Pat Flynn
As much as I enjoy writing and sharing my income reports, I also occasionally write a traffic report because as we all know, traffic is the lifeblood of a website. It’s important to understand how people come to our sites and what people are doing when they get there, so we can analyze and make improvements or adjustments if necessary.
In the past, I’ve been using Google Analytics to keep track of my stats. Lately, however, I’ve been using a new tool called Clicky Web Analytics and it’s amazing. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
The most noteworthy feature of Clicky (which is free for your 1st website) is that it can show us stats in real time.
With Google Analytics, you have to wait until the day is over before that day’s statistics are reported, and although there are other familiar tools that do show stats in real time (the WordPress.com Stats plugin), they are are missing a ton of features. Clicky is like Google Analytics, but in real time.
For example, as I write this post, I can tell that there are currently 34 people who are on my site, and I’ve had 1,677 visitors today who have taken 3,848 actions (pageviews, clicks, downloads, etc.).
So what’s the big deal? Why is it important and advantageous to look at stats in real time?
Firstly, you’ll be able to tell when something unnatural is going on with your site, and then immediately take the appropriate action. On one end, if I noticed that for some reason I had no visitors for a long period of time, I could quickly check on the server status or try and figure out what was going on. On the other end, if I noticed a HUGE influx of traffic I could see where it was coming from, and possibly address those specific visitors to maximize conversions or subscribership while it’s all happening, instead of being surprised the next day and missing the opportunity.
Secondly, I can keep track of what pages individual visitors are reading and what actions they are taking. It might not seem like the real time factor is a big deal for this, but when you publish a new post it is helpful to see what actions people are taking while reading it. Are they clicking on the links you want them to click on, or are they just simply exiting? You could change and update your post accordingly if people aren’t taking the actions you want them to take, and you wouldn’t waste a day to figure it all out.
To show you how cool this is, below is the “Spy” page on Clicky where I can see who is on my page at any given moment, what they are reading and any actions they are taking. I’ve burred out the ip addresses for privacy reasons, and actually if a particular ip address has left a comment on your site before, it actually shows that person’s name instead. Kinda cool…
When I click on the person who has taken 4 actions at the bottom, I can see exactly what he or she has done on the site:
So as you can see, in about a minute and a half this person landed on my homepage and eventually ended up on an external page where some type of conversion could happen. Of course, conversions on sales pages is a totally different ball game, which I’ll save for a later post.
Cool beans.
Anyways, check out Clicky if you get a chance, it’s awesome. [Full Disclosure: As an affiliate, I receive compensation if you purchase through this link.]
Traffic Report for Smart Passive Income
I continue to see record numbers on this blog, thanks to you of course!
All of the “999%” stuff is because Clicky compares stats with the previous month, and this was the first full month I used the tool—so it’s all out of whack. Besides that, I’m extremely pleased with all of the numbers, especially the 25% Bounce Rate, and the average time per visit, which is nearly 7 minutes.
Incoming Links
As I mentioned in my March Income Report, Facebook continues to be my number one referring source, by a longshot, as plainly shown in the chart above.
How?
A combination of the “Like” button, which I have in my sharebar plugin and at the bottom of my posts, and a Facebook Landing Page.
I’ve been an advocate for Facebook for blog promotion since the beginning, and now I hope you can see why.
Facebook has been helping me indirectly in another way as well. My How to Create a Landing Page (HTML / iFrames Edition) post is ranked #5 in Google for the keyword “facebook landing page”, and the video I created to go along with it drives in a lot of direct traffic as well.
Although Facebook keeps making changes, the work required to stay updated and create great content that goes along with it is well worth the effort.
Most Viewed Content
Nothing unusual here. My Facebook tutorial, which has spread around the web and ranks high in Google, had a lot of views this past month. Also, the income reports are always what most people are interested in, and the success of the niche site duel definitely increases viewership for the Niche Site Duel Hub as well as the successful Backlinking Strategy that Works.
Search Terms
Most searches come from people typing in my brand, which is a good sign of word of mouth marketing. Also, my target keyword, passive income, still ranks #2 and is bringing in a decent amount of traffic as well. I just can’t seem to outrank wikipedia at #1—not yet at least.
Passive income ideas and passive income streams I have specifically targeted here on the blog, so it’s nice to see a trickle of traffic coming from those keywords as well.
It’s not a significant amount of traffic, but I’m happy to report that 12 people found my site by typing in the keyword don’t give up.
I love it!
🙂
Thank you!
Like I said before, the rapid growth and success of this blog (and its 5300 Alexa ranking) is all because of you. Without you, this blog would be nothing and my motivation to continue writing excellent content for you would be next to nil.
For those of you interested in the traffic going to my security guard training niche site (which is doing extremely well—averaging about $30 per day in the first half of April), I will be posting a Niche Site Duel update about that very soon.
Keep working hard and keep giving others opportunities to find you through what you publish and the relationships you build with others online.
Cheers!
