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The woes of advertising, part three

by Mar Matthias Darin

For those that missed part two, you can catch up here.

Prior to October of 2009 this was was receiving roughly nine thousand plus visits a month. During the month of October (I actally started when I got rid of EntreCard on September 28th), I did some serious house cleaning and got rid of all the junk traffic. I ended up dumping two thirds of my traffic. Now I draw about three thousand visits a month. That's a major hit, but the statistics prove it was worth it, although it hurt like hell. The quality of my traffic has increase dramatically.

Here are some of my statistics for my direct traffic (I chose these dates because they show the most common averages of each set):

Second, my referring traffic statistics:

Finally, my search engine traffic statistics:

Yes, I know... my statistics are pathetic. But at least I am seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. My direct traffic really has improved, though, my referring and search engine traffic need some dire help. Alexa does show some slight improvement in these areas that Google analytics doesn't yet. As you can see, I have a lot of work ahead. At least it'll be easier without the junk traffic dragging my blog through the mud.

So, what have I leaned through all this: not all traffic is created equal or good.

Top tags: traffic, visits, statistics, avg, bounce, change, december, january, june, month

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

Thank you to every on has commented. My apologies for not moderating and responding sooner...

I'm Back in the saddle and ready to rumble!

Comments from Mom's Cafe Home Cooking ^{67.201.162.226}

I left EC in the spring of 2009 and have not looked back. Yes my traffic decreased but the quality increased. Within 3 months I was getting close to the same traffic but with a lower bounce rate. So give it a bit of time for the traffic to come back up. I see you are on both CMF Ads and Adgitize, both excellent programs where members will actually stop to comment so again your traffic is better quality. I'm visiting through CMF today but see you on Adgitize as well.

A few things that will help get your traffic back up there is a bit of SEO and commenting on other blogs. I have found commenting on other blogs to be extremely effective! I try to do as many comments as possible when visiting blogs on CMF and Adgitize. It helps me get to know other bloggers and them to know me.

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

I'm still on the fence with CMD ads and CMF spikes. I know alot of that ia my limited budget though. I've done good on the SEO, but finding time to do a lot of commenting is hard.

Comments from Susan ^74.199.0.253

So true about EC but, I think that I am addicted.

I see that you use Project Wonderful as well. Do you think it works well. L

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

I do like Project Wonderful biggest issue with PW is you have to do a lot of research. PW is great for that because it provide a large selection of tools to use. I will be doing a commplete article of PW that you may be interested in.

Comments from Mountain Woman ^{67.54.203.209}

Interesting post. I left EC in the Spring as well and just returned a couple of weeks ago. I'm not card dropping but it's just another tool for me and for my readers who are card droppers. I'm enjoying the new CMF spikes which is how I found this article. As to comments, I think I'd stop blogging if I didn't get comments. They keep me going and help me know my readers. Anyway, great information. Thanks.

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

I truly feel sorry for you. I have come to to firm opinion that EC traffic is as bad as a manual click exchange. The onle thing a standard manual click exchange has is a set time each visitors has to remain to get credit.

Comments from Tina Tobin ^24.5.250.237

Hi again.

My theme is fixed and I have the code back on my sidebar.

It seems to be working correctly, but I wanted to make sure that I have the right code, my widget looks different than the one on some of the other sites so I thought I'd better double check.

Thanks for being so understanding.

Tina

Comments from Mar Matthias Darin

You're using the XCLCK version, before you were rulling the CLICK version. There is no difference in the way the widget works, only the appearance. Many people like the XCLCK over the CLICK because the CLICK version is considered a pop-up (even though it isn't).

Either way works, its strictly based upon what you feel is best for your blog.

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