Track Traffic Data to Avoid Discouragement

I have been somewhat discouraged over the past few weeks as February has seemed like a relative bust to me. Earnings are down for my main blog and traffic seems to be decreasing as well. I even seemed to hit the wall with writing earlier this month and haven't been keeping pace to get to 400 total Hubs by the end of the year. I had even considered writing a Hub per day for the month of February, but that hasn't happened. Not even close!

So what is a poor, discouraged writer to do? Rather than going with subjective feelings, how about looking at the objective data!

Below, you can see the growth of traffic to my primary blog, Cash Flow Mantra.

I have been primarily discouraged because my visits for the past month have been declining and have fallen below the 3,000 level. I was really hoping to maintain that as a psychological data point. However, I have to remind myself that my visits for December were only just over 2100. I believe that I can still remain well above this total.

I also need to remember that, in January, I held a cash give away to celebrate 100 posts on the site. That brought a lot of one time traffic although I am sure that some have stuck around due to the publicity. I am guessing that I will level out at a new, higher plateau and continue to grow in fits and starts from this point on.

Being able to review this objective data can help me to refocus my thoughts away from the negative feelings that might prevent continued effort and growth. It is easy to get discouraged when simply looking at the day in and day out results and not perceiving any real progress.

But just as kids grow and surprise us over time, so does a blog. I can look at the graph and realize that February's traffic will not be all that bad especially when compared to November and December of last year. The blog is still growing and I can explain the spike in January traffic.

You may also notice the spike in September. That came from a link that was placed on a much more popular blog than mine. I got a lot of one time traffic and saw a decline in traffic in October. Again, it was somewhat discouraging at the time, but now I can look back and realize that this type of growth with a few steps forward and one back is natural for online activities. Now September is just a small little blip. I trust the same will be true of January when I graph all of 2012 at the end of the year.

Traffic has always seemed very difficult for me to attract. I think some seem to come by it naturally much like a salesperson can naturally sell. I am not a salesperson at heart but tend to be more analytical. That is why keeping this data for myself is so important.

Are you getting discouraged? Have you been spending an endless amount of time writing and seem to be getting no earnings or no traffic? Don't look at the day to day results. Don't look at last month. Go back 6 months. Go back one year. Look at where you were then and compare it to where you are now. I would bet that you have made more progress than you realize. Stick with it and the same can be said six months from now.