enough time frame and amount of articles, especially if he will be adding say 2-3 articles per week.
I love the bonuses part too, feels good to be a good employer who offers benefits!
Will you be writing this off for tax reasons? I'm still not officially set up (my site as my business) so I will need to get this stuff sorted likely this year - bookkeeping, taxes etc.
$250-300 per month sounds totally possible, for me it'll be a fraction of my current site income. Who knows, maybe I'll even hire 2 different writers for 2 different sites! I am not keeping up with all the websites AND YouTube. So at least I'll scale the text-based aspect of my business(es).
Thanks for encouraging me to go for it! It's been on my mind but now that with cancelled trips and quarantines, I'll get to it sooner haha
Yeah exactly it’s a business expense for sure. I’m asking him to do 1 review a day (so 20 a month) but it may be a tall order. I’ve systemised things pretty well when I do it and he seems like a really quick learner and has excellent English.
But we’ll see.
Yeah 100% just go for it. Here’s how I see it...
We only learn by taking action so Worst case it will be a great learning experience.
Best case you can outsource everything and spend your time how you want.
Thanks for sharing your experience, Mike :)
One more question, do you think I should hire a writer for my MMO site that I don't work on much (and it's digital product commissions like WA), or my main Amazon niche site that's been my main money maker? Amazon sales dropped but I do have digital products on that site too keeping me afloat.
I feel writing 1000-word ish reviews for MMO site might be easier than for my photo niche. Plus I could write for my main website myself... I guess I answered my own question here hahaha.