I learned a long time ago that stats don’t mean a whole lot and for every minute you spend analyzing them, it’s a minute you could be spending trying to improve them. So i deliberately try to avoid studying them in too much detail, even though it’s great to look back and see where you’ve gone right or wrong.
photo credit: bananaba
In 2006, i started theleavingcert.com – my first website. That was quickly followed by this blog and many more. Last year, i decided to sell theleavingcert.com – i’d had enough of it… i didn’t really have the interest or knowledge to maintain it.
It didn’t sell, despite getting a bit of interest and a few low offers (much lower than what i thought it was worth at the time). Potential is an overused word but a year ago, i felt theleavingcert.com had great potential.When i first started it, i wanted it to become the no.1 leaving cert site in the country. It quickly rose through the ranks in google and i made several sweeping changes to do what i thought was the right thing in order to take it on further.
Just last month, i added a new theme, designed a new logo and generally gave the site a bit of a facelift. It’s no coincidence that since then, traffic has gone up and i’ve got several inquiries from various different types of people wanting to write for us.
Right now, we’re no.2 in google.com for ‘leaving cert’ – behind only the mighty wikipedia. In google.ie, we’re no.1. So we’ve over-taken government websites, national newspapers & various businesses in this market who were probably around before i was born.
“So what?” you’ll say. Well, i’ve completed a personal mission to outrank every single leaving cert site in the country. That was goal no.1 when i created the site back in 2006. It’s taken a long time but these things do.
Here are some interesting stats from Jan 2008 – September 21st 2008 and then from January this year up until today (same time frame, different years).
In 2008, my analytics code went missing for about 2 months, so that’s why the graphs are flat in parts on the top screenshot. Still, it gives you an idea of just how much theleavingcert.com has grown. Traffic has basically tripled.
And it’s not just any old traffic – look at the average time on site or bounce rate – both extremely low for a blog (which is good). The reason for that is because almost 90% of theleavingcert.com’s traffic comes from search engines – so it’s highly targeted. People who come to our site, want to be on it – they know what it’s about and looking at the stats, they’re reasonably happy / interested in it – they don’t just click through and close it straight away.
Anyway, that’s just one example of where my time goes and why i keep saying i’m busy, i’m working, i’m trying to save time, trying to increase work rate etc… these sites don’t magically run themselves or take a notion to start competing with other related sites in search engines. I get the impression a lot of people just think stuff ‘happens’ when you click a few buttons or add a bit of code to your site…
Bottom line – if you want traffic, you have to work for it. If you want to sustain or improve traffic you have to work twice as hard. Same goes for SEO and just about everything else. It’s not a short term thing, but keep plugging away and the rewards will come. If they don’t, just keep trying and waiting 
The secret to success is work rate.
