The number of visitors per month is closely related to how much money a blog earns from advertising, for example, through Google Adsense. Therefore it is, of course, important that you have a reasonably good amount of incoming traffic.
My previous blog, for example, gets around 50,000 hits per Month – according to my internal statistics. However, a large part of the visitors have blocked advertisements or scripts, so I don’t earn that much from my visitors. I would probably need closer to 200,000 a month to earn a reasonable amount from advertising.
I have read several other lifestyle/fashion blogs with female owners. Not because I was interested in the subject but because they happened to have written about the actual blogging process and because a large part of what I do falls somewhat under blogging.
Oddly enough, it often seems that they have been more successful than I have been. This may be because their target group is different. I primarily write instructions for very technical things, and I have, for example, never been offered sponsor agreements.
On the other hand, I have experienced people contacting me to donate money to my project. I have also experienced that people wanted to buy links – but links are not something I offer on Financebode.
The fashion industry is perhaps more marketing oriented and better at connecting with bloggers and people on social media.
I have also tried using Affiliate programs, and they have mostly worked for me. I’ve made most of my money from them. Adsense, on the other hand, has given me a fixed small income.
I write more about that here: “How To Monetize Your Blog With Affiliate Marketing.”
Number of visitors per Month
To return to the question of How Many Visitors Per Month Should A Good Blog Have? We often talk about visitors per Month as website owners,
It is probably because various statistics automatically show how many visitors there have been in 28-30 days. However, the number of visitors per day is at least as interesting – if not more so!
If you use Adsense on your website, you will be able to see how many views there have been per day. The number of views per Month.
However, it is important not to equate the number of views with the number of visitors. My numbers in Adsense are significantly lower than my internal statistics, possibly because people use browser plugins for ad blocking.
I only earn approx. $ 800 per Month with approx. 150 views per day. My previous site probably earns a little more compared to this one, financebode.com.
This is possible because the content on the previous site page is slightly different compared to the content on this page. So it is not always that it pays to aim internationally, even though it is still my primary focus.
If I had to start over with the knowledge I have today, I probably wouldn’t do it simply because it is not worth it. When you visited Adsense’s website, they showed for a long time a large advertisement saying that you could “make money from your hobby.” Unfortunately, this is very far from a realistic goal.
Also, Google takes a percentage of the revenue (35%), which certainly doesn’t make it any easier. My income only covers the hosting costs and some other expenses.
What is good traffic?
Imagine that “good traffic.” In reality, it does not exist. If you run after this goal, you will realize at some point that you are trying to achieve the unattainable. Traffic is only “good” in relation to something.
In relation to a topic
If the best blog in your topic has 5000 visitors per Month and you have 6000, you will have good traffic. Conversely, if you compare your 6,000 visitors to a blog on another topic, perhaps less targeted, your traffic may seem ridiculous.
In relation to age
Not yours… but the age of your blog. If you have 5000 visitors per Month, it does not mean the same thing when your blog is only six months old and when your blog has been around for ten years.
In relation to a goal
If you created your blog to make a name for yourself in a specific field and you only have 3000 visitors per Month, it may seem frustrating to you.
Conversely, someone who wants to earn additional income from their blog can achieve this with the same traffic if they attract highly targeted visitors.
To give you an example, I have a friend who earned around $700 per Month with affiliation on a blog dedicated to a TV series… because his audience was passionate and therefore bought what he recommended. He didn’t need huge traffic to achieve his goal.
In relation to yourself
We do not all set the bar at the same level to be happy with ourselves! Some bloggers are delighted to reach 20,000 visitors per year… Others set themselves the same objective per Month… or even per week!
The notion of “good traffic” is, therefore, very subjective. It depends on your expectations, your ambitions, your personality, and your theme.
What counts is, therefore, not the number in absolute terms but rather your progress over time: does it exist? Is blogging still fulfilling for you? If you have one, are you getting closer to your goal over the months?
How hard can it be?
It’s not as difficult to get several thousand visitors a month as you might think. My previous site, for example, has individual articles with over 1000 visitors per Month! I could probably get more visitors quickly with a more systematic and targeted effort.
However, it requires a great deal of research on competitors and keywords. Most of my traffic comes from search engines, and I have articles that are fairly high in the search results for their keywords – and that have been there for months. It is obviously without many inbound links – if they have any!
I am somewhat against traditional link building, and my experience also shows me that achieving good rankings is generally not necessary.
It can help with natural links, and it is often a cool experience when you see others talking about your stuff in different places on the internet.
I probably get most links from discussion forums, but I’ve also gotten a few from personal websites. However, the competition is quite high in my field, so even though I have good rankings with many of my articles, people rarely link to them. There is simply an oversaturation of tutorials.
Large blogging networks and references will probably take over to a greater extent the position that less personal websites have had. Therefore, I see the future for financebode. I will, therefore, not limit my area of focus to particular areas.
The problem is finding people to write high-quality guest posts or getting others to help improve the content. For now, my primary focus is sharing all I know about blogging; the rest will probably come along the way.
I am also considering an opening for community editing of articles in the style of Wikipedia, but so far, it is only possible to comment on articles.
We all know the comment functions on Blogs. Many have switched to using plugins from third parties, for example, Facebook or Disqus plugins.
I am somewhat opposed to that because you then no longer have control over the content yourself and, at the same time, send data to a third party.
Spam is a relatively minor problem if you know how to prevent it, so it’s not enough reason to switch to 3rd party modules.
A serious blog cannot use 3rd party modules for basic functionality, and I find it a shame that many do anyway. For the same reason, I often choose not to comment on a blog.
It’s not just about money.
For me, it’s not just about how much money I can make. I actively invest in developing web tools and programs that others will also find useful.
I’m currently studying to be a Multimedia Designer – which is very front-end oriented – I’m already super sharp at the back-end myself.
Financebode is, therefore, only one of several projects I have running, and the goal is not only to make a lot of money. Another project involves developing a CMS/photo gallery for photographers and other interested parties.
I chose to do that because existing solutions for WordPress cost money, and I don’t think it’s something you should pay for. At the moment, it is an independent project, but time will tell if I choose to bring it under the same code as Financebode.
However, I don’t mind people choosing to start a website to make money from it. I see absolutely nothing wrong with that. It’s good to make money. The fact that it wouldn’t work is nonsense. Of course, it will work! Pretty much regardless of what one’s motives may be. But you should therefore be prepared for the fact that the competition is tough in blogging, and something more is probably needed in the long term than purely text-based content.
Having more visitors is ok, but why?
When I started my blog, I dreamed of being read. In the beginning, my ambition was to reach 100 visitors per day. Then, I dreamed of having 200… then 500… then 1000… Of having 50,000 visitors per Month… And then, in October, I exceeded 50,000 on my previous site.
I could have dreamed of going beyond, but this symbolic milestone has, on the contrary, led me to ask myself other questions. Why do you want to up the ante?
I often take this example that I discovered during my psychology studies. Researchers did a study to determine whether the proverb “Money does not buy happiness” was scientifically correct. They discovered two things:
The proverb is wrong for people who don’t have enough to meet their basic needs – Someone who doesn’t have money to eat, to have a roof over their head, or to heat themselves will be much happier if they have more money.
The saying is true once basic needs are met – there is a stage beyond which having more money does not make you happier.
With traffic, it’s the same. There is a stage beyond which we say to ourselves, “What more will it bring me to gain another 5,000 or 10,000 visitors per Month?
For my part, I took it as a sign that we had to set ourselves with other challenges.
It’s a good way to breathe new life into your blog and maintain motivation. Because the risk, with the traffic, is to reach the “threshold” that you had set for yourself by having the impression of having nothing more to accomplish
