Last Updated on by Michael Brockbank
For the fourth month in a row, the blog has experienced some impressive numbers. Well, impressive to what I’ve had in the past. And the growth rate is just mind-boggling to me. Right now, I’m fairly confident the growth will continue.
And not just because everyone is in quarantine and bored on the Internet. The site has been getting the attention of more sponsors and brands.
Even though I’ve turned down a couple recently, it’s still awesome that I’m getting approached more often.
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Results of the April Vlog vs Blog 2020
So, being stuck in a hotel for the past month, you’d think I would have more time. Unfortunately, the current pandemic doesn’t affect my clients, and they keep tossing more my way.
Not to mention the fact that I’ve spent a lot of time scanning, printing and emailing documents galore so we can close on the new house on Friday.
Keep your fingers crossed that my roommate and I can start moving in next weekend.
Visitor Traffic and Views, Winner: YouTube Channel?
The views the YouTube channel received this past month piques my interest. I’m not complaining, mind you. But I really didn’t put out many videos last month.
Perhaps with the COVID-19 thing going on, more people are looking to work from home. Which is to be expected, but a bit of a bummer. I’ll explain in a moment.
YouTube Views Growth: +38%
Every video across the board received far more views than in March. For instance, the video about Adsense Earnings per 1000 visitors went from 311 to 802 views!
It looks like most are coming from videos that center around working from home beyond Textbroker. For example, the Vocal Media and Hubpages videos received a lot more traffic.
This tells me that I need to focus my future videos on helping others make money from home beyond what I’ve been producing. Perhaps more reviews about where people can write would do well.
Blog Visits Growth: +29.12%
Even though the YouTube channel grew a lot in April, the blog is the one that impresses me the most. Although I did push out a few posts, it’s the overall traffic that calls to me.
Do you know that WriterSanctuary.com received nearly three times the traffic this past month than it did 12 months prior? I think I said that for March as well.
I mean, looking at the chart is just one big swoop going up. Again, this means I need to keep pushing out posts that are helpful for people who want to work from home as a freelance writer or blogger.
Audience Retention Rate, Winner: YouTube Channel
Here’s another one that shocks me a bit. Even though the blog is a bit more popular, the videos still receive more attention. This is because video content is more effective than written material.
Of course, the increase in views will adjust the increase in watch time for YouTube.
Blog On-Page Reading Time Growth: +9.3%
When digging through Analytics, I can see that a lot of posts have increased quite a bit in terms of how long someone reads the content. And although some have declined over the month, a lot of them grew in terms of three or four minutes.
Unfortunately, the bounce rate went up slightly to 85.09%. Still, this is far better than the 95% bounce rate I had about two or three years ago. I’ll need to work on that.
YouTube Watch Time Growth: +19%
The more I go over the data, the more I start to think the coronavirus is greatly affecting my numbers. This is to be expected as more people are looking for ways to make money from home.
Unfortunately, this also means that the traffic might drop off the closer we get to everything returning to normal.
I just need to come up with video content people will want to watch after this pandemic is over. That is, as long as I can commit to making more videos. Being stuck in the hotel is kind of life-sucking.
Media Click-Through Rate, Winner: YouTube Channel
Usually, the click-through rates fluctuate slightly up and down depending on the month. However, this is the first time I’ve seen a big jump in CTR for the YouTube channel.
I don’t know if it’ll last, but I’ll see what I can do to keep the forward momentum.
YouTube CTR: +0.8%
As I said, this is actually a significant jump in CTR for the channel. Usually, it bounces around the 5.1% to 5.3% quite often. I think this might be the first time I’ve seen the overall CTR go beyond 6%.
It looks like a lot of my older videos are actually getting clicked. I’ll have to dive a bit deeper, but I wonder if my newer subscribers are watching the old videos as they pop up in the recommended feed.
The more videos of yours someone watches, the greater are the chances of being shown additional content.
Blog CTR: +0.1%
The blog has never had a really impressive CTR. And even though the growth is just by one-tenth of a percent, I am pretty excited by the other numbers.
For one thing, the average position of my content in Google went from 25.3 to 21.4! That’s a significant jump in positions, especially considering the amount of content I have on the site.
Not only that, but the overall impressions went up from 58.1k to 81.4k.
So, even though the YouTube channel has a higher click-through rate, I still consider the blog a stunning success for April.
Improvements for May
It’s not often that both the blog and the YouTube channel go through the month without having red stats in the above categories. I think this is the first time everything was green across the board.
And I am fairly sure it’s because so many people are out of work and looking for ways to make money from home. Which is fine, I just don’t want to lose the progress once everyone can leave the house again.
So, what can I do to make May a stunning month as well?
Blog Growth
While Textbroker is still one of the biggest draws for the blog, I do see a lot of other content making an impact. Mostly, it’s the articles about monetizing websites and videos.
For example, the number one post on WriterSanctuary.com is the review for Buy Me a Coffee. It had a whopping 1,283 views last month. The second most popular only had 377. That’s quite a difference.
I need to find topics the audience wants to read that can produce the same numbers as the review.
I’m also changing my publish dates around. Starting tomorrow, May 4th, I am publishing a new post every Monday and Wednesday. I used to focus on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or at least try to.
And, I have a new strategy in place that should guarantee a new post twice a week. This is something I’ve struggled with in the past, but am I confident this new layout will work very well.
Channel Growth
I really didn’t upload much in April. Part of that is because it takes 6.5 hours from the moment I hit record on OBS to when I click “Publish” on YouTube. The upload speed from here is, well, definitely not fiber optic.
Still, I’m going to try to get the videos up on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays if possible. I’m not sure how it’ll work for tomorrow as the upload time will interfere with the live stream.
Until I can move into my house and set up the office, I might not be able to do videos on days I go live, which is every other Monday.
With any luck, this will be the only week I’ll have to forgo a Monday video. It’ll be a whole different ball game once I get into my permanent office.
Still Marching Along
Even though the world pandemic is boosting my numbers, I don’t want to lose momentum. This means I have to try extra hard if I want to keep people coming to the site once the dust settles.
Hopefully, my newly revamped schedule will help me accomplish this. I suppose we’ll just have to see how things go for May.
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