As I do every month, I am going to report on the traffic this blog received during the previous month, this time being November. If you’d like to take a look at my previous traffic results you can read the October Traffic Analysis or check out the analysis category for all previous months.

Ever since DotComDud.com launched I hadn’t been able to reach 2,000 page views even though I’d set it as a goal for myself several times. Finally in November I was able to reach that milestone and I can now start aiming higher still. Over 2,500 page views is a nice improvement from the 1,687 I had in October. The 1.57 pages per visit is concerning though and something I’d like to rectify in the future. I think I can achieve this by improving my traffic sources which I will look at next.

This month I’ve decided to expand my analysis and look at the top 10 sources instead of only 5 like I have previously. Yet again Entrecard traffic dominates which might seem like a good thing but the traffic from Entrecard also has the lowest pages per visit and very high bounce rates (almost 90%) so I think it’s time to re-examine how I use Entrecard. Meanwhile Twitter came in at number 4 but the quality of the traffic really stands out with 3.48 pages per visit and a bounce rate around 50%. So if you haven’t already signed up to Twitter, now is the time! You can check out my profile at twitter.com/DotComDud.

I’m still getting some StumbleUpon traffic too, so thanks to anyone who has given my posts a ‘thumbs up’. Gmail comes in at #6 which I assume is from email subscribers, I’m not 100% sure about this though, so it’s something I’ll have to research a bit. The Daily Blog Tips traffic is no doubt from the Blogging Idol contest, where I made a few comments but more importantly was linked to from the Live Scoreboard which would have gotten me a few hits.

Search engine traffic was minimal and was from a variety of terms (over 10 different ones). For most of these terms I am listed several pages into the search results but at least I’m there. That means that if I do some SEO for those terms, I might be able to climb up closer to the first page. Finally the last two sources were from contest blogs that listed my contest. It’s no surprise that these sent some visitors as their own traffic would be highly targeted and blog contests is exactly what they’re after and that’s what I’ve got.

Again I’ve expanded the top content to 10 posts to get a broader look at my statistics. Not surprisingly both my contests featured in the top 3. The reason I am not surprised by this is because 1) My Entrecard linked directly to these posts and 2) my contests have always been the most popular posts on this blog in the past. The rest of the top 10 is mainly individual posts but the traffic for them doesn’t vary a great deal. I didn’t expect to see my ‘about’ page in the list though, so I’ll be sure to update and expand on it when I get the chance. Of my auxiliary pages, I would prefer to see my contact page getting more traffic, as I’d love to hear more from my readers.

So what do these statistics tell me?

• Twitter could be a great source of traffic, I should concentrate on using it more effectively
• Contests get a lot of interest but I need leverage this to highlight other posts somehow
• The search engines know I exist, I just don’t rank very high…. yet!

November was definitely an improvement as far as traffic is concerned but there is still a long way to go until I am getting the sort of traffic I really need. Reaching 2,000 page views is good and my minimum goal in December is 3,000 which is easily achievable but these numbers just aren’t high enough if I expect to become a really successful blogger. I wont let myself get discouraged though and will continue to work hard to increase my traffic every month.

It’s time once again to take a look at my traffic stats from the previous month and try to learn what methods of driving traffic have been effective and what to avoid in the future. During October I made 13 posts on DotComDum.com which isn’t too bad considering I didn’t start posting until the 13th. The start of the month was quiet, due to my lack of posting, which meant traffic started out very low at the beginning of the month. It climbed back up though once I started posting and promoting again and has managed to rise to higher levels than previous months!

Again, I didn’t manage to reach the 2,000 page views I had hoped for. Again I blame the lack of posts during the first half of the month. Once new posts were made, traffic shot back up and there were a few 100+ visit days, so reaching 2,000 visits in a month should be easy to achieve if I stay consistent with my posts, as I plan to during November.

The 1.52 pages per visit is a little disappointing and I have a feeling that the high bounce rate of Entrecard is starting to show it’s effect.

Entrecard was clearly the top source of traffic in October, this is probably because I saw it as the quickest way to boost traffic after my lack of posts. StumbleUpon traffic seems to have dried up, hopefully I get more Stumbles and votes from readers in the next few months.

There weren’t many other great performers for traffic in October. Bloggeries again wasn’t too bad but I realise that I have to start looking for other traffic sources if I want DotComDud.com to really grow.

One other thing worth mentioning about traffic sources is that I also got around 50 visits from blog commenting. None of them show in the top 5 because those 50 visits came from more than 10 different blogs. I made a lot of blog comments as part of the first Reader Challenge and would have hoped they’d send more traffic my way, perhaps I need to increase my commenting efforts to see a really good result.

There were no big surprises when it came to the most popular posts in October. The Reader Challenge doubled the traffic of the next most popular post, which is most likely because it got mentioned on a couple of other blogs. Thanks to everyone who linked back to the post! Otherwise no particular posts got much attention. I have noticed that the main page makes up the majority of the traffic and I see two reasons for this.

1. Entrecard and most other links (such as blog comments) link directly to the main page.
2. Posts are displayed in full on the front page, so people most likely only click on a single post when they need to make or read comments.

I could try and change this by sending links to specific posts and only showing partial posts on the front page. However, I’m not sure if I will do either of these as I don’t see the high percentage of front page traffic being a big issue. I’d love to hear any thoughts on this from my readers though.

So what do these statistics tell me?

• The quality of Entrecard traffic may be decreasing
• I need to find more sources of traffic instead of relying on existing ones
• Getting mentioned in posts on other blogs could be a great way of getting more traffic, so I should make more of an effort to get these links in the future

October was only a small improvement over September. Any improvement is always good but I need to make bigger steps in order to grow this blog and achieve the goals I have set for it. November is looking like a better month so far and I’ll be making a bigger effort to take this blog to the next level than I have previously.

With October almost over, I thought I should take a quick look at my September traffic before another month is over. You can see my last Traffic Analysis for August to see how things changed the following month. September was the first full month for DotComDud.com as the site started half way through August. Unfortunately it was also a very quiet month as there were no posts after the 17th and very little promotion after that point as well (luckily income still improved). Let’s look at the stats to see how things went.

I said that September should reach 2,000 page views easily but unfortunately when the posts stopped coming, so did the traffic which steadily decreased after the 17th. The site still managed nearly 1,400 page views though. I’m sure if posting had been consistent throughout the month, DotComDud.com would have hit 2K. As you can see from the graph, September also started on a high with 177 visits on September 1st.

Entrecard became the #1 source of traffic in September, while StumbleUpon still performed well at #3. Direct traffic more than doubled, which is good to see. The surprise entrant at #5 was traffic from the Bloggeries Forum, where I’ve made less than 20 posts, so that is somewhere I’ll be spending more time from now on. I didn’t get much traffic from blog comments during September because I didn’t make many comments but that will change during October with the Reader Challenge taking place.

I’m also going to look at my Top Content pages in this month’s analysis. I think it is important to know what posts were popular and how well your marketing for specific posts paid off. As you can see, the main page was clearly the most viewed but that is to be expected. What is very pleasing to see is that first blog contest at DotComDud.com was easily the second highest viewed page and the highest viewed post overall. This is pleasing because I concentrated on marketing it above other posts and I was successful. I’ll be posting about how I promoted my first contest soon, including a few tips to help readers promote their own contests!

What is also interesting about the Top Content for September is that the next highest viewed posts are all based around my reporting of DotComDud.com’s performance rather than the posts that include tips & advice. These posts also received the most comments (apart from the contest) so that gives a good indication that my readers probably find those posts the most interesting.

So what do these statistics tell me?

• Entrecard is bringing in more traffic and the quality of traffic is still surprisingly good with the average visit lasting over 3 minutes, meaning visitors are stopping to read my content
• Search engine traffic is still low but I haven’t tried optimising my backlinks for any specific keywords
• Not posting can be very harmful to my blog’s traffic. I need to stay consistent with my posting as well as my promotion to ensure this site continues to grow

So overall my September traffic was just OK, it could have been a lot better and it’s my fault that it wasn’t. Looking ahead to October, the blog is back on track with regular posts but these only started half way through the month, so traffic could still be down from that. With a week left and the Reader Challenge in full swing I think DotComDud.com has a good chance of rebounding from it’s September slump, I guess I will find out soon enough.

So, how did everyone else do during September?

I’ve decided to take a look back at my statistics for August, with it being DotComDud’s first “month”, it is interesting to see where a brand new blog gets it traffic. I’ve been using Google Analytics to track statistics. I think it’s a great tool for any site owner, so be sure to check it out if you aren’t using it already.

The first thing I’ll look at is visitor numbers. This blog started on the 21st of August, so it was only in action for 10 days during the month of August. Based on those numbers, a full month would have come in at around 2,000 page views. That is OK for a first month but luckily in September it looks like I’ll beat 2K page views easily.

Only 1.76 pages per visit is lower than I would like it to be but with only a few posts on DotComDud.com, it was probably to be expected. As I add more posts, hopefully this should increase.

The source of traffic to a website is also very important. As you can see, the two top sources for me were StumbleUpon and Entrecard with direct hits coming in third. Both the Entrecard and Stumble traffic was surprisingly good quality, they both had above average Pages/Visit which means the traffic wasn’t all hit & run. I also got some small amounts of traffic from blog comments on other blogs like John Cow, hopefully these numbers will increase as I improve my commenting.

Lastly, a quick look at the geographical locations of my visitors. The clear #1 source was the US (over 45% of total traffic) with Canada, Australia and the Philippines rounding out the top 4. North American traffic seems to be the most appealing to advertisers, so those are good results.

So what do these statistics tell me?

• Social networking sites like StumbleUpon can be great sources of traffic, so I should look into others to promote DotComDud.com
• Entrecard traffic can be really good. With the average Entrecard visitor spending 3 minutes on DotComDud, it means my content must be a good match for them
• My search engine traffic is very low, if I want to increase this, I’ll have to spend more time concentrating on this

I’d love to hear from the DotComDud readers to get their opinions on these stats. What were you first 10 days like on your own sites? How about your first whole month? Do you think DotComDud will top these in September? Stay tuned to find out!