I just want to say right up front that this list is by no means some “super secret” list. This list is not guaranteed to help you gain more web traffic, nor will I promise it will help you get more blog readers. That being said, this list has helped me tremendously.
First, a little background on where I’m coming from. I started dabbling in Web Marketing about six years ago. At first I was running student travel websites, using mostly affiliate programs and Google Adsense. Back then it was fairly easy to succeed online because comparatively speaking there were far fewer of us working within the realm.
During the first year I probably lost more money than I was bringing in. However, the second year I managed to pull in upper $X,XXX and it got better every year after. Was I getting a ton of traffic? Not really. But, the traffic I was getting was high quality and was easy to convert to buyers, clickers, or subscribers.
It wasn’t until about two years ago that I actually started to break in to some serious traffic on my own sites. When I say serious, I don’t mean 20,000+ visits per day, but I began seeing 150,000 unique visits per month on several of my sites, which was pretty big in my book.
What’s the secret?
Truth is… there is no secret. There is no rocket science, there is no magic wave of the Google wand, and there is no blogging SEO 101 that must be followed. Instead, I used a combination of common sense, online networking, and basic user friendly page edits.
1) Network & Reach Out
We all know about social networking. We should know by now that interacting with other bloggers and building relationships is vital, but do we actually go a step further and actively seek to help other bloggers succeed with no motive of personal reward?
This was key for me. I spent about a year seeking out bloggers who were small, but had great writing talents and who I believed could be superb additions to the highly active side of the blogosphere. Once I identified these bloggers, I worked to enable them to reach a wider audience, I gave them the attention needed to make sure they understood how the new media realm functions, and I viewed their projects and blogs as if they were my own.
Now, I find that the more these bloggers grow, the more I grow simply because they jump at every chance to promote and plug me along with any and all of my projects. And not just the promotion of my work, but also the ability to reach out to them when I have something I need promoted, linked to, or pushed out through the sphere.
Seth Godin once said “ask not what new media can do for you, rather, ask what you can do for it, and how you can immerse yourself into it”. I believe that by helping others succeed, you yourself will succeed with them.
Also vital to networking are the major social networking sites. I find that LinkedIn, while not quite as active on the social front, ranks VERY well in search engines. My LinkedIn profile has always been on the first page of results for my name and it’s a great place to plug yourself, your projects, and your web affiliations.
(By the way, you can request to link up with me using ericjodom@gmail.com.)
The second big one that has helped me is Facebook. Facebook is extremely active, and I’ve been able to grab quite a few subscribers via my feed on my profile, as well as the various Facebook groups that I run.
You can connect up with me on Facebook here.
My Facebook profile isn’t huge by any means. I only have 430 friends at the time of writing this. That being said, I actually know every one of them and have had personal contact with each of my friends at one point or another.
Which brings me to my next item.
2) Groups
I can’t express enough how important it is for us bloggers to be involved in online groups. There are many, MANY places to get plugged into a group, but the most productive for me are Google Groups and Facebook Groups.
I only belong to about ten different Google groups, but they are all very active and a lot gets accomplished. Some are political, some are internet flavored, and some are tech/geek related. But they are all active and consists of people who are interested in grouping together to achieve success online.
Facebook Groups are a different animal, but they can be just as productive. Get connected in with others and be active… it WILL pay off.
3) RSS
This is a no brainer, but for some reason a lot of bloggers do not do enough to make sure the feeds are readily available, easy to subscribe to, and quickly noticeable by the eye.
I have thousands of subscribers across all of my blogs, and they all watch what I do very closely.
4) Update Regularly
Are you not?
5) Basic, general, common sense blog SEO
This doesn’t need to be anything extreme. But you want to make sure you have good title tags, a good permalink structure, and that you link out to other sources often and generously.
For you Wordpress junkies, you can check out this great basic guide to SEO for Wordpress.
Well, that’s about it! This list alone has helped me develop a very strong network of bloggers that have helped me push stories to the front of virtually all social news sites.
I know the list sounds basic and lacking (where are the ones about e-books, directories and video?), but it’s all I’ve ever needed and it works quite well.
What about you?
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My first geeky post and I choose pagerank as the subject??? Yes, I know… terrible. But it is what it is.
