I decided to create a video and blog post to share how Project Life Mastery has grown over 2012 and how I plan to continue growing and changing lives in 2013. I'm going to be totally open and transparent, sharing the specifics of how many people visit my blog, watch my videos, subscribe, follow me on social media, etc… I've set some crazy goals for this blog in 2013 and it'll be exciting when I do another annual review of 2013 and how things continue to grow.
I've also had a lot of people ask me about how to start a blog and look for guidance on being able to do what I currently do. I didn't realize there's so many other people interested in doing something similar, which is exciting. If you're one of those people, this blog post will hopefully give you a glimpse of the kind of growth and experience you can have when starting a blog.
Watch the video below:
(Click here to watch the video on YouTube)
Content
When I first launched Project Life Mastery in February of 2012, I decided to follow the program How To Start A Blog That Matters by Corbett Barr of Think Traffic. I'll mention more about that program later, but the biggest thing that I learned from him was the importance of content. Content should be 95% of your focus while blogging. But not just any content – quality content. Corbett talks about how there's different levels of content, the ultimate being “Epic Shit”. Content that is considered “Epic” are blog posts that people are blown away by. It's challenging to always create content that is at this level, but once in awhile if you're always focused in producing quality content, you will hit a few out of the park. For me, I hit it out of the park with the My Morning Ritual video blog post, along with My Life Plan video blog post. There two posts are by far the ones that I receive the most positive feedback on and people walk away from those two videos telling me how their lives have changed for the better.
I made sure that I put a lot of time and effort to producing quality content on here that I could be proud of. And in 2012, I ended up creating 77 blog posts of quality content. That number surprised me, as that is A LOT of writing and many of my blog posts are quite lengthy. But one thing I can say is that the experience of writing all 77 of those posts was fun and enjoyable. It never felt like work, and I never had the expectation of receiving any money in return for my efforts. I always viewed every blog post and piece of content that I released was benefitting me in some way. By sharing things I was learning with others, I would benefit by being able to have this valuable information reinforced into my nervous system. Also, deep down inside I knew that by sharing quality content that would add value to the lives of others, that eventually money and recognition would come my way. And it did. In 2012 I was fortunate to build a life coaching business helping people with their health and fitness goals, teaching people how to make passive income online, have more self-confidence and better relationships, and much more. I've even had people donate money to me as a “thank you” for putting out so much free information, one person even donated $100 to me, which was totally unexpected.
When it comes to video blogs, I had the same mentality. I started simply putting out videos on my YouTube channel just for fun with my digital camera and using my MacBook, not expecting much. Sure enough, a few of my videos took off and eventually thousands of people were viewing my videos everyday. My most popular video, My Morning Ritual, had received over 167,063 views, 1,000+ comments and 2,341 likes in 2012. Very exciting. Everyday I would receive e-mails and messages on Facebook from people that had watched one of my videos and share with me how their life has changed. It was incredibly fulfilling to hear how a simple video I put out could reach so many people and make such a difference. I also would receive a lot of e-mails of people asking me questions or for advice, which I always responded to. I'd even receive e-mails from people that were contemplating suicide and in need of some serious help, which I always made sure I did my best to help.
In 2012, I ended up releasing 90 videos on my YouTube channel, but not all of them were of me. Many of the videos I released was also footage from a Tony Robbins seminar I attended as well. None the less, the number is really exciting and I'm surprised I managed that many videos with the quality of camera that I was using. A big goal of mine in 2013 is to invest in a really quality video camera and wireless mic, which will cost a couple thousand dollars, but will be worth the investment and is something that my followers deserve.
Total # of Blog Posts: 77
Total # of Comments: 320
Total # of YouTube videos: 90
Traffic
I knew with quality content that eventually the traffic would come, and it did. I never once focused on doing SEO for my blog, back linking, or advertising in any way. I just focused on putting out the best content I could, just as I learned in How To Start A Blog That Matters by Corbett Barr. At first, nobody visited my blog. But, I wasn't discouraged by this, as it didn't matter to me whether anybody read or watched any of my videos. I knew I was benefitting from it either way just by journalling online.
It's only a matter of time before people start to visit your blog when you have quality content. People eventually found my blog through Google search, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, and other sources. People would start sharing my blog posts and videos, and I even had people interview me and feature me on their blogs, which helped. Eventually my blog became such an authority in Google's eyes that my blog posts would rank very easily in their search engine, giving me the majority of my traffic in 2012.
As you can see from the graph above from Google Analytics, traffic was slow at first but eventually stabilized at around 400-500 visitors a day. In total, 29,207 unique visitors came to my blog in 2012. Many of those people ended up coming back to my blog, which puts the number of visits at 48,215. Of those 48,215 people, I averaged around 2.9/pages per visitor, which equates to 105,411 pages being viewed. It continues to grow everyday, the more content I put out and the more of a following I get. I'm expecting these numbers to explode in 2013 as blogs tend to get a lot of momentum after a few months or year. I'll also probably focus on doing some activities to get more traffic and followers in 2013, such as guest posting on other peoples blogs and setting up joint ventures.
Above is a screen shot of my top sources of traffic, with Google being the biggest. Direct was second, meaning the number of people that typed in the domain, www.ProjectLifeMastery.com into their web browser. YouTube was 3rd, with Facebook being 4th. The pages per visit and average visitor duration are important numbers too, as you can see how many people stuck around and clearly saw value in continuing to read my content and visit the blog.
Total # of visitors: 29,207
Total # of page views: 105,411
Total # of pages per visitor: 2.9
Average duration of visit: 3:51 minutes
Total # of views on YouTube: 257, 601
Total # of minutes watched on YouTube: 1,227,744
Subscribers And Followers
The other statistic worth tracking is the number of subscribers and followers of my blog. There are several ways people can follow me, such as my RSS feed, e-mail newsletter, Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Each method of following me provides different benefits and content that I'm sharing.
On my RSS feed, you can be notified by e-mail or through your RSS reader anytime I post something on this blog. This way you don't have to keep checking back for blog posts, but you'll receive an e-mail of it in your inbox. You can subscribe to my blog via e-mail by clicking here.
My e-mail newsletter is the best way I can communicate with you, as it allows me to send you an e-mail of certain resources or tools that I'm using, along with exclusive offers and content that I don't mention anywhere on my blog. I plan on releasing products and doing give-away's in 2013, which will only be mentioned in my newsletter as well. You can subscribe to my e-mail newsletter by clicking here.
On Twitter and Facebook you can get a glimpse into my mind through my status updates and tweets. I usually notify people of my blog posts and videos, and also share other cool stuff that I come across that is inspirational and beneficial to your life. Make sure to follow me on Twitter and Facebook too!
And finally, subscribing to my YouTube channel is the best way to be notified anytime I release a video. Sometimes I release videos that don't have a blog post that goes along with it, so if you enjoy the videos, make sure to subscribe by clicking here. Most of my videos are accompanied by a blog post these days, but not all – people prefer consuming information in different forms, which is why I do video and a blog post.
Total # of followers on RSS feed: 56
Total # subscribed to e-mail list: 842
Total # of Twitter followers: 802
Total # of Likes on Facebook: 1,382
Total # of YouTube subscribers: 2,810
How To Start A Blog That Matters
I was very excited to hear how many people were also interested in creating a blog and sharing their thoughts with the world. It's been a life-changing experience for me and something that I'll continue doing for the rest of my life. In my opinion, there's no better way to reach a large audience of people and be able to make a difference. It's fun and anybody can do it. You don't have to be a fantastic writer or an expert on anything, you can simply share things that you're up to or learning, and sure enough people will follow you.
I was at first hesitant to create a blog as I thought it'd be a big time commitment, but it wasn't. I just blogged whenever I had time, and I found it very fun and enjoyable. In fact, I found it more to be a “hobby” than a business, as it's something that has become a positive addiction for me and something I'm so passionate about.
If you're wondering whether or not you can make money from blogging also, the answer is yes. I don't only make money from life coaching, but also do by promoting certain books and programs. I have a lot of book reviews and product reviews that I list in the Reviews section, and those reviews get found very easily by people that search for them in Google. When people buy a book through my website from Amazon, I get paid a small commission for it, which is cool. It's not much, but every little bit is great as it allows me to invest that money back into this blog to make it better. You could also make money by having advertising on your blog, such as Google Ads, but I decided not to go that route as I don't want to clutter up the blog too much. This year in 2013, I plan on releasing products to further help people, which can also be a source of income. The opportunities from making money from blogging are endless.
Overall, 2012 was an incredible year for Project Life Mastery and I'm more motivated than ever to continue putting out epic content and videos that can make a difference in your life. I want to thank you for your support and for being a loyal follower. Without you, Project Life Mastery wouldn't be where it is today. Thank you.
P.S. Make sure you follow me and stay in touch, or shoot me a message or comment just to say hi! I love hearing from people.