April Blog Traffic Report

About a month ago, I set a goal for myself and this blog. I’m going to work on increasing my traffic, and nothing else, until I reach 20,000 monthly views on Google Analytics. And last week I decided to bring my work public.

So What Exactly Am I Doing and Why?

Why: I want to grow my blog. But it’s hard to really, tangibly do this without a goal. My blog views and followers have increased almost 300% since my consult with Helene. It made a huge difference and I am incredibly appreciative. However, I’ve sort of hit a plateau when it comes to growth. I haven’t tried doing something new (other than writing awesome things) in a while because I was trying to master what she taught me. And I seem to have done it. But now it’s time to take it all to the next level. So I’ve decided to hold off on trying to monetize my blog beyond what I already do – blog sponsorship, sidebar ads, and collaborating with brands as they reach out to me – and focus simply on my traffic.

What: I am currently aiming for 20,000 monthly views on Google Analytics. Google Analytics tends to have lower statistics than Blogger does – and apparently this is because it doesn’t count certain spambot? Maybe? I don’t know – so while I currently have 14,500ish monthly views according to Blogger, it’s a lot lower according to Analytics. (We’ll talk more about my starting stats in a minute.)

When: Every month until I reach this goal, I will provide a traffic report and notes on what I did that could have influenced whatever the numbers are. Once I reach that goal, I might set another one. I’m not 100% sure yet.

How: This is where it gets tricky. I am really putting myself out of my comfort zone and am requiring myself to try new things. I will be chronicling what works, what doesn’t, and everything in between. I will also share resources – hopefully this all will help other bloggers, too!

Traffic Report

Starting stats (April 1):

Unique pageviews – 3,781
– These are the individual pages visited over the month.
Bounce rate – 83.2%
– This is how many people went to only one page of my blog and then left.
Sessions – 2,810
– This is how many times an individual looked at my blog. One session includes all of the pages
they viewed. So if you view this page and then ten other pages, that’s one session.
Users – 1924
– This is how many individuals looked at my blog.
Blogger – 12,000 monthly views
– According to Blogger, this is how many monthly views I had. You can see that this number is
much larger than unique pageviews from Google Analytics. This is the number I use when
promoting sponsorships and ads.
Bloglovin – 1346
Email subscribers: 0

Social media:
Facebook – 601
Twitter – 1546
Instagram – 401
Google + – 84
Pinterest – 915

Around halfway through the month of April, I made it so my GA statistics do not take into consideration my computer and IP address. Find out how here.

Current stats (May 1)

Unique pageviews – 4350 +15%
Bounce rate – 76.73% -7.78% (This is good! You want your bounce rate to be as low as possible.)
Sessions – 2,986 +6.26%
Users – 2145 +11.45%
Blogger – 14,500 monthly views +20.8%
Bloglovin – 1397 +3.79%
Email subscribers: 9

Social media:
Facebook – 614 +2.16%
Twitter – 1605 +3.8%
Instagram – 456 +13.7%
Google + – 91 +8.33%
Pinterest – 1199 +31%

Traffic Analysis

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Kate Mitchell

Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.