A new month, a new year, a new decade, a new chapter. Welcome to 2010!
As you know I left my day job at the end of November so I’ve been able to spend a lot more time on Beginner Blogger. As a result my stats his month have been fantastic! Best month by far and even beat the pants off my great month of October.
The great thing is I still feel like I can work even harder so therefore my goals for January are much more challenging than previous month. I’m up for the challenge, are you?
Let the numbers begin!
Remember green is good (means I did greater than last month) red is bad 
Twitter stats for December
Tweets – 639 +359 more than last month (total 1765)
Followers – 495 +407 more than last month (total 2180)
Mentions – 460 +270 more than last month (total 1071)
I used twitter a lot more this month spending a great deal of time interacting with my followers and continuing to pump out the tips, questions and links I feel will be of value to you guys. The trick now is to manage the time I’m spending using social media so it’s effective, valuable and also isn’t considered wasting time.
Below is the daily clicks graph from hootsuite showing how many clicks I got from links I published on twitter. Note that it drops off at the bottom. That’s because I’ve gone back to using bit.ly links as people were complaining that they didn’t like the ow.ly bar that HootSuite uses.
I do not care about the actual number of followers that displays on my twitter. I would be happy if the number didn’t even show up. What’s important to me is the engagement and value I can bring to others through twitter. If that means going out of my way to find people I can help and follow them so they follow me back then that’s what I’ll do. Helping bloggers blog and developing strong relationships is what I’m about. Think of the number of twitter followers like the sand grains when sifting for gold. The gold is what I’m after. Or the nugget
Twitter Statistical Goals for January:
- 2500+ followers (in total)
- 150+ valuable twitter tips and links to resources that will help you
- 500+ Mentions (@ replies)
Facebook stats for December
Fans – 45 +31 facebook fans made than last month (total 74)
I had a goal of getting a total of 50 facebook fans this month. I reached the goal about half way through the month so that was really great. I did a bit of promotion on twitter and put up the facebook fan page box on the sidebar of the blog. It goes to show that a little bit of promotion really works, the trick is to promote at the right times and make sure you’re still giving away free valuable content so readers won’t get annoyed with self-promotion. Remember: Give more than you receive
Below is a graph of people becoming a fan over time. That big spike I believe was when I suggested to my facebook friends on my standard facebook account to join my fan page – a very handy tool that facebook has.
Facebook Statistical Goals for January:
- 100+ FB fans in total
Blog stats for December
Posts – 10 +8 more blog posts made than last month (total 36)
Comments – 154 +134 more comments made than last month (total 252 – excluding myself, pingbacks and spam)
The amount of comments I received this month was incredible! This is probably the stand-out stat for the month for me. Just imagine if I had published more blog posts. 
Blog Statistical Goals for January:
- 20+ Posts
- 200+ Comments
RSS stats for December
Subscribers – 17 +7 more subscribers subscribed than last month total 45
I reached my goal of 40 RSS subscribers which was great. A little promotion on twitter that was it. I learnt the other day that if someone just visits the feed and doesn’t actually subscribe it will count as a stat but doesn’t count as an on-going subscriber stat if they don’t subscribe. So what I’m thinking happened is that I put a link to the Beginner Blogger RSS feed on twitter which got a big spike in traffic to my feed, but not everyone subscribed they just visited the link. Hence the spike up and back down.
RSS Statistical Goals for January:
- 75+ RSS Subscribers (total)
Google Analytics stats for December
Visitors – 1560 +922
Unique Visitors – 853 +487
Visitors not from Brisbane (my home town) – 1334 +800 (Because my IP address changes and I check my site constantly on different computers I wanted a way to check my stats that didn’t include my visits)
Visitors not from Brisbane and time spent on site higher than 0 seconds – 586 +400 (I wanted to see how many visitors came to my site that spent greater than 0 seconds on my site – i.e. the page fully loaded and they spent some time on the site. I’m not sure if this is entirely accurate)
Massive increase of pageviews and average time spent on site.
Google Analytics Statistical Goals for January:
• 2000+ Visits
Email Subscriber stats for December
Subscribers – 12 +7 more email subscribers added than last month (total 26)
I ran a Christmas Competition and giveaway on Christmas Day that ran for a few days. The prizes weren’t huge but the reception was great. Congratulations to Ileane on winning!
If you don’t want to miss out on the next competition make sure you’ve signed up to the newsletter. You’ll be added into the draw
Sign up to Beginner Blogger Newsletter
Email Statistical Goals for January:
- 40+ subscribers (total)
Review of December Goals
*120+ Twitter tips SUCCESS
*300 blog comments (yes, Three Hundred blog comments) SUCCESS – I completed this relatively earlier than I expected. It was good fun and made a lot of new connections. I seem to stand up and get really into setting myself challenges like this
*15 blog posts or 1 blog post every 2 days Mixed Bag – While I didn’t get 15 blog posts out on the site published, I have written 15 blog posts to 90% completion.
*2xVideo blog – one featuring me and one tutorial/screen post (or a mixture) SUCCESS – I talked about What the Tweetmeme button does and did a video review for Beyond Blogging. I plan to do more videos so make sure you’ve subscribed in one way or another.
*2-4 emails to subscribers SUCCESS – I sent out an email about the Beyond Blogging Book (aff link) and a Christmas special email both of which are exclusive to the newsletter so make sure you sign up if you want to receive some extra content.
*3 guest blogs FAIL – I wrote one which isn’t live yet. I will strive to write a lot in the near future, especially when I get the redesign of the site up. Oops did I say that too soon
*50 FB fans SUCCESS – I promoted this a bit on twitter and started adding a lot more people on my facebook page and referring them to the Beginner Blogger fan page
*40 RSS subscribers SUCCESS
*20 email subscribers SUCCESS – The Christmas Competition and Giveaway paid dividends for this goal!
Goals For January
* Complete redesign (At least 80% completion – February is the deadline)
* Email redesign (to go with redesign)
* 50+ blog posts written (not necessarily published, they could also be guest posts)
* Spend 30+ hours interacting/commenting with other bloggers and blogs
* 2-4 Emails
* Distribute videos across the net to other video sites
* 180+ Twitter Tips and quality links
Statistical Goals For January (out of my direct control)
* 2500+ Twitter followers (in total)
* 500+ Twitter Mentions (@ replies)
* 100+ FB fans in total
* 200+ Comments
* 2000+ Visits
* 75+ RSS Subscribers (total)
* 40+ Email subscribers (total)
The 50+ blog posts is my personal challenge this month. Last month it was to comment on 300 blog posts which I did successfully.
The redesign is something I have been wanting to do for quite some time but I subscribe to the idea that you shouldn’t mess around with the template too much and focus on the more important tasks like relationship building and creating content. This current design has been around for a while and I’ve never been quite happy with it to be honest so now is time to change it up. I’m excited about the redesign and the direction this blog is heading!
So that’s December stats and January goals for this month! Any questions please let me know in the comments below.
(Fireworks image from Free Design 4 Me)
If you enjoyed this blog post you may also enjoy:
Beginner Blogger Stats and Goals – Nov-Dec 09
Beginner Blogger Stats and Goals – Oct-Nov 09
Beginner Blogger Stats and Goals – Sept-Oct 09
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Happy New Year! It’s great that you now have so much time to devote to your site, looks like all the effort you are putting in is really going to pay off. Look forward to reading more of your blog in 2010
Congrats on your stats and good luck with 2010
@Ruth – Thanks Ruth for your continued support. Really excited for this year. I plan on starting a few more blogs to gain more experience. One will be for the blog flip challenge too which I’ve been quite slack with! Will be working very hard this year but it’ll be great. Happy New Year!
@David – Cheers David. All the best with your blog in 2010 also!
Well done. I don’t think I will be as brave as you by publishing every stat. But it certainly looks like you are climbing and growing in the right direction.
BUilding a successful blog certainly takes a long time
Here is to you for 2010
@Robert – Thanks Robert. Yeah it’s good seeing it all trend in the right direction. Most stats are available for others to see if they want to go out and research it. It’s pretty hard to hide stats on the web these days but I may start not showing absolutely EVERY stat in the future. I’ve just sort of got into the habit of doing these posts every month since I started.
The goals is the most important part to me and I think sharing them with everyone that visits this site is beneficial for the readers as well as myself so I stay on target and people will be expecting what I’ve published.
W0ot! Delicious success! I am so happy to read this victorious post from you. Let me know if you need any help from me in accomplishing your new goals. I can definitely help you out with redesign. I am redesigning Meditation Rocks! these days. Would like to hear your review.
Happy New Year.
Hi Sarge,
Very happy to see your blog results in the year 2009… You have clearly explained the improvement of your blog in each field… And the target you mentioned for 2010 seems to be interesting… Definitely you will acheive this soon…
Happy New Year Friend
It is very good to see everything is trending up positively. I like your goals, and the way that you have stated very clear and detailed goals. I think details are very important when setting goals. It is easy to just say “I will write more blog posts”, but when you can actually set a number of blog posts, or types of blog posts, it holds you more accountable – which I think is important.
I look forward to seeing the upcoming redesign. Keep up the good work!
Happy New Year!
Congrats on a great month, Sarge!
Very impressive on making 300 comments and your Twitter followers. I agree with you trying to write more blog posts here and I am really looking forward to your redesign. Newly designed sites/ blogs always entice me.
Best of luck to next month and the whole year of 2010. Let me know if you need anything.
Best Regards,
Derek
Great month, great stats.
Do you know if GA recognise hootsuite ow.l urls?
I have heard it doesn’t always
Re-Tweeting now
Amazing stats Sarge. You’re doing a fantastic job. I look forward to reading your progress reports, but I wasn’t expecting this. Keep growing my friend.
@Ileane
@King – I will be editing the site with Thesis theme. Found a few resources but I’m sure I’ll have some questions
Just in mock up stage at the moment. Would love to have some more subscribers to the site, I’m thinking a redesign will change that!
@Deepika – Thanks, I’m really excited about this year. Glad I could provide you with some interesting statistics – let me know if there is anything else you’d like covered.
@Tee Riddle – Yeah i think setting numbers to goals like 50+ blog posts is important. Clear actionable measurable goals is much better than saying ‘lose some weight’ or ‘write more posts’.
@Derek – Cheers man. Thanks heaps for being a continuing supporter of me and this blog. And likewise, if I can help you out just ask. Awesome contest you’ve got going on at the moment. http://www.lifenotion.com/2010/01/share-your-lifestyle-tip-win-a-flip-video/
@James – Yeah I don’t think that GA recognises the ow.ly links. Only if the user closes it does it register. Otherwise you’re just on hootsuite/ow.ly pages. I’ve changed back to bit.ly links now but still use hootsuite to manage most of my twittering.
@Ileane – Glad you’re enjoying the progress reports. I wasn’t sure if these reports were really read. They’re mostly to me focused for the next month ahead and see where I’m at. I haven’t seen many other blogs post their stats and people say that you should keep stats to yourself but I’m ok with letting everyone know everything. You can view most stats of other peoples sites anyway. Hope you keep growing too Ileane – you’re a pleasure around the blogosphere!
To a big 2010!!
Great job! I am thoroughly impressed! Are your parents supportive in this venture? I think they should be very proud of what you’re accomplishing in such a short period of time.
@Angela – Yeah they are. Took a bit of convincing I think
They’re nice enough to let me live here while I try and take on this venture. Miss the independence but that will drive me more to make this all happen and hopefully will be able to support myself 100% sooner than later. Living with the folks gives me a year to make this happen than say 4-6 months if I were still out of home.
They were checking out the site today actually, funnily enough.
I like to see that you have your goals set out and you’re showing proof of what you’re talking about doing. This works. This way people see and have an idea of what they could implement for their own personal goals and set and work to achieve. Your mind is your most powerful tool and it looks like you’re using it well.
@Eric – Thanks Eric. That’s exactly right. I haven’t seen anyone else provide as detailed stats as I have. Some people think that I’m showing too many stats but the reality is most of it is visible to anyone if they have the right tools (like the SEOBOOK toolbar) I’m just ‘making my own game’ as Chris Brogan would put it.
You’re getting a nice amount of traffic through twitter and various sources but what about consistent traffic from search engines? That should definitely be in your goals somewhere, pick a keyword and start targetting traffic from there.
Fantastic stats Sarge.
Good luck with BeginnerBlogger. You’re doing an awesome job with it
and the stats show it. It seems like were both getting similar stats which is cool
except you’re killing me in some areas
2010 will be an awesome year.
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Pretty fun to look at these stats Sarge, I wonder how they stack up to your blog now, compared to thse numbers that you posted back in the past.
-Jean