January traffic to Value Stock Guide has tripled, compared to the Dec traffic, which in itself was much higher than November. I also streamlined and tweaked quite a few things on the site and as a result, the traffic flow through the website works much better and the readers are finding more relevant content than before. Keeping the readers on site as long as possible, is of course, what every site owner wants. It reflects that the right audience is being attracted and the content is interesting and relevant. For example, I now have visitors that spend 30 minutes on the site on a single visit. This level of stickiness was elusive when I ran Personal Dividends.
FYI, the daily traffic to Value Stock Guide in less than a year of its launch is more than the daily traffic at Personal Dividends after 2.5 years of its existence, and climbing every day. And all other engagement indicators are way better as well.
Perhaps, better focus on a topic or niche has something to do with it. There is a lot of demand for good stock advice.
Sign Ups to the newsletter are up as well. In 2011 I was happy when someone signed up every other day or so. In January I have not gone a single day without a sign up and I have had days with 7-8 sign ups. So January is definitely turning up to the the best ever month for VSG.
A big reason of course is the content, specifically my best stocks for 2012 series. Cool thing about these posts were that I also included a spreadsheet for each screen that readers can download that included much more information than what was provided on the site. And they are still being downloaded. I think this has gone a long way towards putting the brand out there in the visitors’ consciousness, which can only help.
So now, the traffic is up and increasing, sign ups and the sales funnel are better defined and coordinated, the content is stickier and the bounce rate has improved a lot. Brand recognition is improving.
To help along the branding and positioning aspect, and to further introduce new readers to Value Stock Guide, I have started writing guest posts at other respected and relevant blogs. The first post in the series is already up at OutOfYourRut.com. This post talks about the fact that investors need to take complete responsibility for their investing. Other articles are scheduled and I will update when they go live. In February, there will be at least one guest post going live every week, some weeks perhaps more.
Assaf at BestRatesIn.com is helping me with the guest posting. Here is a shout out to him, and if you are in the market to find best cd rates, he has you covered.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey that is a great success, I hope that your traffic keeps increasing
If you are looking for another site like tipd to get extra links you could always come over and checkout my site, I would love to see you there!
Juan.
Will definitely check it out Juan. Thanks for visiting!