April 30th, 2009 | 
Author: Just an update for all of you on my European cruises blog.. I am now starting to see an increase in traffic for my main target keywords and more importantly for my number 1 target phrase “European Cruises” and also “European Cruise”..
When I checked on Google, I have noticed that the blog has risen from the depths up to the top 30 which is great. I am hoping and expecting that I will see it on page 1 soon and start to hit the sort of income I was hoping for initially when I began this challenge. The blog isnt on page 1 yet, but the traffic coming from those keywords is not bad considering, which is quite exciting. Here is a screenshot of my analytics for just the keyword phrase “European Cruises” on Google alone.
As you can see, it is not earth shattering yet but when I get to page 1, I should see traffic of around 65 visits per day for that exact phrase alone. Please remember that this is my stat purely for the exact keyword phrase “European Cruises” and doesn’t include any of the broader phrases that also contain the same keywords like “cheap european cruises” etc…
Wow. That’s great Steve. How has the traffic, CTR, and earnings progressed to date? Still at 20% of your goal? Just wanted to say thanks for a great resource.
Hi Steve,
Thanks for the time and dedication you’ve put into keeping this blog up to date! Although you failed, it has helped me greatly and I’m sure many others. Since the challenge has ended, are you going to reveal the url? I’ve searched the first 6 pages on Google for keyword phrase “European Cruises” but have failed to locate the WordPress style you showed at the start of the challenge or anything that resembled a WordPress blog.
-Glen
I recommend a firefox plugin that makes it easier to track your website rank in all major websites for specific keywords, you can save all keywords and run the query whenever you want and look at the progress you make promoting the site (it exports to XLS so you can even make graphs if you want)
the application name is RankChecker by SEObook.com (i am not affiliated with them in case anyone is wondering)
Good luck and thanks for all the great job Steve!
Hi Steve,
just recognized your pop-up when hitting the back button (Check This Out Before You Go!) – ana statistics yet on the percentage of people clicking back into the site grom there? Interesting approach because most other pop ups you encounter are blatant advertising.
Great work Steve, I have found your site though will not mention it on here but i am using your site as a guide to design my sites i have seen you have published some articles from article dirs isn’t that going to get you done for duplicate content?