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Traffic and Revenue Stats in 2011

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Finally the year 2011 has passed and it is now the first days of 2012. Many people are still enjoying the holiday and I could see its effect on my blog, the traffic to my blog in the last few days has dropped significantly. However, it is not a big problem because I know the visitors will come back soon. To celebrate the new year and new milestones my blog gained in the last month of 2011, I will share the report on traffic and revenue stats in the first post of the year.

If you followed my old blog, I mentioned my 5 goals set for last year, they are:

  1. Write more high-quality articles
  2. Get 3000+ unique visits per day
  3. Reach top 50,000 in Alexa Ranking
  4. Interact more with readers and other bloggers
  5. Increase the income to around $1,000 per month

The goals have become more difficult to reach after I sold my old blog to concentrate on TechWalls, which was created in February 2011. The fact is that I couldn’t accomplish all those goals and probably I will need a few more months to complete them. Although there is still a long way to go, I am still proud with what I’ve done in the last year as TechWalls has been more well-known and it also reached some important milestones. Here are the results for the 5 goals above:

1. Publishing 1 Article each day

The post frequency of my blog was just about 2-3 posts each week till September 2011. I would have never increased the frequency if my blog hadn’t been affected seriously by the Google’s freshness algorithm update. The traffic to TechWalls dropped by 70%, then I had to find some solutions for the issue. The first thing is writing more articles and my blog now is updated daily with new articles. I couldn’t accomplish the task without helps from the writer team including some great bloggers like Emmanuel Banks or Ali Waqas. I am keeping the rate at 1 post/day and trying to increase it to 2 posts/day in 2012.

2. Get 1,500 unique visits per day

The unique visits are just as half as the goal I set earlier. Actually I reached the goal in September but I couldn’t keep it because of the Google Panda update. The traffic to this blog has been recovered now but it is still far from the 3,000 visit milestone. Maybe I will need at least more 6 months to reach it.

3. Listed on Top 50,000 Sites by Alexa

alexa-ranking

Finally TechWalls has joined the top 50,000 Alexa club on the last day of 2011. I never consider Alexa rank as an accuracy metric to determine the popularity and traffic of a website but undoubtedly it is still very important. I’ve got a lot of chances since the rank keeps increasing and this is the highest ranking I’ve ever had on all my blogs. Even my old blog, which is over 3 years old, could just reach the top 70,000 in Alexa ranking.

4. Trying to interact more with bloggers

This is another goal I failed last year. I couldn’t find enough time to visit and comment on other blogs. All I can do is spending just about 30-60 mins at weekends to interact with bloggers. I will try to leave more and longer comments on relevant blogs in the upcoming time. This seems simple but I find this is quite a time-consuming and daunting task, especially recent blog posts don’t have strong and unique points.

5. Reach the new milestone of $1,000 in revenue

December is the 2nd time in 2011 that TechWalls reached the milestone of $1,000 in revenue. In fact, it is even higher than I expected. The gross income reached $1,547 and here is the breakdown of my revenue sources:

Google Adsense: $514

Teliad: $147

SocialSpark: $271

Private Sponsored Posts: $528

Affiliates: $30

Amazon Associates: $57

How about the traffic and revenue of your blog in the last year? Did it get what you expected? Share your thoughts in the comment section below.

Disclosure: We might earn commission from qualifying purchases. The commission help keep the rest of my content free, so thank you!

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Chitra@SocialVani says

    Wow Tuan! Its really good. I appreciate that you have stated the facts and not tweaked it to make it more appealing and thereby, misleading the readers. I hope 2012 will be good for you in terms of doubling the revenues :)

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks Chitra,
      I aim to reach the milestone of $2000 this year as I know this will be a hard year for tech blogs. I can’t understand why some bloggers show fake stats to their readers as well. Honest is the must-have virtue for all bloggers. :D

  2. Dave Lucas says

    Looks like you’re on the right path! Congrats so far – and good luck for 2012!

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks a lot, Dave.
      I hope to see your blog with a 1st level domain soon. :)

  3. Profoundtigger says

    great job Tuan! i always wonder how much your blogs makes. Unfortunatly i’m still in the google sandbox… Hopefully i get to make the same amount you’re making when im out of it!

    • Tuan Do says

      I wonder why your blog is put in Google sandbox. I’ve just checked it out and it has really good content and design. Best of luck to you, mate.

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks Michael,
      One of my goals this year is receiving more high-end products for reviews. I really love what you are doing on CravingTech now. :)

      • Michael Aulia @CravingTech.com says

        That’s a great goal :)
        I just wish that every brand maintains their policies, sometimes they change their “sponsoring samples” into “loan only” policies when their marketing manager or PR changed

  5. Daniel says

    Congrats Tuan! Your blog grows so fast! Not sure how you get private Sponsored Posts. Any recommendation buddy? BTW happy new year!

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks and happy new year to your family too, Daniel.
      I often contact owners or companies that are launching new products and make review offers for them. Besides, I also have good relationship with some marketing agencies, so I guess that could expose my blog to more advertisers. They always request to see my traffic stats before writing reviews, so growing traffic is the first thing we should do.
      Hope that helps. :)

  6. 土木坛子 says

    I am a bit doubt how you can make more than 500 usd from adsense at a traffic of 1500 unique visitors each day. This seems not possible for a normal blog.

    • Tuan Do says

      Nothing is impossible, mate. I’ve seen many blogs with less than 100 visits/day could earn more than $300 from Adsense only. The earnings not only depend on the unique visits but also pageviews, CTR and CPC.

  7. Dilawer says

    Hey! Congrats on your achievements. I really like how you set goals for your blog, and I think I will follow in your footsteps to get the same from my blog as well.

    Nice Share, Thanks

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks, mate.
      You have a great tech blog there and I believe you will achieve all your goals very soon this year. Best wishes for your site. :)

  8. Ajay says

    Congrats to you Tuan for such great stats.
    Wishing you loads of success in 2012.

  9. Mrohila says

    Hey! Congrats on your achievements. I really like how you set goals for your blog,

  10. PrIyAnGsHu @ GeekyTricks.Com says

    Great stats dude ! You are really earning a handsome income each month even though you are a part time blogger. I hope this will continue through the whole 2012, and you will be able to achieve your milestones. Keep going bro :D !

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks a lot, dude.
      I hope I would be able to achieve all my goals by this time next year. Btw, you have a great tech blog there. I see this is a really high competitive niche.
      Wish you and your blog the best in 2012 as well. :)

      • PrIyAnGsHu @ MoneyEarningSecrets.Com says

        By the way Tuan, How do you make money with Teliad ? Does your earnings come from paid posts or paid links ?

      • Tuan Do says

        Yes, I earn from paid posts, paid links and referring advertisers as well. This is really a good revenue source for my blog at the moment.

  11. Drewry says

    keep up the good work in your blogging efforts in 2012, Tuan. Feel free to become a member of DrewryNewsNetwork anytime :-)

  12. Ileane says

    HI Tuan, this is wonderful news! Congratulations on reaching some of your goals and I’m sure that others are not far behind.

    When did you sell your other blog and did the new owner keep it active?

    Keep up the great work my friend!

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks Ileane,
      I’m moving to the US for a few years and I think I could learn a lot to improve my blog and language then.

      I sold Tek3D 6 months ago because it didn’t paid off my efforts. The .org domain is more difficult to brand, promote and SEO as well. I started TechWalls in Feb last year and it soon overcame that 3 year old blog. Then I sold tek3d for a good amount and invest in techwalls. The new owner still keeps it updated but I think he is ruining it by selling irrelevant links.

      • manny says

        >The .org domain is more difficult to brand, promote and SEO as well.

        Hi Tuan, i think you mean the .org domain is more difficult to brand, promote and SEO for something like a “tech blog”?

        I also feel the name was a bit unassociated. I would not associate Tek3D . org with a tech blog, but with an organization referring to 3d tech or graphics, unlike the site you have now: techwalls. So i agree with you that branding was harder.

        So in conclusion is not that .org domains are more difficult. Is just that you will rank better depending on what niche and target audience you have. If you have a charity or foundation you will certainly want to use a .org .

        And the best example is Wikipedia being a .org has not impacted its rankings, branding or promotional efforts. Also is brand is so popular that is not dependent just on google and people would still reach it in mass using any other method or search engine.

  13. jesna@aakash tablet says

    Great tips here Tuan. I am pretty impressed, Congrats for this achievement. Bloggers like me also dream the same!!

  14. Tram Tran says

    This is so awesome Tuan. I’m sure You ll smash the new goals very soon. This is really encouraging for newbie bloggers like me to look up to someone like you. I hope yo have a happy start Of the year. 2012 will be big for techwalls

    • Tuan Do says

      Thanks a lot for your awesome wishes.
      I’ve never thought you are a newbie blogger as your site has really great content. I’m sure you’ll have a successful year as well. :)

  15. Trung Nguyen says

    Hey, Tuan, Congrats to you.

    Your report really made me impressive, what you did in 2011 was great and so, what you got is worthy. I’m trying to do the same like you and hoping I can get my goals like you did. Thanks for sharing to us. Happy new year, buddy.

  16. Mansi Bharat says

    This is a great news Tuan.You are reaching your goals.
    Great Tips for new bloggers like me.
    I am also dreaming to same

    – Mansi

  17. JamesW says

    great post, and keep doing good job, I know that you will earn even more for sure.

  19. Payday Cash Advance says

    Thanks Tuan for displaying the goals you have set and accomplished them all. It’s really good for novice bloggers like me.

  20. PrIyAnGsHu @ Tech Blog says

    And what about Socialspark ? How much do they pay for each sponsored post ? I have just been approved by them & I want to know whether they will assign a particular price for each post or I will be able to place my own price for each ?

    • Tuan Do says

      Hi,
      It depends on each advertiser because we will work with them on SocialSpark. If you think the price they offer is too low, you can negotiate for a higher price. Some offers can be as low as $20 but some can go up to $300.

      • PrIyAnGsHu @ Tech Blog says

        Thanks for the quick reply, but can you please reveal do you get paid for each post written on this blog on behalf of them ?

      • Tuan Do says

        No, not all posts on my blog are paid ones. I accept just about 2 sponsored posts each month and I disclose clearly that I get paid for writing.

      • PrIyAnGsHu @ Tech Blog says

        I was meant to say that how much do you generally get paid for each post ?

      • Tuan Do says

        Oh sorry for the misunderstanding. I often accept writing sponsored posts for at least $100 at the moment. That’s my way to limit the number of paid posts on TechWalls. :)

  21. PrIyAnGsHu @ Tech Blog says

    What’s your current traffic figures ? Just feeling curious to know about it :D !

    • Tuan Do says

      My traffic is much better after the recent Panda update. Absolutely I will share the trend if this is consistent traffic. :)

  22. Praveen says

    Wow! Your income stats are so impressive and you are my guru and inspiration to increase my revenue every month. Right now i am making approx. $200 and hope some day i will reach you.

    • Tuan Do says

      I’m glad that this post is helpful for you, Praveen.
      I am providing blogging tips, internet marketing and make money online tips at http://www.bloghelpdesk.com/
      All of my experiences on reaching $1,000 and then $2,000 per month are being share on the site. Hopefully it will be helpful for you. :)