The Christmas adverts are here, which means one thing…it’s November!

As such I have my website stats for October, and I want to share the ins and outs of Turndog Millionaire, and how it’s affecting my world. This last month saw a few changes, and in general, traffic has been affected.

I use Google Analytics to get all this info, and as I’m sure you know, there are many stats to be had. I focus on a few, though, and this is what I consider to be important:

• Unique Visitors
• Page Views
• Ave. Page Views
• Ave. Duration
• Bounce Rate
• New/Returning Ratio
• Top Referrers
• Top Pages/Posts

October In Numbers

This is what the overall website stats for October looks like:

Overall stats are down. Around 30% fewer unique visitors came to my website, but there are a few reasons why. The biggest is that I’ve taken my foot off the gas recently as I adjust my blogging schedule.

I’ve taken the decision to not post on weekends and take a step back. I’m now six-months into my journey and I want to stabilise my platform. This, unfortunately, has had an effect on my website stats, but it was expected to be honest.

There were positives from this last month, though. The Pages/Visit are on the up and my Average Visit Duration has also increased. We all have to cling to the small victories, right? 🙂

As always, let’s look at the week-by-week breakdown:

 

Week 1

 

Week 2

Week 3

Week 4

It was toward the end of the month when traffic began to drop off, but as you can also see, my returning visitors stat is on a healthy increase when compared to previous months. This is great, as my biggest aim is to develop a strong community, rather than a website with lots of random traffic.

It should also be noted that I had no guest posts in October. As Guest Posts have been a key ingredient to my traffic successes, it certainly has had an effect on results.

 

The Referrers

What brought the most traffic in October? The top 5 were:

• Twitter – 168
• Facebook – 116
• Jane Friedman- 43
• Google.com – 37
• Stumbleupon – 32

In general, the usual suspects are present. What has been good to see is an increase in Facebook traffic. I’ve recently altered how I use Facebook and I hope it will soon bring similar numbers to Twitter. Considering this has only happened in the last couple of weeks, it’s great to see Facebook doing well.

 

The Posts/Pages

A huge part of unearthing your website stats is to see what people are reading. This month was a good one. The top 5 most visited posts/pages were:

• Homepage
• 5 Top TED Talks From 5 Amazing Writers
• Blog Homepage
• Tales From A Tiny Thai Table
• For Writers

The biggest disappointment this month is that only one post has made the top 5. Considering last month had three, this is a backwards step.

It makes me think my content recently hasn’t been as good. What is good to see is my Tales From A Tiny Thai Table page doing well. Considering the whole point of this short story is to gather interest before my debut novel, I hope these numbers continue.

 

An Overview

To summarise:

• Less Posts = Less Traffic
• Facebook is on the up
• My recent changes may have a negative effect on my website stats for a while

September was a big month for me, and with October bringing some of my worst results, it is a bit of a let down. Maybe it was down to complacency or taking my eye off of the ball. My schedule is getting busier, though, which is a positive in the grander scheme of things.

Onwards and upwards folks. We now move into November and hopefully a month that can get me back on track. Let me know your thoughts and whether you find this info useful.

Turndog Millionaire – @turndog_million