May was my worst month yet and i still made dollars
I can't even begin to describe what I've been through in the month of May. It was I think, the WORST month since I joined WA, 18 months ago.
I was fasting for the month Ramadan so I was scatter-brained a lot of the time and I found myself being VERY distracted by simple things and it took WAY longer to get things done.
I had just come back from the trip and was trying to get things at home in order, you know, with unpacking the stuff we brought back. I was also struggling with my weight and although I was on a special diet, I wasn't seeing results (even with not eating or drinking while fasting!).
My website had been improving nicely but then took a sudden nose dive; referrals went down to only about 2 a week (vs the 14 that was getting previously). My bounce rate was the highest that it has ever been. People were spending less time on my website and I had to dig and found out what the problem was.
Finally, I found a solution and it was Kaju's training that saved me; the problem was largely in part with not optimizing my images. So I got started on that and believe me when I say it's tedious work! I had to go back to EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THOSE RUDDY IMAGES to manually optimize them.
And if that wasn't enough, I also found that although my theme was mobile-friendly, my SiteSpeed was horrendous! So I had to go hunting for a new theme, which brought down my traffic by 50%!
I know, I'm ranting at this point but I really need to get this off my chest... lol
So now, I have to go and find out WHY! It turns out that some themes completely re-configure your site so Google has to re-evaluate it from scratch, which is gonna take some time, like weeks and maybe even month. :( OH BOY!
Why put up this act, Google? WHY??? Bing and Yahoo don't seem to have given me this problem...
But do you want to know something? I'm so rpoud of myself for accomplishing all that as well as the SAC tasks. I didn't think that I would get through it, but yet, here I am!
And the best thing is that I still made money through it all! With Wealthy Affiliate, another sale on Clickbank and my Adsense earnings, I've made just over $213! I know, that's about the same that I've been making the past few months but that's because I had issues that needed correcting.
It's all corrected now and hopefully I'll be seeing nothing but an upward trend now.
I can say that my traffic is getting better by the day and I'm praying that it will surpasse the average of 100 per day that I had been getting back in April. After changing my theme, it had dropped to 50 a day and after a week, it has gradually increased to the 70s, so it's looking good!
Dealing with all that and the SAC is not easy, but I'm proud of myself for making it through. I've even been able to publish 5 youtube videos this past week, which I'm really happy about. I've been getting some views and some trafic through to my website from them.
Oh how I'm praying that this good trend continues! I've seen good trends in the past with my website but they never last. Hopefully this time, I've made enough improvements to have even more success.
How has your month of May been? I really hope that it was better than mine! I would love to hear of the work you've put out.
Tell me one thing that you're proud of accomplishing last month. Let's encourage each other to keep going!
Reyhana
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Hi Reyhana,
Great post.
Can you please share with us the theme you had a problem with and the new theme that you went to so we all can learn from your experience?
Thanks.
Hi Chaitanya. Thank you!
I was using "Lucienne" which is a free theme from when I created my website at WA. I am using a theme from "My Theme Shop", and it does not matter which one you choose because they are all optimized for mobile.
There are extras and depending on what you're looking for in your theme, you could pay more or less. The average price for a good theme can range from $19 - $35, which is great!
Hope this helps and wishing you the best.
Reyhana
Hi Reyhana, that's really a bad month! May I ask did you use images from SiteContent platform? I read somewhere that those images are already optimized IE compressed?
HI Danijel. Yupp, it was a bad month but I feel really good to have gotten past all the hurdles.. :)
I tried using the images from SiteContent but what I found was that if I added my images from SiteContent, then I would not be able to optimize them further or manually in the Wordpress Back-office.
So I prefer to still add them through the back-office to have more control over them and I optimize as I add them in.
Besides, I have a plugin called SMUSH which is free that does the optimizing. I just reduce the size of the image wherever possible.
Wonderful story Reyhana, and you learned new things along the path. You even succeeded and built a new ground to grow more successful. Struggles are not something bad, they are what makes us capable of becoming better. They tell us where we need to be better and when we take the action and figure it out, we get thrilled. The experiences along the path are what makes us tick and ignite new excitement to continue.
Thank you for sharing, it's a really inspirational story and you had great results, Congrats on your success and appreciate the success to come :-)
Thanks, Oddhelge.
I learned absolutely a lot except that it came at a bad timing because of the fasting. At times, I felt really overwhelmed and had to leave it off for a few hours before coming back to it. My brain felt fried... lol
But I guess in online business, we just have to take it in as it comes and go with the flow. Struggles are definitely not bad, agreed! The feeling that you get when you overcome those struggles is simply something else!
I'm happy to share. Thanks for reading. Wishing you the best!
Reyhana
Hi Reyhana,
My accomplishments are baby steps with putting the 5 star Rating(product review lite) plugin in. But, still keep truckin. I have no traffic and no sales BUT ! I need to work more on my Health site. It will come with harder work. I like to hear peoples accomplishments. Great Going..............Scotty B ♫
Hey Scotty. Every person's schedule and responsibilities are not the same so whatever steps you are taking to make your website better, big or small, adds up over time.
So whatever it is, always congratulate yourself for taking these baby steps because that's much more than you could have done for yourself if you HAD NOT been at WA.
Keep positive and keep going!
I wish you the best!
Reyhana
Great job, Reyhana!
Fantastic progress. Unfortunately, I can't say the same. I'm still struggling with my site. And my writing has suffered as a result.
The optimist inside me says, next week will be better! :)
Best wishes,
Paul.
Hi Paul, I have a humble suggestion for you. Change it from "next week will be better" to " My results become better every day."
Even that is not the optimal saying, but if you believe that you are better today than yesterday, you will see results faster.
again, it's just a humble suggestion :-)
Enjoy the journey :-)
Thank you, Paul.
Sorry to hear you're struggling. What are you struggling with? Maybe I can help?
But that's the kind of attitude that you need to keep! Always believe that it's gonna get better and it eventually will. I know it's hard on the mind to believe that when things are not improving but always add the "yet" in your phrases.
"Things are not improving YET" but it will!
Shoot me a PM and let me know if I can help.
Wishing you the best,
Reyhana
Man I feel you struggles, this months been pretty hectic for me to with fasting, my finals for university and a bunch more other complications but I've managed to pull through and even make my first wealthy affiliate yearly sale.
Traffic's been pretty awesome too with me hitting around 5.6k sessions over 3.8k last month.
Even my free members doubled in May from 7 to 15 but, I'm still struggling with the conversions relative to my traffic so that's something I will be working and hopefully getting done in June.
Here's to another month of hard work and hopefully your traffic and your monthly Paycheck improve this month.
All the best
Amhil
The fasting does get to our head, right? It's so hard to concentrate! I'm very happy that despite it all, you pulled through!
And what great news! Congrats on your first Yearly Sale! That's an awesome achievement. And your traffic is improving too, which means that you're going to get much better results going forward.
With time, you'll know what works for the kind of traffic that you're getting so don't worry. Keep publishing great content and tweaking wherever you can.
I also wish you the same! All the very best,
Reyhana
Great job but since I'm Christian and believe in Christ Jesuah our God has nothing to do with the religion or Ramadan doesn't apply to me but thank you for sharing your achievements
Thanks, Nijole.. :)
And no worries! We are all adults and tolerant of each other here, no matter our religion. I just included the fasting bit here because it was a major factor in me finding this month difficult.
We don't eat or drink anything from 45 minutes before sunrise until sunset and in Canada where I am right now, that's eating nothing, and drinking nothing, from 4am to 9 pm. I found it difficult to concentrate as a result and it took me longer to get things done because everything distracted me!
It added on to the challenge for me but I'm happy I'm through that month. Eid is close now (in 2 days) so June is going to be much better, I hope.
I'm always happy to share! :)
Wishing you the very best,
Reyhana
This is with this kind of post where I found the motivation
You are definitely a fighter because it sounds really tough
Well done for this, your website is going to be fantastic
You made me think about all this little thing now
Thank you very much
Charles
I'm happy you found motivation in my post, Charles. This is why I love writing my updates because if it benefits even one person, then I consider my mission done.
....but sometimes you just want to let it out... lol
Thanks for reading and I wish you the best. Whatever happens, there is a way! So don't ever give up! Keep on working harder because you're doing that for yourself and your future!
See you around!
Reyhana
Great job, Reyhana! That's one thing I love about this business. Life can get in the way sometimes, but at least we have the flexibility to take care of life when needed.
It sounds like you had a tough month, but you continued on anyway.
My month was very up and down. My traffic goes up and then drops. I did change my theme, but that didn't seem to affect my traffic, thankfully. It's just up and down because Google decides to move my posts from 1 to 5 or whatever. lol
Here's my update for May, if you're interested: Operation Vegas: 2020 - May Update Keep it up because you are doing so well! You'll get right back on track, I know it!
- Christina
Thank you Christina. :)
Yupp, that's what I love about it too. It keeps you on your toes but there was a lot of work to do in May and at times, I really felt overwhelmed. When I did, I just left it for a few hours, did something else and then came back to it.
Loving the flexibility of this online business. Nothing else can compare to this freedom!
Oh I'm happy you didn't have to go through the hassle of losing your traffic with your theme change.
And the big boss Google! We can't understand what he thinks, can we? Even cats are easier to read than Google... lol.
I would love to read your update... :)
Wish you the best as always!
Reyhana
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Hi Reyhana, May seems to have been a long month for me, with lots of ups and downs. I managed to do a few blog posts and pushed my business forward a little. Alan
Hi Alan. I guess it was a long month for a lot of us, but that shows that we are fighting to make things better, right? :) That's awesome!
Keep publishing! Wishing you the best,
Reyhana