Hot Weather And Poor Performance

bynightwatch

830 followers

6 years ago

Here in Ireland (and in the UK), we've been sweltering in an uncharacteristic heatwave for the last month. Temperatures have stayed consistently in the high 20's (celcius - 80+ Fahrenheit) and sometimes have gone above 30 C.

There's been no rain either so green Ireland has turned burnt brown.

Our water instrastructure is in a poor state and leaks a lot of water. We now have a nationwide hosepipe ban and have been asked to conserve water as much as possible. Dublin is so short of water that there are plans afoot to pipe water to it from the Shannon river in the west of the country. The locals there are up in arms about the proposal.

Just as the grass and plants have wilted in the last month, so has my resolve to get work done on my site.

We Irish weren't built for heat like this, especially when the humidity rises. We don't like simmering slowly in our own juices. And not being able to get a good night's sleep because you're seeping sweat all night from the heat and humidity doesn't help either.

It's sapped my energy.

Even just writing comments on other members' blogs is too difficult. My eyelids have been heavy and all I've wanted to do is go asleep. And on some days I did.

It took me a month to write the latest post on my blog. It was a long one - about 2,500 words, so that's partly the reason it took so long.

But now the clouds have rolled back in and the temperature has dropped to a more acceptable level and the cotton wool filling my head is finally starting to dissipate.

Looking at some stats, I can see that my site has stalled in the search engine rankings. I only have a handful of keywords ranked above #100 (none above #27) on Google even though I'm tracking over 120 keywords. They fare better on Bing and Yahoo.

Visitor numbers are down too, probably because I've been too slow to add new content to the site.

I've only managed to refer 3 free members to WA in the last 5 weeks and have still yet to recruit my first Premium member. If you have any tips on how/where to recruit people I'd love to know!

I have made 3 affiliate sales in the last 5 weeks, all for recurring fees. It amounts to about $50 per month, so long as those subscriptions keep getting paid.

My Rank here in WA has been hovering between 260 and 300 for ages. But at least it's consistent.

Getting and leaving comments is what I'm finding most difficult. So that's something I need to work on from here on out.

It looks like the temperature will be in the low 20's C (low 70s F) from here on out so I can now concentrate on building out my site again instead of wringing out my armpits!