I wanted to publish the blog traffic report sooner, but I just didn’t have it during the first week of September.

Ideally, I want to publish recurring posts back to back during the first 4 days of each month. Then I could use the remaining days for creative posts. However, it’s challenging while working a full-time job, at least for me. Hence why I’m committed to publish one new blog post per week for the time being.

I’ve also been taking a more methodical approach to blogging and social media. I tend to place pressure on myself to share content on social media. But lately, I’ve realized that it might be better to share content less frequently. There are certain times during the day that are most active, and an audience may be more compelled to read content when they know you’re not wasting their time.

In addition, I’ve been focussed on health during the past week. I’ve been lifting weights and playing basketball. After reading a post about blogging breaks from one of my best blogging buddies, Money Scrap, I decided to take a mini-break to focus on health too. To be honest, I’m not really sure what happened—something clicked. I just started going to the gym again and it has been helping a lot.

After taking a break from social media/blogging for the past 5 days (except for comments), I am energized and motivated to attack the rest of the month. Plus, there is new financial independence and investing related content in the pipeline. The goal is to keep up the momentum that has been building for the past couple months.

New Record Blog Users

It was a new record month for the RTC blog in August 2018! 1,039 users visited the blog during the month. It’s the first 4 digit month! The previous highs for 1 month were 639 blog users in September 2016, and 666 blog users in February 2017. For the record, a user is a session of activity from a unique IP address. All of this data is obtained through Google Analytics.

Overall, social media contributed to the majority of page views. However, referral and organic search traffic contributed a large chunk of page views as well. I have been surprised by how effective Instagram has been at generating page views. I just recently started using an Instagram account for the blog and it is already generating almost as many blog users as Pinterest. Furthermore, blog traffic generated from Instagram has the lowest bounce rate of all the social media channels. The bounce rate for blog traffic from Instagram is 34.92%, which helped bring down the overall average to 70.43%.

[bctt tweet=”New Record Blog Users & 39% Traffic Increase | August 2018″ username=”reversethecrush”]

7 blog posts were published in August 2018, which is the same as what was published in July.

At the time of writing this post, there are 113 posts published and 153 posts in draft mode.

Here are the 7 new blog posts that were published in August 2018:

1. Finance Projection: $417.20 annually | Forward Dividend Income Projection # 8
2. 637% YOY Percent Change & New Dividend Income Record | DIU # 14
3. Page Views Increased by 76% | July 2018 Blog Traffic
4. Social Media Growth 2018 | August Report
5. Canadian Dividend Investment Strategy: Benefits of the RRSP
6. Elite Scheming to live off Dividends & Blog Full-time
7. Business Dividend Income reached $438.09 per year | FRIP # 9

Blog Traffic in August 2018

All time page views on Reverse The Crush: 70,986

Page views in August 2018: 3,361

1,039 users generated 3,361 pages views in total. Although this is not the highest month of all time, it’s within the range.

There were 904 more page views than July 2018, and the blog has been gaining nearly 1,000 page views per month for two months now.

Overall, every single acquisition channel increased over the previous month. And there was a slight uptick in users near the end of the month that has continued into September.

Although it was a record month for blog users, there are some downsides to gaining more traffic. The number of sessions per user, pages per session, session duration, and the bounce rate were all worse in August. But this is to be expected when search traffic increases. Many first time users will find the blog and leave immediately because it’s not what they’re interested in. And that’s perfectly fine as long as the community continues to grow.

In the case of RTC, there has been an increase in e-mail subscriptions and community engagement over the past month. Because of these positive growth signs, I consider the traffic increase to be valuable growth. Connecting with the FIRE community on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, and through commenting is one of the reasons I’m enjoying blogging more than ever.

Website Marketing Strategies

The most important marketing strategy I have employed is a change in mindset. I have become intentional.

Instead of believing that I have something important to say, I view myself as a contributor to a community. It may not sound like a drastic shift, but it changes everything. It changes the way you think about producing content, and it changes the way you interact with the community. In short, it’s the same as becoming aggressive about a professional career. Every interaction is a chance to build your personal brand and get to know more people in your industry.

As such, I have been commenting on more than 50 blogs per month, which is a win-win for the community. The blogger receives more pages views and engagement per post, and it helps the commenter with brand awareness, referral traffic, and back links.

In addition, I aim to help the community. Even if it’s small, the update to the blogroll was one way to give back. I want new readers to be able to visit this blog and stumble on to all the amazing blogs that have inspired me.

As for the more tactical website marketing strategies, Instagram and Facebook were added to the RTC social networks recently, and they have already started to increase blog users. Though, I must be sure that time spent on new social networks does not take away from Pinterest and Twitter.

Lastly, the majority of the work behind the scenes has been spent on search engine optimization. I have been editing and adding to old content, improving keywords, fixing broken links, updating images, and analyzing data from Google Search console.

Concluding Thoughts

To sum up the blog traffic performance in August 2018, a new record of 1,039 blog users visited. This represents a 77.91% increase over last month, and it was the first month that the blog exceeded 1,000 blog users. Moreover, there were 3,361 page views in August, which represents a 39% month over month increase.

Based on my experience over the past two months, here’s how to increase page views by 1,000 over the next 30 days:

• Publish as much content as you are comfortable with publishing. At least 1 blog post per week.
• Comment on 50 blogs in your niche. Connect with as many people in your community as possible.
• Share content to as many social media channels as possible. Share unique content on each channel. Ideally, 3 to 5 times per day on the most important channels. Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram seem to have the best return for PF bloggers.
• Learn about and implement SEO. Add sitemaps to Google Search console. Edit and add to old content. Connect blog posts throughout the blog by adding links. Use keyword planners to create keywords for blog posts. Consider a paid search campaign if you have a product or service to sell.
• Maintain a networking and branding approach to all interactions.
• Be positive. No one wants to read negativity. Readers want progress, especially in the personal finance community.
• Try to help your community. Start with something simple like creating a blogroll to share websites you enjoy.
• Improve aesthetically. I have been noticing an uptick in e-mail subscribers after a few tweaks to the look of the blog.

Becoming more intentional about blogging has led to the above tactics. I hope you are able to find value from the website marketing tips above. If you’re using any of these blogging strategies, or if you have any more marketing ideas to share, please feel free to leave a comment below. Thanks for reading.