Realising how important it was to commit to blogging I vowed to blog for a year &, because I work best with a aim in mind, I set myself the challenge of getting 1000 subscribers after a year blogging with my deadline the finish of March 2010.
Like a lot of people I set up my blog as an experiment. I wanted to raise my profile as a writer & build up a blog which publishers would see as a useful marketing device.
The point of an experiment is to find out what works & what doesn't & from that point of view my experiment has been a successful four.
I picked 1000 subscribers as my aim because I read somewhere that this is the amount of subscribers a writer needs on their blog to get publishers interested. I know 1000 doesn't sound like a lot when you look at Problogger's RSS count, but I thought it was a number that was both achievable & challenging.
Although I spent a lot of time thinking about what to write about in my blog I still got it wrong. In the beginning I focused on writing a blog for people who require to move overseas but I soon ran out of steam. It was a subject I knew a lot about & loved but after about 4 months it didn’t interest me to keep me writing about it four times a week.
I started blogging in about March 2009 & there's a lot of mistakes I made during my first year of blogging that I'll do differently next time I set up a blog.
My Classic Blogging Mistakes
1. I changed my topic after 4 months
In the finish my blog topic chose itself broadening naturally to self improvement with the focus on helping people live their dream. Since lots of people have the same dream of travel & writing as me I had a nice angle & since I've been interested in travel, writing & self improvement for as long as I can recall it wasn't something I'd ever lose interest in or run out of things to write about.
As you can see from my Feedburner stats even after about 6 months of blogging in August 2009 I'd only got about 43 subscribers.
It was depressing but I'd made a promise to stick with blogging so I persevered. I even wrote a guest post for Problogger called Getting Over The Blogger's 6 Month Itch telling other bloggers why they needed to stick with it .
2. I only got my own domain name after 6 months of blogging
feedburner-stats.jpg
Because my blog was an experiment I didn't buy my own domain name or host the blog myself, it was hosted by Wordpress.
In August 2009 I got my own domain name & started hosting my blog there. That month I doubled my subscribers from 37 on August 1st to 83 on August 30th. Perhaps readers started taking my blog more seriously now I was.
3. I never invested in graphic design
There were four main problems with using Feedburner for email subscriptions. First it sent an email every time I posted which was overkill when I was posting four times a week. Secondly the emails were unbranded & ugly.
This February I switched to a different way of managing my email subscribers. If you look at the Feedburner graph that's when there's a drop off in subscribers because the email subscribers were being recorded on MailChimp. It lets me send out branded emails & is free if you have less than 500 email subscribers. I have a feeling choosing MailChimp could have been another mistake as all the professionals recommend Aweber so four times again my penny pinching could have cost me subscribers but at least my email newsletters only gets sent when I require them to, not every time my blog is updated. I can always switch to Aweber but if that happens I'll probably waste a of time changing over.
So How Did I Get 1000 Subscribers?
My husband & I threw together the look & feel of it based around the invitation for a leaving party they had in 2007. We're now working with a graphic designer to get a professional look for the blog. It will be interesting to see if that helps convert more subscribers but I'll never know how lots of potential readers & subscribers I've lost this year by not investing in graphic design at the beginning.
4. I used Feedburner for my email newsletters
Well, actually I've only got 923 so far (575 by RSS feed & 358 by email) at the time of writing I still have 16 days until my self-imposed deadline. I'm confident I'll make it to 1000 & if I don't I believe in rounding up so anything over 950 will do the job.
Here's how I did it:
If I can do it somebody can. I own a business, work from home, have two young children & run a busy household but in 12 months I still managed to set up a blog I'm proud of.
1. I kept going for the whole year even when it looked as if I'd never make it.
2. I wrote guest posts.
3. Even when my guest posts were rejected by my blogging heros I wrote more posts & tried again until they accepted four. I finally succeeded in November 2009 with guest posts on Problogger & Zen Habits. If you look at the graph again you can see a large jump in subscribers from 117 on November 1st to 478 at the finish of the month because of that.
4. I kept learning about blogging & improving my writing & my blog layout but although my subscribers rose over the next 3 months progress was slow.
5. I started posting four times a week in lieu of four times a week on my own blog so I had more time to write guest posts for other blogs because that proved the best way for me to find new readers.
6. In March 2010 with my deadline looming I went all out & had guest posts on four major blogs including Problogger, Zen Habits & Write to Done.
7. I believed in myself & ignored people who said it was a waste of time.
8. I worked hard & kept my aim in mind.
9. Four times I did set my blog topic I focused on it 100%.
10. I wrote my heart out & helped people by giving them the most useful information I had on how to make their dream come true.
Over the next year I'll be continuing the method of improving my blog by setting up the new design, adding incentives for subscribers, possibly offering a free e-book, writing more guest posts, working on my search engine optimisation & setting myself a new aim.
In March 2011 I'd like to have 5000 subscribers. But I worry it's low. Over the last year I've increased my subscribers 1000 times so if I do that again next year I ought to be aiming for 10 million subscribers but that ridiculous. Somehow I require to work out how lots of subscribers I ought to aim for after four years of blogging & then get on to it.
What have your worst blogging mistakes been & how do you measure your blog's success?
My ultimate aim is to make funds from my blog. I have a few ideas on how to do it but there's still lots of work to be done, experiments to be made & challenges to overcome. I'm looking forward to it.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
Ranking Factors
* Keyword Use Anywhere in the Title Tag
* Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag
* Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)
* Keyword Use Anywhere in the H1 Headline Tag
* Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on the Page
* Keyword Use in External Link Anchor Text on the Page
* Keyword Use as the First Word(s) in the H1 Tag
* Keyword Use in the First 50-100 Words in HTML on the Page
* Keyword Use in the Subdomain Name (e.g. keyword.seomoz.org)
* Keyword Use in the Page Name URL (e.g. seomoz.org/folder/keyword.html)
SEOmoz compiled a list of ranking factors that were rated by a panel of 72 SEO experts. According to the survey the top 10 most important onpage (keyword specific) ranking factors are:
* Keyword Use as the First Word(s) of the Title Tag
* Keyword Use in the Root Domain Name (e.g. keyword.com)
* Keyword Use Anywhere in the H1 Headline Tag
* Keyword Use in Internal Link Anchor Text on the Page
* Keyword Use in External Link Anchor Text on the Page
* Keyword Use as the First Word(s) in the H1 Tag
* Keyword Use in the First 50-100 Words in HTML on the Page
* Keyword Use in the Subdomain Name (e.g. keyword.seomoz.org)
* Keyword Use in the Page Name URL (e.g. seomoz.org/folder/keyword.html)
SEOmoz compiled a list of ranking factors that were rated by a panel of 72 SEO experts. According to the survey the top 10 most important onpage (keyword specific) ranking factors are:
Thursday, April 1, 2010
10 Ways to Improve Blog Traffic
1. Generate link clusters within your blog
A link cluster is a group of links that you can point at a post or page to improve its search engine ranking. Let’s say you have a post that’s ranked for ’stupid business ideas’. Edit 10 of your other posts to generate links (using ’stupid business ideas’ as the anchor text) to the ’stupid business ideas’ post and you will surely move up in Google for that keyword. This process can be implemented in about 10 minutes and can be used for any keyword your site ranks for or is trying to rank for.
2. Rework HTML title tags of trafficked posts
By watching your stats, you can often identify posts that get search traffic from a keyword, even though the keyword isn’t listed in the HTML title of the post. By editing your posts’ HTML titles to add the keywords they cover, you can strengthen the rankings and therefore the traffic that the post generates. You can easily make a difference with this process in less than 20 minutes. This process combines well with #1.
You can seldom ever have plenty of friends on SU and Facebook. Inviting existing readers to find you on these services with a post should take less than 20 minutes.
3. Invite your readers to connect with you on StumbleUpon and Facebook
4. Save your best posts for the best times of the week
Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have nice traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog’s stats to select when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a nice day to publish – it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up.
How can you improve your title? How can you improve your first paragraph? Tiny details in your post, in the beginning of your post, can make an gigantic difference in its ability to draw social traffic and links. You can definitely improve your title, first paragraph, formatting, and grammar within 30 minutes.
5. Edit your post one more time
6. Stop writing about yourself. Start solving problems
Surfers become readers when a blog provides something that is wanted. A casual visitor may read your blog because they find training, answers to problems, entertainment, or something else they need. This over likely will mean that they won’t need to read about you, your girlfriend, your felines, your kids, or your catastrophes (unless you have a personal blog that your friends read). Discontinuing the off-topic posts will help you to create more repeat traffic and takes exactly 0 minutes to implement.
That way, you won’t miss important news releases. When news breaks in your industry, there will be a lot of extra traffic searching for information on the event. Adding your thoughts will always generate extra traffic. Subscribing to the feeds of your industry’s top sites should take no over 15 minutes.
7. Subscribe to the feeds of your industry’s major players
8. Give a great post to a prominent blog
Let’s say that you took the time to write something great. Donating your post to a great blogger can help you to generate a win-win. The great blogger gets a great piece of content that will bring him social traffic and links and you can generate exposure for your name and brand. Emailing your post to a great blogger or blog takes less than 10 minutes.
Look at magazines. Pay special attention to the types of titles that are used on the covers. Write down the most interesting titles and think about what makes them interesting. In order to generate buzz around a post, a great title is an absolute necessity. More on this topic here: The Cosmo Headline Method for Blogging Inspiration. You ought to be able to find some nice title ideas in about 30 minutes.
9. Go to the store
10. Answer your email and comment questions
Nothing will show a reader that you care over answering an query (even if you have already answered that query 100 times on your site). Why do people read your blog? Because you solve their problems. Why will they come back again and again to your blog? Because you solve their problems. Answering a person’s email or comment query should take less than 5 minutes.
A link cluster is a group of links that you can point at a post or page to improve its search engine ranking. Let’s say you have a post that’s ranked for ’stupid business ideas’. Edit 10 of your other posts to generate links (using ’stupid business ideas’ as the anchor text) to the ’stupid business ideas’ post and you will surely move up in Google for that keyword. This process can be implemented in about 10 minutes and can be used for any keyword your site ranks for or is trying to rank for.
2. Rework HTML title tags of trafficked posts
By watching your stats, you can often identify posts that get search traffic from a keyword, even though the keyword isn’t listed in the HTML title of the post. By editing your posts’ HTML titles to add the keywords they cover, you can strengthen the rankings and therefore the traffic that the post generates. You can easily make a difference with this process in less than 20 minutes. This process combines well with #1.
You can seldom ever have plenty of friends on SU and Facebook. Inviting existing readers to find you on these services with a post should take less than 20 minutes.
3. Invite your readers to connect with you on StumbleUpon and Facebook
4. Save your best posts for the best times of the week
Writing a home-run post on a Saturday afternoon will probably happen from time to time. However, does your blog have nice traffic on Saturdays? Analyzing your blog’s stats to select when it naturally has the most traffic can get more eyes on a great post, which will translate to more social votes and more links. If you have created the post of your life, wait for a nice day to publish – it will cost you about 1 minute on a later date to put it up.
How can you improve your title? How can you improve your first paragraph? Tiny details in your post, in the beginning of your post, can make an gigantic difference in its ability to draw social traffic and links. You can definitely improve your title, first paragraph, formatting, and grammar within 30 minutes.
5. Edit your post one more time
6. Stop writing about yourself. Start solving problems
Surfers become readers when a blog provides something that is wanted. A casual visitor may read your blog because they find training, answers to problems, entertainment, or something else they need. This over likely will mean that they won’t need to read about you, your girlfriend, your felines, your kids, or your catastrophes (unless you have a personal blog that your friends read). Discontinuing the off-topic posts will help you to create more repeat traffic and takes exactly 0 minutes to implement.
That way, you won’t miss important news releases. When news breaks in your industry, there will be a lot of extra traffic searching for information on the event. Adding your thoughts will always generate extra traffic. Subscribing to the feeds of your industry’s top sites should take no over 15 minutes.
7. Subscribe to the feeds of your industry’s major players
8. Give a great post to a prominent blog
Let’s say that you took the time to write something great. Donating your post to a great blogger can help you to generate a win-win. The great blogger gets a great piece of content that will bring him social traffic and links and you can generate exposure for your name and brand. Emailing your post to a great blogger or blog takes less than 10 minutes.
Look at magazines. Pay special attention to the types of titles that are used on the covers. Write down the most interesting titles and think about what makes them interesting. In order to generate buzz around a post, a great title is an absolute necessity. More on this topic here: The Cosmo Headline Method for Blogging Inspiration. You ought to be able to find some nice title ideas in about 30 minutes.
9. Go to the store
10. Answer your email and comment questions
Nothing will show a reader that you care over answering an query (even if you have already answered that query 100 times on your site). Why do people read your blog? Because you solve their problems. Why will they come back again and again to your blog? Because you solve their problems. Answering a person’s email or comment query should take less than 5 minutes.
Search Engine Ranking Factors
Many lists have been written of the various factors used to rank websites however I've yet to see one so well researched and presented as the one on the SEOmoz website.
The contributors to this list include:
You can find the list of rankings factors along with their predicted importance and category on the SEOmoz website at http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php.
The contributors to this list include:
- Danny Sullivan
- Dan Thies
- Jill Whalen
- Scottie Claiborne
- among others
You can find the list of rankings factors along with their predicted importance and category on the SEOmoz website at http://www.seomoz.org/articles/search-ranking-factors.php.
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