1K Visitors! (Again. Sort of.)

I just hit 1,000 unique visitors in a month! (Again. Sort of.)

My Inner Data Analyst was so happy to see a lovely round number that she is getting her own blog post today. It's been a while since she got to come out and play.

Here's what made her happy: Google Analytics showed 1,000 unique visitors in a month time span.



Confession time: I checked in the middle of the day - it was serendipitous to hit the exact number when I did, but that wasn't the final number in the day. The final number for that month-span was 1,010, but I was so happy to see the exact 1,000 that I screen-captured it.

Now Data Girl gets to have her nerdy moments in the sun:

AGAIN: Truth is, I hit about 1,100 unique visitors in January when I only had one blog location, before I moved over to self-hosting, and before I dramatically dropped off my blogging volume and talked about a bunch of un-sexy life issues (Feb - Jun).

SORT OF: Since I split the blogs, there is no way to know the *exact* number of unique visitors across sites, because the old blog location is still up and running, and for a while, there were legacy links that led back and forth between them. So one human being could show up as a "unique visitor" for both sites. When I add them up and factor in cross-over, I've probably had 1,200 - ish unique visitors in the past 30 days across sites, but it's impossible to determine a precise number.

STATES: Ooooo I've now had visitors from all 50 states! Yay! For a while there were holdouts in Hawaii and North Dakota. Aloha Hawaii! Welcome aboard North Dakota! I don't know if you know this or not, but the phone sex connection is amazing between where you and Texas.

BOUNCE RATE / NEW VISITS: Back in January, when I was doing zero advertising and only driving traffic from my NiteFlirt listing, I had a bounce rate of about 16% (bounce rate = how many visitors only visit one page, lower is better) and a new visits rate of about 50% (new visits = first-time blog readers). My bounce rate and new visits rate have gone up since I started doing $3 / day of Google advertising (don't go too nuts with the spending there, Chance).

I have had a few lovely new callers from the advertising... probably not quite $100 / month worth yet, but I think it's one of those things that adds up over time. I will continue to play with small amounts of advertising to see how it goes.

OVERALL: So my traffic volume is nowhere near enough to approach a publisher about a book deal just yet (oh noes, my sooper seekrit long-term plan is out!), but it's great to know that I can rebuild if I need to!