TheNetExperiment.com

Progress Update : 2009 January 19th-31st

Posted on 05. Feb, 2009 by Derrick.

Ok. . Another 2 weeks has passed. . and I feel I have neglected my blog. . but not for good reason, As I have been busy working on videos for the Video Competition.  I was shooting to win the creative and was still hopeful for the video that gets the most traffic for my last video uploaded 2 days before the comp ended (I Guess I was a little too optimistic on that one). . Anyways. .I haven’t heard confirmation of the winners yet. but will be sure to post the results when I do.

So what’s happened in the last 2 week of January?  well after checking my time log, I was a little shocked to discover I spent just over 50 hours on the 500 Video!  And due to a couple of mini holidays during this time - weekend trip to Brisbane for Chinese New Year and a 4 day break at Jervis Bay in New South Wales - that also cut down my time available to be productive :).  So here’s what I have achieved:

1. Produced the 500 Video - I know I probably over did it :). . but I wanted to be totally happy with it, and I have to say I am pretty proud of the result ~ 50 hours
2. Traffic Generation Activity ~ 3hours
3. Building and optimising blog ~ 4 hours
4. Writing Content ~ 2 hours
5. Miscellaneous ~ 10 hours

After this first full month working on the blog. . - which has mainly consisted with producing the videos :). . and just in my research on what’s happening and whats out there, I feel I’m getting a much better idea of where I am best placed within the World Wide Web - I’ll be making my plans in the next week as I spend time evaluating where I should be heading, and what I want to spend my time on.

Ok. . so lets see how all this activity affected my traffic to my site: - Just click to open up the full size image

You’ll notice a HUGE peak on the 19th wtih 144 Visits in one day!  This was as a result of my first Video being launched.  My Second Video was launched on the 30th Jan and had to leave for my mini holiday so didn’t have the proper time to promote it.

Lastly my Alexa Ranking has improved as well. . I didn’t do a check on the 31st so here are my stats from today:

Wow - I’m now in the top 250,000 websites :). . My goal to get to the top 100,000 is in sights!  When I first started this blog sometime in mid December it was ranked around 9 Million, and slowly I have gone up the Alexa Ranks :).  .anwyays still much more work to do, but this is definitely encouraging!

THE FUTURE:

Anyways. I think my future lies in making instructional videos and reviews, so I’m researching on what I should be making them for.  If you have any ideas or suggestions on what type of videos I should be making - please leave your comments below!

Cheers,

Derrick

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Progress Update : 2009 Week 2 January 12th-18th

Posted on 20. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Ok, So a couple of days late. . but I have legitate excuses (Difficultly uploading video to Youtube - for some reason, it wouldn’t accept my HD version, and attempted nearly 10 times - the file was huge - over 700MB :). .Anyways, here’s my progress report for 12th to 18th of January. (times are approximate, as there were a few times when I was in deep concentration on making the video, I forgot to start the timer

My Achievements:

1. Brainstormed Ideas for Video Contest & Produced and Uploaded first Video (~16 hours+)
2. Researched Wordpress themes and revamped my blog ~ 15 hours
3. Initiated my first Joint Venture Project - I’ll reveal more of this later ~ 4 hours
4. Writing 2 Key articles - one on article writing, the other on directory submission ~ 9 hours
5. Spending a very small amount of time on Traffic Generation ~ 2 hours  (I think this is a little inaccurate - probably more closer to 4-5 hours and this was mostly oil rig hopping - visiting and commenting on other peoples blogs)

Below is a nice coloured graph showing you the breakdown:

Now that I have showed you what I have done - Lets check what the RESULTS are

My Key Performance Indicators from the goals I set in January were based on the following : Income, Visitors, and my list building.  As I have been focusing on producing content and updating my site (and subsequently very little on traffic generation) my results this week, have not suprisingly been bad :)  Firstly here are my google Analytics stats:

As you can see I nearly dipped to ZERO on the 16th, but I was luckily able to resurrect my traffic after I finally uploaded my Video to YouTube.  I have to say its very discouraging when you aren’t getting traffic, but its an adrenalin ride when you do:)

Ok. big question : have I made any money?  And the answer is NO. . in fact I’ve spent some money (spent $70 buying the WooTheme to update the look and feel of my site).  But I know I will very soon. . How about my list?  No subscribers yet either, but again I do have a plan. . so this will change very soon

One other bit of good news is that I have climbed in the Alexa Rankings - I’m now proud to say I’m at 580,385 Check it out below:

Oh, and one other thing. . I just passed 1000 friends on twitter :). . so all in all despite not being good to my bank account, it has been a good week :). . .

Well that’s it for week 2.

My plan this week is to continue working on my blog usability and functionality, adding lots of quality content, and spend more time in traffic generation activities

Would love to hear any questions you may have or your thoughts on how I could be more productive, or where you feel I need to focus my energies for the coming weeks - post your comments in the box below

Derrick

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December 2008, First Progress Report

Posted on 03. Jan, 2009 by Derrick.

Ok. . I have been meaning to do this report a while ago, but now that a whole month has passed, I thought I would do a complete month report on what results I have achieved and how much time and money I have invested so far:

Web Traffic Statistics

So first up are the statistics: below is the google analytics for the month of December. Bear in mind this current Blog was only established on the 21st December (prior to that I was using my personal domain name) so really it is for the first 10 days and over christmas. Click on the image to open into a full size image:

Just over 100 Visits - So nothing amazing there (Yet) - and haven’t reached my initial target of 1000 visitors.

But what have I actually achieved in this time?

1. Got my head around wordpress and an understanding of how to set up a word press blog
2. Learnt about some of the best ways to get traffic and started using them.
3. Started to get to know some of the other students!

Capital Invested:

1. Alex Jeffreys‘ Coaching Program : US$497
2. Domain Names : US7.69
3. Aweber Autoresponder Account : US$19/Month
4. Screencapture Software US$89.00
5. WebHosting US$24.95

Total Costs Accrued : $637.64

Time Invested

Total Time :  87 Hours (Approximately 2 Weeks full time)

So what are the takeaways.  Looking at the time breakdown, I definitely probably shouldn’t have spent so much time working on the look and feel of the blog itself, and spent a bit more time on traffic generation strategies.  I think that would be the main takeaway, focus more on the things that will make the biggest impact on my blog.

Also I’ve been rather picky with the look of my site. . you may notice the site changing quite a bit as I find the right look for it, to the left is  a screen shot of how it looked before.  .any comments thoughts and suggestions would be most appreciated.  The reason i’ve changed from that theme, is because I was told by other students, they thought it looked too comical and not serious enough - what do you think?

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