How I Grew My Blogging Profits While My Traffic Numbers Went Down

I’m in the process of doing a LOT of things on the back end of my business. I have SO much planned to unveil come September that to say I’m stressed and overworked would be the understatement of the century. But bringing it all together has not only been challenging, it has left me with far less time to write for you.

Of course, the less I post, the less traffic I get. Couple that with the fact that it’s mid-summer and most of you are on vacation or soaking up the sun in the last few weeks before school starts, and July traffic dropped significantly from June (which was also a bit down from May).

Here’s the curious part.

I made more money in June than I did in May. And July was my highest grossing month ever. Even better, I took on NO coaching or consulting clients in July, meaning that I beat out all previous months’ of revenue based on advertising and affiliate marketing alone, whereas my coaching/consulting revenue in June was HALF of what I made.

So what are the biggest money-making lessons learned in July of 2007?

1. I have truly learned the value of a targeted visitor. Not just from another blog or site in my niche. But I’ve also been experimenting with driving hyper-targeted traffic with AdWords, which made me realize I have been leaving money on the table. I more than doubled my return on investment on Shoestring Smarts alone. (For a how to get started with PPC for your blog, I wrote a summary post over there today.)
2. I have never been more grateful for the power of networking. Going to BlogHer and Ad:Tech were fun, exciting, and educational. But I opened up more doors to advertising opportunities last week than I have in my entire blogging history. If I had to guess, I would say that the 4 days I spent at Navy Pier (between both conferences) will net out in tens of thousands in revenue over the next 12 months. I kid you not.
3. There’s nothing more discouraging than your first year of trying to make money online. I think that’s why so many people give up - really, truly, it takes a long time to get the hang of driving traffic and revenue on the internet. I almost gave up several times. I am so flipping glad I stuck it out. I hope you will, too.
4. The Long Tail is your secret to success. There are a lot of home business sites out there, but relatively few home business blogs. eMoms at Home just became the #1 blog dedicated to Home Business according to Technorati (and Alexa). Is it a great accomplishment? Of course, but honestly, it was a relatively small mountain to conquer. This is the long tail - find your niche, then dominate it.
5. It takes a hell of a lot of people skills to make money on the internet from home. You have to sell. You have to deal with customer service. You have to build relationships. I heard someone recently state they wanted to know how to make money on the internet without having to deal with anyone else. I said it can’t be done.
6. There is no one-size-fits-all formula for internet marketing success. Even one of my mentors who is on track to gross 300K annually has no easy answers - usually when I ask a question, he tells simply tells me, “Well, test it out and see if it works”. I hate that answer, but he’s right!

I am not worried at all about this temporary dip in traffic. Autumn is traditionally a very busy time in business, and I know that between the growth plan I have in place and the time of year, traffic will skyrocket in a few weeks. To be honest, it’s good to have a bit of a slow period to be able to prepare for it all.

But I hope my experience gives you a little insight and patience into the business of blogging. And also a reality check - you don’t need to be an A-lister or in the Alexa top 10,000 to make money online.