Making some money - now to boost traffic
Sunday, April 23rd, 2006
I spent last week retooling most of my web properties to include ads. It paid off! I’m quite pleased with my first week earnings, and now I’m thirsty for more. I’m going to start focusing on building my traffic more quickly.
Paul Stamatiou has taken the time to write up his tips to boost blog traffic, and I’m going to be implementing and testing them across the board on all my sites. In summary, they are:
- Usability
The site should have style, according to Paul. This article suggests otherwise, that fast-loading ugly sites sell equally as well. I’m going to have to split-test this. I do plan to make sure that every site has an easy way to contact me and to find out more about me. - Content
Stay away from reblogging, have a strong sense of your site focus. This article notwithstanding, I think I do a very good job with this already. It is just so boring to add a “me too” voice to every thing, just for the sake of adding posts. Every site of mine is focused on something that interests me. In fact, I think the focus makes it easier to come up with topics, not harder. - Technorati
Use Technorati to tag posts. I do this on every blog, and it nets a fair number of hits, especially for current hot-button items. - Blog Rings & Networks
I’ve written about this on my article 5 one time site promotion tips that pay off big. I try to make my sites as easy as possible to find when you are searching for things I’ve written about. Adding myself to such sites as IceRocket makes this ever more straightforward. - Use FeedBurner
Make it easier for people to subscribe to your feed, and for you to track how many are subscribed. - Use a dedicated domain name
I already do. I’ve never been tempted by the free services. I’m just too addicted to control. It is so easy to set up a hosting account! Use the signup code “ZEFAMILY25″ and get $25 off any subscription to Dreamhost. Last time I looked that makes the minimum price about $30 per year for the basic fully hosted acount. Dreamhost will even install Wordpress for you. - Learn about your readers
Use stat tracking packages to do this. Paul likes Mint for this, but I just use AWStats, which I think may be more accurate, since it is server-side. You need a fully-hosted environment for that, of course. - Try to get linked on popular sites
He suggest trying to get linked on sites like del.icio.us or Digg. Really any a-list link will help immeasurably.
Technorati Tags: blogging, traffic boosting, advice

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