February has come to a close. It was my first full month of running this blog. How exciting! I’ve made some major steps. I’ve joined a blog network, rewrote parts of my About page (although there’s more to come there), and created the first Boombox podcast episode. All in all it’s been a good month.

Happenings in February

I wrote an article that received quite a bit of traffic entitled “Creating Your Blog’s Perfume Page.” I wrote many other accomplished posts, including a followup post to the perfume page one. I’ve made many connections with other bloggers throughout February. I think that’s the prized accomplishment. I’ll do my earnings report right here: I made fifty dollars!

Traffic and Subscription Report

Before we jump into February’s results, I want to look back over the goals I set for myself.

February’s Goals

1. Receive 200+ unique visits a day.
2. Increase my page views and time spent on site. I want a sticky site.
3. Network with other bloggers.
4. Join in discussions on the Bloggeries.com forum more often.
5. Guest post at least once.
6. Comment often on other blogs in my niche.
7. Raise exposure through Entrecard.

I think I’ve accomplished many of the goals for February. I raised my exposure on Entrecard by offering various services for sale in the shop. I have networked with other bloggers. My pageviews increased quite well. I didn’t do a guest post, but have agreed to do on one a neighboring site. I’ll do that soon, maybe this week. And I think I’ve commented quite a bit on other sites.

Now for the numbers:

Pageviews: 7,880
Unique Visits: 4,953
Time on Site: 1:45

Top Referral Sources: Entrecard with 1,169 and close second to Stumbleupon with 1,018.

Organic Searches found my site 103 times. I brought people for keywords of my site name, Nantucket, and spandex mostly. I need to work on that.

The most viewed page on my site was the homepage, with the most viewed article being the 100 Why Not Activities for Bloggers.

RSS Subscriptions

Many of you can now monitor my RSS subscriber numbers with me. On the first day in February, I had 41 subscribers. Today I have 60 subscribers. I had a high of 62 earlier this week. I hope to build that number by at least another 20 in the coming month.

Goals for March

Let’s hope March continues to expose my blog to new readers. I have joined a blog network and am seeing a good amount of traffic from that already. I am going to focus more on writing quality content this coming month, and try to take my eyes off the stats. I think it makes me too jumpy and sensitive.

1. Receive 200+ unique visits a day.
2. Increase my page views to over 10,000.
3. Increase time spent on site to average over 2 minutes. 
4. Network with other bloggers.
5. Guest post at least once.
6. Comment often on other blogs in my niche.
7. Raise exposure through Entrecard.
8. Increase RSS subscription numbers by 20.

Upcoming Explosions

I’m going to write a post on how to podcast. Believe it or not, there were not many sources of inspiration on this topic. I found no end-all-be-all posts on the subject. I want to create the how to podcast post to rule them all.

I have already begun thinking about my next boombox podcast. My wife says it needs to be more interesting. I agree, but the first one was just me testing out everything. Ok, no more excuses. The next one is going to rock!

Other’s Explosions

I want to start a new section on Sundays where I look at other posts throughout the week that influenced me. I have found quite a few recently that intrigued me.

Andrew Pavelski has started a new series focusing on successful blogs and how they got to be that way. I loved the first installment, and hope everyone takes a minute to check it out.

Jeff at BuzzMyBlog.com ignited a quality discussion about Entrecard this week. Graham Langdon responded with an in-depth view of the Entrecard economy. It’s a good read.

Mr. Javo will be celebrating his birthday this month. In recognition of that fact, he’s holding a contest to give away quality ad space and Entrecard credits. He even has a Jason Boom dot com banner on there! Go wish him a happy b-day by signing up for the contest.

It’s been another week. But its also been an exciting week, since this blog’s turned one month old. It seems like I’ve been blogging for a long time now, but only a month has passed by. It’s truly been a great experience. So on to this weeks happenings.

 Happenings this Week
I’m excited to announce I’m now a seller in the Entrecard shop. This week I spent a good amount of time racking up Entrecard credits to do an advertising push. In the meantime, I noticed more and more sellers in the shop selling everything from Stumbles to site reviews. I thought, I have some good ideas I can put in there. Why not shoot Entrecard support an email?

I’m currently selling a post idea item for 30 ECs, under the Consulting category. If you’re interested, you can pick one up here. I’ll be putting up other items this week as well.

Milestone Reached! Some of you may have noticed that I reached an exciting milestone this week. I now have 54 subscribers according to Feedburner’s count! Since I passed the imaginary 50 barrier, I thought it was time to include the Feedburner counter on the site. Have you seen it yet?

Site Tweakings. Thanks again to Si Philps for helping me sort out the div problem in my site’s header. I’ve included a random banner at the top, as well as an announcement box on every page. I hope to create a stickier website, with those images pulling in new readers to interesting content.

Guest Post. I posted a guest post on Buzz My Blog this week (who recently had a guest post on John Cow).  I’ve also been asked to guest post on a neighboring blog on a semi-occasional basis. I’ll reveal more on that later. I have also been commissioned to take the reins on a new blog. I’m looking forward to that opportunity.

Posts. I think my post was overlooked yesterday. I had some server trouble late in the evening and believe the email RSS didn’t go out on time. For those who didn’t see it, check out the interview with the Second Life character Kabalyero. It’s an exciting look into marketing and branding in the virtual world.

From the engaging comments, the Blog Perfume page post was a big success. I’m working on a followup to that discussion, as many readers had relevant questions that opened up new ideas for me. That will be coming this week.

Which brings me to…

Upcoming Explosions
As was just mentioned, I’ll be writing a second part to the art of branding through smell. It may evolve into a larger series as well. We’ll see.

I’m going to do a Podcast soon. It will be a trial thing. I think everyone has voiced their opinions and I will give it a shot.

As always, this week will find me hard at work providing new content, lively discussions, and exploring new opportunities. If you haven’t done so this week, backup your Wordpress installation. You may regret it otherwise.

Why do we spend our days writing blogs? I’ve thought about this, as I’m sure all bloggers have at some point in their blogging careers. As with anything, its as much about the lifestyle as it is about the blog itself. We create content, network with other bloggers, join communities, rate blogs, write comments, surf listings, seek out new online thrills, buy advertising, sell advertising, trade links, buy links, fret over traffic, add widgets, join RSS feeds, gain readers, and have a great time doing it. All of which I’ve enjoyed doing this first full week at this blog.

The appeal of making money sure does sound great, but when that becomes the primary goal of anything it tends to outshine the other inherent qualities. Do we blog to make money, to increase our awareness of writing itself, to join communities, or do we do it simply because we love to blog? I think its the latter. We love this stuff. This is how we build a strong reader base.

I want to hear from you. I want you to tell me why you blog, either in a blog post or in the comments here.

This week I’ve seen other people’s blogs used in many different ways. I’ve seen blog posts written on the devastating effects of cancer, how to build strong ties to fellow bloggers, on topics similar to my own, and I’ve joined fellow bloggers in an attempt to win favorable ad space on CyberStreet Report.

Upcoming Posts
This week on JasonBoom.com we’ll be running a contest of our own. The details of that will be made public either Monday or Tuesday. Be sure to check back for that. We will also be starting a few new series of blog posts. The first of which will be powder keg reviews. The idea behind the powder keg is they can unlock a lot of potential for your blog. We’ll be reviewing new blog community sites, tools, widgets and plugins in this series.

The Weekly Implosion
This week has been jam packed with information, since the blog just went live under the Jason Boom name one week ago. I’ve made friends, photographed my office, did a quick review of what other bloggers have been saying, discussed the change of my blog name, unveiled the stellar logo, participated in Lorelle’s travel post challenge with this gruesome entry, submitted a guest blogger post to the vacationing cow, and a whole lot more.