The 3 Month Growth Plan

Oct 17, 2007

Filed under: Getting noticed.
Photography: Penguins Jump onto Icefoot by Dr. Levick (NOAA)

Those of you who have jumped on board recently might not know this, but Skelliewag has barely shed its shrink-wrap. It opened to visitors on July 26.

In around a week-and-a-half Skelliewag will be 1/4 year old. At this point I feel I’ve learned some important lessons about growing a site from nothing to something and this week provides an exciting opportunity to share them.

The next three posts will outline a tried and tested 3 Month Growth Plan for a new site or one that needs a kick-start to more rapid growth.

It’s tried and tested because it is the exact same blueprint I’ve used to bring Skelliewag to where it is today.

Keep in mind, also, that this blog exists within a crowded and mature niche. There’s no reason why your site couldn’t excel far beyond this one by following the same growth blueprint.

The 3 Month Growth Plan: Month 1

This month corresponds to sites in the early stages of growth: usually less than 200 visitors a day and with under 100 subscribers. Whether your site is brand new or an undiscovered gem, the 1 month growth plan should help take your site to the next level.

The 3 Month Growth Plan: Month 2

This month corresponds to sites that have started to find their feet: usually bringing in around 200 to 300 visitors a day and with under 200 subscribers. The growth plan for Month 2 will start the ball rolling for rapid growth.

The 3 Month Growth Plan: Month 3

This month corresponds to more established sites with 300 - 500 visitors a day and 300+ subscribers. By this point, you should be able to start focusing on content more so than self promotion, as others will begin to spread the word for you.

What if these growth stages don’t fit my site?

If you’re lucky enough to have grown beyond these stages I do believe the post series will still be of use to you, particularly if you begin a new project in future.

How will it work?

The next three posts, across three days, will explore the first, second and third stages of the growth plan. As I add each new stage to the plan I’ll update this central hub post with a link.

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21 Comments, Comment or Ping

Joe Bartolotta

Skellie,

I am looking forward to the next three days! I am new to blogging but and I really like your site very much. I cannot believe you are only 3 months old.

Have a great week,
Joe

Oct 17th, 2007
Joanne

Skellie, wow I had no idea Skelliewag has only been around for 3 months. I didn’t realize that I had assumed this site to be much, much older! What you’ve accomplished and the consistently useful information you publish always pushes me to think about how I can make it work for my own blog.

And as interested as I am for the upcoming 3 posts of each of the past months, I also look forward to lessons/ideas from future articles on your blog growth!

Oct 17th, 2007
Ankesh Kothari

Thanks Skellie. You know I love your blog.

This post shows me that this is your first blog. Or else you would have never given out numbers. And here is why: the numbers depend on the “market” and the “events”.

Your numbers are excellent for the meta-blogging market. But I have this blog that started receiving 100-120 unique visitors a day since after 2 weeks of starting it (that was 3 months ago). Today too it receives just 100-120 uniques a day. There are a few spikes here and there. But thats the average. I can’t do anything to increase its traffic.

Here is the reason: that blog ranks no. 1 in Google for a particular term. And the market for that keyword is limited. Even if I stop posting completely on that blog, I will keep on receiving 100-120 uniques a day!

Have you seen statistics given by John Chow and Darren Rowse? They seem to have hit a ceiling. They are still growing. But not as quickly as they used to. In the meta-blogging niche, I think its really really hard to cross the 500,000 uniques per month mark. Go to the top meta blogging blogs and ask for their ad rate cards. You’ll see all of them hover near that mark. Now go to the productivity niche. You’ll find totally different numbers range over there.

The other factor: events. Take away your top 5 posts. And then try to gauge the effect on your blog. Your traffic would seem to drop by 30-50% or so! The flip side: if just one of your posts had been featured on the digg front page, that would have been 75,000 new uniques!

Anyways, what I’m trying to say is: excellent work on this blog Skellie! But I doubt if anyone else will be able to reproduce your results for themselves.

Oct 17th, 2007
Alex Kay

This is going to be really interesting to follow, as my blog is also fairly new (under 1 month actually). Let’s see how I “keep up”!

Oct 17th, 2007
skellie

@ Joe, Joanne & Alex: Thanks! I hope I don’t disappoint

@ Ankesh: I do agree, no blogger/webmaster who follows the blueprint I’m going to lay out will necessary achieve the same results. A lot will depend on niche, design, enthusiasm, and a hundred other variables.

I do think, however, that many of the key strategies I’ve used to build Skelliewag will well and truly be transferable to other sites and *will* bring growth, though I can’t make any exact predictions about just how much. I do very much appreciate your thoughts, however, and it’s something I may have to discuss in more detail in my first post.

Oct 17th, 2007
Tom O'Leary

Hi Skellie

I’m looking forward to you spilling the beans on how you made it to where you are, so quickly. I agree with Ankesh, in that actual numbers are hard to translate from one type of site to another, but the principles are probably still the same in most cases.

Keep it up

Thanks

Tom

Oct 17th, 2007
Elliott Cross

Wow, I thought you were older?

Great to hear that you are growing, and surprised that your site has been around for only 3 months! Can’t wait to read more of your tips and put them to use for my site, which has been around since July.

Best wishes, and Happy 1/4 Birthday!

Oct 17th, 2007
skellie

@ Elliott: I guess both our blogs are July babies, then ;).

Oct 17th, 2007
Bradly

I started Bicycle Frenzy almost a year ago and it is sloooooowly growing but I would still be in Month 1. I’m seeing small improvements every month. I’m pretty excited to see what worked for you.

Oct 18th, 2007
Pinyo

Congratulation on approaching the 3 months anniversary. I just had mine on the 15th so my blog is about 11 days older. My progress does track roughly what you’ve outlined. Although, I agree with Ankesh that this is niche dependent.

In my niche of Personal Finance, I would like to think that my growth rate is more on the above average side.

Oct 18th, 2007
Elliott Cross

@ Skellie,

There seems to be a lot of talk about finding your “niche” on the blogosphere today. Being newer to blogging, do you feel that a person should blog about one particular area?

Me personally, I enjoy several topics, such as accessible coding, wordpress, firefox and a few other topics. Should I optimize and start a few other blogs dealing with each topic or just stick to the topics I enjoy on my one blog?

Oct 18th, 2007
ReviewSaurus

@ Joe Bartolotta : Why just next 3 days…..don’t you think that this blog should be read every day and on and on and on…….I wish I was energizer

Great work skellie and hope you get more and more popularity which you deserve all the way

Oct 18th, 2007
Jeff Vincent

Skellie-

As an owner of a young blog myself, I’m very excited to hear all of your experience and advice from your first three months. Growth is a very tricky thing, but I think the advice of someone who has been through it is invaluable.

It is the type of topic that the more you learn, you more you realize you have a lot to learn. Those are my favorite type of topics!

Thanks for all your posts, hope you enjoy my tumbleblog as well!

-jv

Oct 18th, 2007
Travis

Skellie,

I’ll be looking forward to the next three posts with great interest! You continue to impress, turning out great posts consistently.

Btw, I had a visitor today who hadn’t heard of your blog yet, and mentioned she’d subscribed to your feed after reading a post of mine mentioning skelliewag.org! I was surprised (that she hadn’t heard of you) and excited (that I’d referred a reader to such a great resource).

Oct 18th, 2007
skellie

@ Elliott: This is a question I’ve been asked before, so I’m thinking it’s probably something many bloggers wonder about. You may have just given me a post idea! Of course, you get the information first

My feeling is that you can blog on multiple topics as long as they’re likely to be of interest to your target audience. For example, writing about Firefox, the environment, cooking and blogging probably isn’t a good idea — few of your readers will be interested in all of those things. Whereas blogging about Firefox, coding, Wordpress and so on are probably fine topic choices because there is a large swathe of web users who’re likely to be interested in all or most of those things. I think you’re doing fine, in other words.

@ Bradly, Pinyo, Reviewsaurus & Jeff: Thanks for the encouragement :). I’m about to go and write the first post in the series so you’ve given me some extra motivation.

@ Travis: I really appreciate the referal, and I do hope your reader enjoys it here.

Oct 18th, 2007
Mark - ProBloggers Matrix

WOW Skellie, What a spectacular series! Now THAT’S what I call a Signature Pillar Series! I need to read it and heed it! Plus, this page seriously needs to get stumbled and dugg and submitted to every blogging social network!

I love your blog so much Skellie, I learn so much from you and all of those other dazzling bloggers every day!

READY……….SET……….BLOG!!!!

Oct 20th, 2007
Denise

Usability comment: I came to this post from your end-of-year retrospective, but now this post feels like a dead end. You need to make it easy for me to click over to the Month 1, Month 2, and Month 3 articles.

Jan 1st, 2008