Daniel Felice

I’m Back!

// December 10th, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

After a few weeks soaking up the sun in Australia I have returned to Dublin and am starting to get back into reality! Once I get over this jet-lag, things will start to return to normal and I can once again start to spend time on both danielfelice.com and explorewithme.com.

Considering I have not blogged that much things aren’t too bad. I seem to have enough content on this blog to keep the traffic coming in. Traffic has suffered a little bit, however the PageRank has remained the same and I am getting some good traffic coming from the search engines – especially users who are searching for information regarding WordPress MU and BuddyPress.

I am thinking of changing the focus of this blog. It started out as a money making blog experiment, however looking at the popular posts and search engine traffic, it seems that my audience are more interested in blogging, WordPress MU and BuddyPress.

There are so many websites that are dedicated to making money online, and not so many focused on WordPress MU. BuddyPress is a new plugin and yet to be launched so it could also be worthwhile looking into this niche.

Whatever the case, I am back on board and will start blogging regularly once again. I might just start blogging and see where it takes me!

Daniel Felice Goes AWOL

// December 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

It has been a long time since I wrote a real post! Just so you all know – I have not given up on this project! I have been on holidays in Australia (home) for the past two weeks so I have not really had the time to work on any of my sites! It is actually nice to get away from the PC for a while.

Just looking over the stats for November and it was a bad bad month. I have not put the required effort into this blog over the past two months so traffic has taken a bit of a hit.

I only wrote a handful of posts in November, however I made good revenue this month – the most of any month to date.

I’ll tell you how much I made in November in a few days….stay tuned for it and the rest of the November report!

Project Blogger Update

// November 11th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

It has been a while since I updated you all on “Project Blogger”. Apart from my monthly earnings report I have not really communicated much about this project – turning a brand new blog into a money making blog within 12 months.

Traffic seems to be up and down, although it is slowing growing. It is not ideal as yet, however having started the blog in May I am please with the results thus far.

Traffic seems to be less dependant on daily blogs lately. I used to noticed the different in the statistics if I didn’t post for a few days, however now that there is a lot of content on the blog I don’t think it matters if I don’t blog everyday.

Despite my monthly stats looking more like a heart rate monitor, I seem to be bringing in new traffic from a variety of different sources each day. Since I have started blogging about WordPress MU traffic has soared. I put this down to the lack of WPMU resources websites.

While there is plenty of standard WordPress websites around, there seems to be only a few resources dedicated to the multi-user platform. I know I have struggled myself and sometimes have not been able to find the help I need with WPMU. Maybe this is another project I should take on…

Revenue has been difficult to generate. I am getting a monthly fee of £5 from Freebies4Webmasters but other than that it seems very hard to make money from affiliate links. I think the best way to generate steady income is to sell private sponsorship.

I have not really approached anyone to sponsor the blog as yet. I think I’ll start to have a look around and if there is anyone willing to sponsor the site then it will be a good way to have steady revenue coming in. The “advertise” page has been up for a few months however there have yet to be any takers. I think I will need to be a bit more proactive about it instead of waiting for someone to come to me.

Overall it has been a tough and sometimes frustrating journey, however it has also been fun. I enjoy blogging and I have learnt a lot about it over the past few months. My new project “Explore With Me” is already seeing great results and the site is not even officially live as yet and I think a lot of what I learnt working on this blog has made it a lot easier working with WPMU.

Tough October for danielfelice.com

// November 3rd, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Project Blogger

After such a great September it was always going to be a challenge to continue growing at that same rate in October. From the first day of the month things began to take a turn for the worse and that trend continued until the last week of October.

Most of my attention over the month was taken away from this blog as I put all my efforts into getting Explore With Me up and running. I would have liked to have blogged more during the month but there simply wasn’t the time.

It wasn’t all bad though. I did manage to blog the 100th post in October and my Google PageRank went from zero to two. It has already dropped to 1 though!

Traffic

Traffic was down all month and we ended October about 50% down on September. It wasn’t the worst month we have had so far – however it was nothing to brag about.

I blogged on average every second day so I am not convinced this is the only contributing factor to the poor traffic. However having said that I am at a complete loss at the why the blog struggled so much last month.

The best performing posts during the month were “Creating a Social Community with WordPres“, “Must Have WordPress Plugins” and “Why Most MMO Blogs Don’t Succeed“.

StumpleUpon and Digg seems to be one of the best traffic sources at the moment. I am still submitting most of my posts to the social communities and it is proving to be a success.  Nearly half of the hits from the month came from StumpleUpon.

Revenue

Not much to report here for October. I have said it before – the more hits you get the more revenue you earn and as hits were down so was revenue.

I am in the process of finalising a private ad deal which would go live this month some time so that will dramatically boost my revenue for November. At the moment it looks as though it is a one time deal however there may be other deals if this first one is successful.

November will be another tough month I think. I am going to be away for 3 weeks of it, so finding the time to blog may be an issue this month.

DanielFelice.com Reaches First Milestone!

// October 13th, 2008 // 3 Comments » // Project Blogger

After nearly 6 months since I started this blog I have finally reached a fairly important milestone – well actually two milestones in the same week!

Not only is this the 100th post to be published on danielfelice.com, but as of today danielfelice.com has a Google PageRank of 2!

It has been a long and hard 6 months and I have to be honest and tell you that I have thought about giving up and just forget about this whole thing. Over the weekend I was contemplating taking the blog down, however whenever I seem to have these thoughts something like this happens and it keeps me inspired.

I normally check my Google PageRank every month or so and up until now it has always been zero. I was surprised to see it at 2 today so I have to check a few different websites who offer the service just to make sure I wasn’t being fooled.

So after checking the PageRank I decided to head over to Alexa and check my traffic ranking. For the first time the site has ranked below 1,000,000 at 827,46. The site is ranked even better in Australia (26,020), Philippines (97,758) and even the Untied States (609,886).

I think for a webmaster and blogger seeing these types of figures helps boost the confidence and keeps me from giving up. Some days I wonder if this is worth maintaining and putting effort into, however as the old saying goes “you have to be in it to win it”.

Looking back at the past 100 posts I have dramatically improve my style of writing. When I look back at some of the early posts I cringe and wonder what the hell I was thinking. Although this is an online journey I think it has taught me a few things about myself – perseverance being number one.

Thanks for all the support over the past 6 months or so, and thanks for helping me get to 100 posts and a PageRank of 2!

Up, Up and Away

// October 1st, 2008 // 2 Comments » // Project Blogger

It is that time of the month again! Another month has just ended and after a poor August, September bounced back with a bang! September was the best month danielfelice.com has ever had in its short 5 month history.

Traffic

September was a massive 252% increase on August and 62% better than my best month so far, July. After a bad August I hoped this month would improve, however I didn’t expect it to be this good.

Having the contest really helped me this month I think, and also the first two parts of “How to Start a Blog” have shown some keen interest being the most viewed pages of the month.

I seem to be receiving traffic from a number of sources this month which is good to see. I have been making more of an effort to join forums, post comments on other blogs and submit my posts to social communities such as StumbleUpon and Digg. The top three traffic referrers for the month were DNTrade, StumbleUpon and TylerCruz.com.

Search engine traffic was big factor in Septembers success. A good 25% of all traffic was from search engines this month with terms such as “freebies4webmasters”, “daniel felice”, “promote blog for free” and “create a blog” being the best performing search terms.

Revenue

Revenue this month was also up on last month and also beat July’s record! I made a total of US$22.35 this month which is about $5 more than July. It has to be said though without the £10 from freebies4webmasters I would have only made about $5 this month – so thanks to them!

For those of you who don’t know freebies4webmasters give you £5 per month for just showing 3 banners anywhere on your site and an additional £5 when you sign up.

My affiliate ads still aren’t performing as well as I would like – actually I am yet to make a single cent from them. I will have to look at this again and see what I am doing wrong here.

So it was a great month and hopefully things will keep on flying away in October! Thanks for all your support over the past few months.

What a Week!

// September 24th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

This week has been absolutely fantastic for the blog in terms of growth. This has been building up for a while, but this week has blown away any expectations that I had for the week. I did not expect to reach this level for another few months.

Traffic in the first half of this week has already exceeded all of last week – not only that – it has exceeded all of August! August wasn’t a good month to begin with, but it wasn’t that bad, so to achieve that in 4 days is amazing!

I have not really been doing anything different this week, in fact I have probably blogged less this week than previous weeks.

I started to submit all my posts to StumbleUpon and Digg a few weeks ago, and looking at the traffic sources I am getting a good number of traffic from those sites. Search engines are also proving to bring in some good results with referrals from searches such as “create a blog”, “how to create a blog” and even “make money online”.

It is good to see that the site is gathering a bit of a following. Next step is to generate some revenue!

Thanks for all of your support!

Earn Credit for your Website!

Project Blogger Update

// September 15th, 2008 // No Comments » // Project Blogger

For those who have followed this blog from the beginning you’ll know that is was originally build as an experiment. The original intention was to see how easy it was to make money online and if I could actually live off it.

I gave myself 12 months to turn this blog into a blog that generated a steady revenue. After 4 months things are starting to look good.

The last 3 months have made an income, albeit very small and this month looks as though it will be the best month yet. Apart from August the blog has grown each month. Hits are at an all time high in September and revenue has already exceeded my best month.

Although traffic is constantly on the rise, revenue has been up and down. The best month to date was July, although September looks to be fairly good so far. I have made some money with my affiliate advertising, however Google AdSense seems to be the best performer so far.

I am trying to blog every day, and it is very noticeable if I miss a day or two. Traffic seems to dip a fair bit if I don’t post, so I am trying to build enough content at the moment so that users can have a browse around the blog on the days that I don’t post.

I am aiming to improve the affiliate and advertising performance in the coming months. I need to work out what works and what doesn’t. At the moment there are some good products on the site and they are getting clicks – just not any sales.

I have made a lot of good contacts over the past 4 months and I have had a lot of opportunities to make money in other areas. Without setting up this blog those opportunities would not have been there so if the blog itself doesn’t make me enough money to live off, these other sources will.

It can be very frustrating at times, especially when you put all of this hard work in and get nothing back. It has been an interesting journey over the past 4 months, with some great times and other times where I feel like I am wasting my time.

At the moment it is too early to tell whether Project Blogger will be a success. So far it has been going very well, although whether or not I can make enough revenue online to survive will depend on the next few months.

Other areas of my “online” life have been going very well with some great opportunities ahead, especially with NameSeek and the Australian Domain Name industry. This is where I see my long term “online” future at the moment.

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement!

Analysis of Contest #1

// September 11th, 2008 // 1 Comment » // Contests, Project Blogger

So my first ever contest has been run and won, with BBx ending up being the first ever winner on danielfelice.com! Congratulations once again – hopefully in a few years you can look back and say “wow I won his first ever contest and now look where he is!”

There was a hidden agenda to my contest which I am sure you all have figured out by now – and that was to increase the number of e-mail subscribers to the site. I now have double the amount of subscribers than I did before I ran the contest so I guess that means it was a success.

I have received more hits on the site in the past 10 days than I have ever received before. I don’t mean just a handful of hits – I mean a 500% increase in just a few days. It is only 11 days into the month and hits have already exceeded all of August.

However, I was a little disappointed that all of the hits did not convert into subscribed users. If that was the case I would have over 500 subscribers now. The contest post received a great number of hits in the past 10 days, however at the end of the contest there were only 5 entries.

I will now spend the next few days trying to work out where the hits came from to see if they actually came due to the contest or it was all a big coincidence. If it does turn out that the hits arrived due to the contest, then I need to know why users didn’t subscribe.

Maybe the prize didn’t justify a subscription, or maybe some users don’t like my content. It could be that some people don’t like receiving emails, or they prefer to visit the site rather than receive updates via e-mail.

Whatever the case is it is good to see the site growing. Hopefully hits don’t drop now that the contest has ended.

The aim of the contest was to increase e-mail subscriptions and they doubled – so my first ever contest was a success.

Stay tuned for the next contest!

Hits Down in August

// August 31st, 2008 // No Comments » // General, Project Blogger

As predicted, hits and revenue were down in August which is a bit disappointing after a great July. Hits were down about 40% and I put this down to the lack of posting this month. I was away for 12 days of the month which made it difficult to keep on top of things, so hits have suffered due to this I think.

Revenue was down about 60% month, and for the same reason as above. It takes hits to drive the revenue up, so with hit being so low of course revenue is going to be the same.

Traffic

Hits were all over the place this month. Each day was as unpredictable as the next. As you can tell from the below screen shot, one day hits were good, the next day bad, then they would shoot up for no reason at all, and then the next day back down. I can’t figure it out.

Top referrers were AUDomaining.com.au, DNTrade.com.au and goofblogger.com. The most popular posts being Are .NET.AU’s Worthless? and 5 Ways to Stay Motivated.

Revenue

Google Adsense really pulled through for me this month. It was the only network that made me any money this month, and although it wasn’t much, it saved me from this month being a complete disaster.

I have to look at my affiliate marketing networks and try to figure out what I am doing wrong. I need to find the time for some more research and hopefully implement the changes during September.

So it was a bad month, but it is all part of the journey and the point of Project Blogger. Hopefully danielfelice.com can bounce back in September.

Earn Credit for your Website!