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Well, another month as come to an end, and seeing as DerekBeau.com has been online for over three months now, I think it is time to start doing monthly recap posts. I will use them to highlight some of my favorite articles from the month, talk about growth, and maybe announce some news.

What About The Posting Goal?

First of all, I stated in the beginning of September that I would write 30 posts for the month. I fell short at just 29. I was going to finish off the month with this recap post, and that would have made 3o, but I decided not to. Anyways, even though I did not meet my goal, I am still very happy with the amount of articles I did write and the amount of content that is now available on DerekBeau.com. In total, all of the posts from September weight in at about 27,000 words :-)

It was an interesting experience. At times, when I tried to force myself to write, it was difficult to get the motivation to sit down and spend an hour or two working on some quality material. Other times, however, it seemed as if I had one idea after another and actually wanted to keep writing. To be honest though, I am feeling very tired out from all of this writing and might cut back on the posting frequency or article length for a short period to give myself a little break. I’m working on a lot of projects at the same time and it’s hard to find room for everything.

Blog Growth

As for the growth of this blog, I am content with how it is doing, but would like it to be doing better. Here are some statistical recaps for September:

  • Technorati ranking dropped from 100,000+ to just above 30,000
  • 3-month Alexa ranking fell to 84,412, with a one day low of about 27,000
  • PageRank still hasn’t updated, but Yahoo! is now showing ~4,000 back links
  • RSS feed subscribers increased by about 120, putting the total at +/- 300
  • Visitors and pageviews increased by 2.6x over August to ~5,000 visits
  • Search engine traffic is just starting to kick in, now up to 40-50 visits per day

This blog is fairly new, so the momentum is still building up. I am very pleased with the RSS numbers but would really like to increase the number of visitors for October. I plan to do this with guest posting, contests, and some link bait ideas that I have been thinking about.

Also during September, DerekBeau.com got a face lift. I became tired of the fact that my blog looked like so many others out there, so I decided to do something about it. I spent about three late nights getting everything done and released the new look to a warm response.

Reader Poll Results

Two polls were released during September. The first asked you what kinds of posts you would like to see more of at DerekBeau.com. This was a multi-choice poll and really helped me get a better idea of what kind of articles are the most helpful. You can see the results here.

The second poll, which is still running in the sidebar, asks how you make money online. Even though many people (including myself) make money from all different avenues, I decided to make this a single-choice poll to find out primary income sources. There have been 46 votes so far and it appears that most people are making their online money through blogging, with PPC marketing coming in at a close second.

First Contest: Get Free Advertising At DerekBeau.com

While I do plan to eventually monetize this website, I don’t plan to anytime in the immediate future. Instead, I would rather increase community participation and give the spots away for free. Every ad spot on DerekBeau.com will be given away for free. All are sitewide and include:

  • (1) Standard 468×60 header banner
  • (4) Trendy 125×125 sidebar buttons
  • (5) Sidebar text links
  • (50) Post-level text ads
  • (3) RSS feed text ads

There are four things you can do to increase your chances of winning these ad spots on DerekBeau.com, they are:

  • Leave a comment on any post - All you have to do is leave a comment on this blog and you get 1 entry. There is a limit of 20 entries per person awarded for comments.
  • Link to any page in a new post on your blog - Write a new post on your blog and link to any page on DerekBeau.com within it to receive 5 entries. This is limited to once per post (even if you link twice in the same post) but you can get multiple entries by linking from multiple posts.
  • Mention this contest on your blog - Mention this contest within any new post on your blog and receive 10 entries. This is limited to one entry per blog but you can write multiple mentions if you have multiple blogs.
  • Write a review on your blog - If you write a dedicated review of DerekBeau.com, you will receive 15 entries. This is limited to one entry per blog but you can write multiple reviews if you have multiple blogs.

Note: Aside from the comments, you must notify me via email of any entries that you submit. It will be too difficult for me to keep track of everything, especially if some trackbacks don’t go through.

This is going to take place for the entire month of October, and your ad will run for all of November. This will give you the benefit of any growth that occurs on DerekBeau.com throughout the month of October.

I will post weekly updates on the contest so that you can see how many qualified entries you have, and the final drawing results will be announced in the early A.M. of September 1st.

Unless more than 50 people enter, everyone will win something. All winners will be drawn at random from a computer randomizer program. Here are the prize tiers:

  • 1st: first choice of 5 ad spots
  • 2nd: second choice of 4 available ad spots
  • 3rd: third choice of 3 available ad spots
  • 4th: fourth choice of 2 available ad spots
  • 5th-50th: first-come choice of 1 available ad spot

So don’t miss your chance of winning some free links and advertising for your blog!

Favorite Posts Recap

Lastly, I would like to highlight some of my personal favorite posts from this past month. Many of you have probably already read them, but if you are new to DerekBeau.com, you might want to take a look:

That’s it for this month’s recap. I hope you enjoyed reading DerekBeau.com last month and will continue to read in the future. Thanks to everyone who has subscribed and who visits on a regular basis!