Letterpress card by Creativity
Today is the Second Day of Reckoning.
How have my stats done in the third month of my blog growing campaign?
How I am trying to grow my traffic (just like you)
I promised on August 20 that I would keep you informed of my stats. I talked a lot about my insecurity and wheter you would still like me and what have you in that post, which we can certainly do without so I won’t repeat.
Then, finally, I revealed the pityful state of my visitor count. On june 21 I had 584 unique visitors to my website – per month, not per day.
Just to give you a way to compare: my all time favorite site about online marketing, Copyblogger, has 150.000 subscribers. (Which means that all these people signed up to get a new post fed into their newsreader or an email in their inbox every day. The site will have even way more visitors.)
So let’s just dive into it. How did my traffic grow since last month and what did I do to achieve that?
Here are all the figures that I think matter in one table:
New things I do with my writing and layout
First: the amount of posts I wrote has been roughly the same: about three per week.
Since I started my traffic growing campaign I have been paying much more attention to the WAY I write. I use shorter sentences and make more paragraphs. I think longer and harder about my headlines, which I try to make catchy (like: Women who blog and say fuck). I put in more subheadings. I use bullet points. In short: the structure of my pages is clearer.
Things I still don’t do for my writing
Every experienced blogger will tell you you need to plan your posts ahead of time. Plan a series. Make people want to come back for the next installment. Do like Dickens did.
I have not really done this yet. Partly because I cannot think of any subject for a series, apart from my artworks, which are an ongoing and ever changing series anyhow. These monthly stats updates do not count as a series, I think, because a month seems too long a pause in between two parts.
Focus? Where?
Every handbook also tells you to focus on your niche and your ideal reader.
As an artist, that just makes me want to scream.
Because yes, if you sell ziplock sandwich bags it seems easy enough. Just like when you have a timesaving solution for small businesses or offer a great self help guide for people who desperately want to stop biting their nails. (Like me). You can easily find people who need ziplock bags or who bite their nails. They will typically type ‘stop nailbiting’ or ‘ziplock bag’ into their google search bar. So as a writer all you have to do is focus on these keywords to find where they hang out.
Just go to a nailbiters forum and there is your target audience right there, silently chewing away and spitting out the tiny bits while they type.
But, my dear friend, pray tell: whenever has ART been a solution to someone’s problem?
Right.
Artists don’t need to think about SEO (search engine optimization) so much. No one has a desperate need to find them. Their art just needs to get noticed by many people, who then have to like and even fall in love with their work.
Hard.
It is a numbers game: one in 50 or in 100 or in a 1000 will want to buy something.
For now my conclusion is: artists need exposure.
What else did I do?
Nothing much, I think. I tried to write interesting posts and I promoted them all on Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn. The Women Who Blog And Say Fuck post got retweeted around ten times – so now you know how to attract attention, too. Just use the f-word. (Of course if you already have 150.000 followers it will get retweeted 25.000 times).
Hurray, more traffic
And here is the traffic developtment in a more impressive looking graph. Almost twice the amount of unique visitors within a month – it looks promising.
However. If you take a second look at the table above, you will find that the amount of people who return often (I have randomly put this at more than nine times) is not so large. True, it has climbed from 16 % to around 30 %. But when I couple that with the number of subscribers to my blog – via RSS – I am pretty baffled.
I only have 6 subscribers.
S – I – X
I know, nowadays many people don’t take out blog subscriptions anymore – they just follow the updates on Twitter or Facebook.
Nonetheless. It feels like I am doing something wrong. Or am I focusing on the wrong thing?
More traffic, less depth
Interesting too is that with the number of visitors growing, the time they spend on my website is getting shorter. From 5 to 4 minutes – and from 6 to 4 pages per visit on average. I guess that is a price you pay for getting more random traffic. The fact that my bounce rate (the number of people leaving the site within seconds) is stable seems good however. In general a healthy bounce rate is supposed to be under 50 % so I will try and improve that over the next month.
Growing your mailing list
The most amazing thing happened to my newsletter subscriptions.
Before I decided to go all commercial, last summer (just joking of course – let me assure you I still have some boundaries) my newsletter was an emotionally difficult assett for me. Like most artists I felt like getting people to subscribe to it was akin to selling vacuum cleaners from door to door.
Not anymore.
I now realize (just like all the business people of this world) that people need to know you and hear from you regularly to think of you once they need to buy a piece of art. Or a gift. Or whatever. It is only natural. We’re all busy, without reminders other stuff takes up the space in our minds that was for a short time occupied by the person who is now forgetting to stay in touch.
Also – I subscribe to a fair number of newsletters myself. Most of them I look forward to getting. Some of them I would really miss if they stopped. The ones I don’t like anymore, I coldly unsubscribe from. Such is life.
Oh no, not another pop up
So here is what happened. Over the first year when I had my newsletter, the number of subscribers hardly grew. I had 71 when I started using mail chimp, on august 18 of this year. Because I did as Cory Huff told me to, and put an opt-in form for my newsletter on my homepage and in the sidebar of every other page, I got 13 new subscribers over the next two weeks.
Then, on August 31, I decided to try out something spectacular – like most of the big American blogs that I follow I would put a pop up on my website. To apply some European finesse it would only ever pop up once, and only after three minutes – when it asks you to subscribe to my newsletter.
Over the next 20 days I got 48 new subscribers.
How amazing is that?
And why does it work?
It is simple. Yet I never realized: you have to ask your readers for what you want.
I got the popup here, by the way. It’s not free.
And now..
Over the next month I will put in place some more things on my list to try and grow my traffic – and especially, the number of people who return to my blog. I will keep you informed.
And now I have a question for you, you who have read this so carefully and all the way to the end. Do tell me honestly, if you have a minute: is there anything obvious I am overseeing? Should I write about different things? Show more of myself? Make more art?
Do put your thoughts in a comment. I will gladly answer the same questions for your blog.
Kitty, I just love your witty voice, and am always delighted when I visit your blog. This post is no exception. Thanks for sharing all this stuff — verrrrrry interesting indeed.
Congrats on growing your list! And on everything you’ve learned (and *implemented*) from your research. I look forward to seeing what comes next!
(Glad to hear Popup Domination with the 3-minute trick is working for you. I like thinking of my very-American-self as having “European finesse.” ;))
Oh yes, I got this fine touch from Melissa. As you can read here: http://kittykilian.nl/women-who-blog-and-say-fuck/
Well, you know how it goes, melissa, we all like to change our stories a bit all the time ;-)
Aw, you’re sweet, Kitty. :) And can I just say, I LOVE that I’m mentioned in a post entitled “Women who blog and say fuck.” Who’d've thought a good girl like me would be such a rebel? ;)
Ha ha, but how good a girl are you really? I just saw a picture you posted of yourself, crouched over the toilet, half naked, with a cat on your back ;-)
Hai Kitty, I think you are doing very well! I like your posts, (maybe a little bit long sometimes, you need to take the time for them…) But I mostly read them till the end, because they are interesting. As I said earlier, you are an inspiration for me. So, I’m sorry I don’t have any suggestions for improvement, only encouragement to go on this way. Great to see it grow!
One curious question: Do you also sell more art via your blog since the summer? Are people using the paypal-button?
Have a nice day!
I was hoping noone would ask that yet, Nelleke! I think I will keep the sales stats for later. Right now I am putting Ideal pay-buttons next to the paypal ones, since most Dutchmen use Ideal. It has to be done by hand page by page in my setup, so it will take some time.
About length: yes, these posts tend to get pretty long. I an trying to keep the regular ones shorter. But I just want to explain it all and also make it fun to read, that does take up some space. Personally I love reading longer posts provided they’re well written.
I’m with you on post length, Kitty. It’s not the length that stops me, it’s the writing. Yours are always a fun read. :)
Hi Kitty,
you know how I ended up seeing this blogpost? I typed in ‘how to grow your emaillist’ in Google, and this blogpost ranks #7 among 453.000.000 search results. How cool is that?
I agree with Nelleke that your posts could be a bit shorter, compacter might be a nice Dutch word, but they’re chuckfull of interesting stuff and you write very well.
Really cool to see that your emaillist is growing thanks to the pop-up!!
# 7? Are you sure? I once heard that Google makes personal rankings so may be if you looked up my name before I get higher on your list? They explained that if you type in your own name that’s what happens anyway.
Ok. Compact. Got it!
I tried again while being signed out of Google, and then you were on page 3.. So yeah, Google definitely makes rankings based on your search history. Nevertheless, if you are on page 3 without putting delibirate effort in it, you could rank higher if you put in effort. Not that you would maybe want that for this keyword, but it’s nice to know you’re on the right way no?
Right. Good idea to test it that way. Hm. If only that would work for ‘fun art with non-cynical quotes about women’!
So I found your blog via twitter, and I have to say I was drawn in my your eloquent use of the word “suck.” Because I do, in fact, suck at selling my work, I had to pop in and see if you were right. And you were, of course, which is why I’m commenting here instead of sallying off into the sunrise. Good stuff—I’ll be back for more. And I don’t think your posts are too long at all. Then again, look at how I’m blathering on…