How has your site progressed over the past year?

Did your site reach it's 2005 goals?

[spaceylacie]

My visitors since a year ago have more than doubled. My adsense income has more than quadrupled. For 2006, I'd like to see my visitor count double again, and even if I just double my income, I'll be happy with that.

[Zygoot]

In 2005 I reached my goals.

I hope to do the same in 2006 but unfortunately this year started with a dip - and my earnings are still dropping a bit unfortunately. But I do have a couple of plans which should boost my earnings again to my previous levels and way beyond hopefully :-)

[jetteroheller]

About 50% more visitors
About 150% more revenues

My targets for 2006 are
50% more visitors
50% more revenues

[europeforvisitors]

I've always been skeptical about the value of specific goals like "increase revenue by XX% in 2005" or "become the #1 site on widgets during 2006." Such goals always remind me of marketing plans or corporate 5-year plans, which--if published between hard covers--would be shelved in the Fiction department of the local bookstore.

As for how my site progressed during 2005, it did pretty well, and it's off to a great start in 2006. In January, traffic is at record or near-record levels (about where it was at its high-season peak last summer). AdSense eCPMs are up nearly 25% from the same period last year, affiliate bookings are up hugely, and I've got a whole new revenue source that I didn't have until September of 2005 (a specialized display-ad network that represents travel publishers such as Rough Guides, Lonely Planet, and little me).

Still, good things don't always last, and if they do last, they may have interruptions. From March 23 until late May of last year, I lost 70-75% of my Google Search referrals (probably because of "canonical problems" with www and non-www versions of my URLs), and that put a dent in what normally would have been a very busy season for ad revenues and affiliate bookings. If you're going to succeed in this business, you sometimes need to roll with the punches and think long-term.

[ricey]

I was a relative newbie in 2005 but was happy with the outcome by Dec 2005.

In 2006 I have set tragets that I have control of - that is purely to add x amount of pages to my site. The traffic and ad income are not totally in my hands - so although I will work on building visitors there is little point in setting targets.

ricey

[Tropical Island]

I reached the end of 2005 by completely covering my AdWords outlays with AdSense income which was a win in terms of net dollars in my pocket.

2006 is starting off with a bang with AS revenues expected to be approx. 3x AdWord outlays for January.

For me this is a huge win. The AW costs support my B&M business so the excess in AS allows me to experiment a lot more with AW and stay ahead of the competition.

I only started AS in March and it has exceeded all expectations.

[ken_b]

I beat my hopes for 2005 by about 20% in income.

2006 is going strangely, traffic is up about 20% since the first of the year, and this would normally be a slow time for me.

But, this is the internet, so I won't spend the money till the check clears the bank.

[celgins]

Though I joined Adsense in early 2005 (February or March, I think), I never did anything with it until November 2005.

After revamping my site and adding more content, my impressions are up, CTR is up and revenues (though little) is up.

Don't know what 2006 holds, but I plan to break a few of my own records!

[Sobriquet]

i was very near to my target in last quarter of 2005, but jagger ate me up and pulled me down to nothing.

now, i am trying again, rebuilding bit by bit.

my targets are are not just total money based, but volume of 'orignal' content. Also, number of sites would go up.

my resolutions are to keep away from auto page generation systems. my fall was due to a system i used for setting up an automatic amazon shop, which had more than 3000 pages of content from amazon. amazon gave me profits, but they were not even 20%of what i lost in adsense.

if i see the total annual amount, i was about 20% short of my target last year, but if i think of reaching a target amount in december 31, i failed miserably, due to this auto page generation stuff.

[Nick Jachelson]

The year ended on a low note because the end of the year is the worst season for my widgets (as I predicted). However, 2006 started off well with the 7-day moving average increasing rather steady at $2.50 per day.

I don't think it's realistic that it will keep increasing like this for the rest of the year, but if it does I'll be pretty well off.

[JoeS]

I didn't really have any goals for 2005 but did pretty well.

I am hoping to quadruple the number of visitors this year and would like to earn 20K per month.

[Visit Thailand]

I did not quite meet my goals for 2005, but almost. Not a big worry though.

Mind you, now that I have seen pictures of the new Ferrari 599 GTB I may have to increase my projections for 2006 and start working harder! What an amazing car.

[Essex_boy]

To be able to clear a weeks wages with adsense every month.

[happyslob]

I have three sites - one recipes/crafts, one humorous housecleaning site and another on freelance writing.

All three have been making more! :) But seriously, since finding THESE amazing message boards and reading your experiences, I think I'll be able to do better than I have been. Thanks to all of you for making this a pretty inspirational place to visit.

Take care all,
Christina