Quest for $10,000 April 2008 Analysis
Total April revenue was $6,161.59, below is the April 2008 monthly summary in the quest for $10,000 a month in revenue, part time. We will be tracking the site growth both in traffic and revenue here on the about page. This site is unique, we show you exactly what our progress is towards $10,000 a month, in your spare time. We discuss what we tried, what worked or did not work. Of most interest is the marketing tests category, detailing tests and how they performed. The first month was September when the site launched on 9/4/07, which was a naked Word Press installation and much of September was spent tweaking the site.
April was an interesting month. Alexa rankings and website statistics changed and the site showed a better ranking. However I am focusing on better targeting my content more narrowly in search of quality traffic instead of mass traffic. I have found that when trying to maximize revenue through affiliate marketing and advertising the overall ranking of the site is not an indicator of revenue, which is probably obvious to most.
Therefore the ranking of the site as shown by Alexa, Quantcast or Compete, does not directly correlate with a sites revenue. I should either remove ranking or better yet I will probably just add other key metrics such as links in to the site from other sites, and metrics that better quantify the quality of the traffic and correlation of type of traffic to type of content. I am not entirely sure how to do that at this moment.
RSS subscriptions have increased significantly from 152 to 791 and the newsletter subscriptions have increased from 3,707 to 6,578. My rationale for this increase, and only a guess, is my focus on more targeted content is obtaining visitors interested in the content and therefore more likely to subscribe to the site RSS or the newsletter. Also, due to the faster growth in the newsletter I would conclude, another guess, that most visitors do not know what an RSS feed is and how to subscribe while everyone understands a newsletter. Just a guess, but it would explain the larger newsletter growth.
Looks like May is a month for obtaining more links in and working on site SEO, just like I said in April but did not put in as much time as I would have liked. I always like to point out that the above not only applies to this site longest.com but also the other niche sites I operate such as VentureCapitalUpdate.com. Overall I am happy as the total revenue was over $6,000.
| SITE STATISTICS | Launch | Sept 07 | Oct 07 | Nov 07 | Dec 07 | Jan 08 | Feb 08 | Mar 08 | Apr 08 | ||||||||||
| Alexa | 2,712,399 | 408,377 | 237,610 | 194,131 | 212,169 | 256,630 | 293,028 | 335,124 | 241,806 | ||||||||||
| Quantcast | NA | 6,083,285 | 5,950,003 | 1,883,550 | 1,906,217 | 1,815,963 | 1,924,150 | 1,863,311 | 2,462,371 | ||||||||||
| Technorati Ranking | NA | 640,383 | 550,426 | 317,977 | 246,538 | 257,527 | 199,700 | 217,579 | 288,411 | ||||||||||
| Technorati Authority | NA | 10 | 15 | 26 | 26 | 37 | 40 | 37 | 34 | ||||||||||
| RSS Subscribers | 1 | 25 | 113 | 132 | 132 | 135 | 145 | 152 | 791 | ||||||||||
| Newsletter Subscribers | - | - | - | - | - | - | 852 | 3707 | 6578 | ||||||||||
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| REVENUE | Launch | Sept 07 | Oct 07 | Nov 07 | Dec 07 | Jan 08 | Feb 08 | Mar 08 | Apr 08 | ||||||||||
| Advertising & Affiliate | $ 0 | $ 0.48 | $ 5.18 | $ 27.96 | $ 190.18 | $ 278.85 | $ 1600.56 | $ 2121.38 | $ 5938.64 | ||||||||||
| Direct Sales | $ 0 | $ 0 | $ 0 | $ 18.80 | $ 57.32 | $ 141.43 | $ 166.96 | $ 190.48 | $ 222.95 | ||||||||||
| TOTAL REVENUE | $ 0.00 | $ 0.48 | $ 5.18 | $ 46.76 | $ 247.50 | $ 420.28 | $ 1767.52 | $ 2311.80 | $ 6161.59 | ||||||||||
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| EXPENSES | Launch | Sept 07 | Oct 07 | Nov 07 | Dec 07 | Jan 08 | Feb 08 | Mar 08 | Apr 08 | ||||||||||
| Reviews | $0 | $50 | $20 | $0 | $77 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | ||||||||||
| Advertising | $0 | $0 | $180.65 | $0 | $0 | $216.81 | $963 | $1066.91 | $2901.27 | ||||||||||
| Hosting | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $109.95 | $109.95 | $109.95 | ||||||||||
| Development – SW – Misc | $0 | $470 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $0 | $80 | $230 | ||||||||||
| TOTAL SPENT | $0 | $520 | $200.65 | $0 | $77 | $216.81 | $1072.95 | $1256.86 | $3241.22 | ||||||||||
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| TOTAL PROFIT | $0 | ($517.64) | ($194.05) | $34.71 | $136.50 | $169.52 | $694.50 | $1,054.94 | $2,920.37 | ||||||||||
