In September 2006 I made my first website. We will call it Website A.
After two years of work, practice, trial, error, wasted time, stupid mistakes, study, practice, experimentation, and even doing a few things right, my little Website A was getting 2,500 – 3,500 unique visitors a month.
In November 2008, in a rush, I found a keyword I liked and made a little website. We will call it Website B.
Website B was a backburner site. I threw it together, eventually tweaked the theme, added some content when I could, did a bit of basic SEO, and then went back to my other projects. For the next 6 months I had barely any time to work on it. I updated it occasionally and did some basic off-site SEO here and there.
As of June 2009, Website B is getting 3,500 visitors.
- Website A = Two years and lots of work to get up to 3,500 visitors per month.
- Website B = Thrown together in a rush, put on the backburner, very little time spent on it, and seven months to get it up to 3,500 unique visitors per month.
- (Website A, by the way is now getting 12,000 to 13,000 unique visitors per month.)
- This is a little demonstration, for me, of the value of experience in Internet Marketing. I wrote about this in a post entitled Twenty-Two Months.
- If you ever feel discouraged that you haven’t become an overnight zillionaire like so many sales pages seem to promise you, remember this. Experience and practice is valuable and will pay off if you persist. I continue to study and practice and hope that the speed of my website’s growth will continue to improve as I gain more experience and know-how, just as it did during those first two years on Website A.
- I hope some people can find some encouragement in this!
ekwqusfbp6
Great job, Anna! I’ve had a few of those myself, though I haven’t really checked in on the traffic specifically. Mostly just noticing a pickup in the adsense revenue.
Thanks Mark! I hope it continues
By the way, I use a simple stat counter which is very easy to check, http://www.ewebcounter.com . And Google Analytics. Adsense revenue is also a good metric. But I like to check both traffic and revenue as revenue can be affected by other factors as well.
I want it, and I want it NOW!
Seriously, it’s really hard to explain to people that yes, I am going to earn at least sideline living at this, and yes, I am going to have to live like a pauper for a couple of years until I can cover the nut. So, no, I can’t go party every weekend.
It will be worth it.
For person like you, Anna, who guts it out and gets over the hump, 10 people fold ‘em and run. I’m counting on those people!
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..Creating Landing And Sales Pages Side-By-Side With WordPress =-.
Hi Dave! Your comment made my day. Seriously, thank you! I know exactly how you feel. I try to explain the same thing to people and sometimes I feel like they get a glazed-over look (even if they are on the phone and I can’t see them). Just like you said – I’d much rather work day and night for almost nothing for a year, to build up a residual income, than be stuck to the same 9-5 job with maybe a tiny occassional raise, and be earning the exact same amount of money 5 years from now.
Just the other day I felt a hint of unspoken criticism about this, that I don’t spend more time earning “right now money.” And, sometimes I hear a bit about how I don’t buy enough nice clothes … but, just like you said, it’s all part of what you sacrifice to make time to really build something up online (clothes, parties …) and yes, your current income might be lower than usual while you are working on that! I hope things speed up but, as I always say, my residual income increases all the time and that’s what counts the most. Anyway, thanks again for the validation! You are welcome to comment here any time
Anna,
Here’s something I sent I just put up, you might appreciate it:
http://tinobox.com/wordpress/miscellaneous/the-other-side-of-the-coin/
.-= Dave Doolin´s last blog ..How To Build Your WordPress Plugin Development Infrastructure =-.
Thanks Dave, I loved your post. Your blogs are great, both of them! I left some comments.
I agree Anna, it’s definitely good to see growth especially like this. Things that used to take for ever, now don’t take as long to setup and the more you work and learn the more you can use in your business.
.-= Normal Joe@Video Marketing Tips´s last blog ..Twitter doesn’t suck it’s probably just you =-.
@Joe – Yep. And I try to remind myself of this every time I see a sales page reminding me that NORMAL people are making tens of thousands of dollars per month after their first 3 hours working online … lol