Thoughts In Binary

WordPress 2.6

Time for yet another WordPress update; get WordPress 2.6 here.

In the world of software updates, “just do it” works. And with WordPress, if you are the type of webmaster who delays software updates for when you have “free time,” you will find yourself behind by a couple of software versions in no time.

Besides, the obsessive updating of WordPress’ code means WordPress is the best and most advanced blog software available – millions of supporters and users looking for possible vulnerabilies in the code, and hundreds of developers attending to it.

WordPress is, and will always be, the only way. Seems as though I am directing this post to a non-Wordpress user. Maybe, maybe not.

As said in my previous post, and like my statistics reporting, my monthly income reporting was stopped last October 2007. The first from last year’s series was a report on August 2007′s income. It then lasted only three months. Nobody gave a fudge as usual – who would care about a $20 income from a blog anyway? But it helped me and it meant something to me. It felt like I was achieving something more every month, no matter how small.

Now, I will give it another try. And like what I realized in my previous post, I stopped increasing my earnings when I stopped pressuring myself from reporting about it every month. This can also serve as a gauge for other bloggers, especially if combined with my traffic figures. But, I will however explain in the end how I don’t care that much for this blog’s earnings.

Income

Last year I had three income streams for this blog – AdSense, Amazon Affiliates, and Text Links Ads. Now, eight months later, I still only have three. I kept promising to myself to add more income streams, but the will ended when the reporting ended. Anyway for June 2008, my income for this blog is as follows: $32.14 from Google AdSense, $22.89 from Text Link Ads and $1.70 from Amazon Affiliates. Which brings us to a whopping grand total of $56.73. Again, I’m right where I left off – $54.13 last October 2007.

Thoughts and why I even bother

I guess I just want to get rid of typical me for once – he who never finishes what he started – plus, I feel that I’m slowly letting this blog slip away from growing. I barely post nowadays, even if I lowered my monthly post quota to ten. When I did this monthly reporting last year, even though it felt like I was talking to myself, I felt happy and content. I felt like I achieved something every month, and I did, and I learned a lot.

You might think $56.73 a month from a blog is a waste of time. To tell you the truth, it is. With my traffic, bloggers can earn twice to thrice $56.73 easily. How? First off, by optimizing ad positions and adding more income streams. All of which I do know, but have chosen not to apply to this blog. Why? Because this blog is my playground, this blog is the “concept car” while my other sites are the ones in production. I learn a lot from doing small experiments here, and I’d like it to stay that way.

After 8 months

Last year I started reporting my blog’s monthly traffic statistics and income regularly, ala John Chow, and for some unknown reason in November, I stopped. I wouldn’t say it was because nobody gave a fudge about it (it’s true), because I did it for myself. I did it because it was challenging – to raise my statistics and income every month. And it worked. From when I started doing it in May last year up to October, my traffic raised by a couple of hundred (daily average) visits every month.

Now my blog is now in a rut, and what better way to relieve it from this slump than to repeat something that already worked before. I will now give it another try, and hopefully, my attitude towards regular posting and general internet marketing for this blog will be affected. I used to love blogging, but now I admit it’s slowly beginning to feel like work. So if you at all know me, to say the least, then you know my sentiments on “work.”

Statistics

Last June, my blog had 26,337 unique visitors, which means I’m just about right (lower, actually) where I left off – 29,587 in October 2007. I had a total of 40,127 visits – again lower than October last year, and served a total 112,532 pages. I ate up 12.35 GB of bandwidth, from an average of 1,337.57 visits per day. Google gave me 9,249 referrals, and Yahoo!, 2,063. These statistics are based from AwStats, as always, so if you want the Google Analytics equivalent, subtract around 15%.

Analysis

8 months after, I ruined my blog’s increasing numbers and actually went lower. Although I wouldn’t exactly say I am doing worse now – my blog has more pages than ever, therefore more keywords, but I can safely say I stopped my blog from growing. From this month on, I plan to raise traffic regularly by pressuring myself to want something to report better than the last – even if it means only a couple hundred visits more.

I ruined it. But it’s not too late. By the way, my traffic record stands at 39,119 in November last year, but I admit it was a fluke. Because back then, even my name was being googled. My record for most visits in a day was in October 25 last year at 3,411. Again not counted, because people still visited “BB” back then, which led them here. Here are the rest of this year’s statistics for your curiousitiy. See you next month with more traffic. Next post will be on last month’s income. Get ready to be bored.