Archive for Traffic Generation
SEO or Compelling Content?
Posted by: | CommentsBoth! Right?
Well, after attending a panel discussion of local bloggers in Richmond, I’m not absolutely sure.
John and Sherry Tetersik from ThisYoungHouse.com, Arnold Kim from MacRumors.com and Jeff Kelley from Tobacco Avenue made quite a few points that resonated with me.
All bloggers stated that they didn’t practice any formal SEO strategies with their blogs…and all 3 had great traffic that is continuing to grow. As a matter of fact, ThisYoungHouse.com has jumped from 800 visits per month to over 360,000 per month…in a year! No SEO folks.
Just pure, compelling, unique content that is updated 2-3 times per day. This couple actually takes photos of projects from their home, not from magazines or other sites (well, on occasion they do). They have a growing community of readers who come back again and again and post comments!
When asked how they got readers, all of the bloggers agreed…“Good, regular content”
John and Sherry added that being a good consumer of other industry-related blogs has been key for them. This means…
- Reading and commenting on other blogs
- Linking to other blogs in posts
- Adding other blogs to your blogroll
Bloggers are known for their regular give and take…link love is often reciprocated.
One more point that is pretty key, in my humble opinion, is that they all agreed that a tightly focused subject in which a large group of people are interested contributes to their success.
I did look at the number of backlinks using Yahoo! and the numbers are quite impressive:
- ThisYoungHouse = 12,619 (Blog Age – 1 year, 5 months)
- MacRumors = 1,012,788 (Blog Age – about 9 years)
- Tobacco Avenue = 9,650 (Blog Age – 1 year, 3 months)
What’s important to note about these backlinks is that many of them come from pages on their blogs…another beautiful thing about the blogging platform. Think about it if you write 3 posts a day for 1 year, you will have 1,095 backlinks. In addition, with WordPress, each category generates its own page and each tag generates a page. You’ll probably have at least an “About” page and if you build your entire site in WordPress, you will most likely have more than a few pages.
ThisYoungHouse has actually become quite popular, has been mentioned in mainstream press and has a regular column in a national magazine, so I’m sure that many of their links are from other industry-related sites who genuinely think their content is great and link-worthy. I’d have to confirm, but I’m pretty sure (based on the number of hours they spend running the site) that they are not building many of these backlinks manually. This is what happens when you have a blog that generates a great following.
So, what’s the takeaway…there are several…
- Build a great website about a topic in which you know people are interested
- Nurture your website by updating content regularly (this is a lot easier if you have a blog, so the next one is…)
- Start a blog
- Give love to other blogs
- Don’t stress out about not ranking on the first page of Google for your keyword or phrase
- Focus on doing great work and building a community of readers
Another example of great website marketing through podcasting
Posted by: | Comments…and a blog. 
Melanie Jordan consistently drives traffic to her blog through her podcast and to her opt-in list through her blog and podcast.
To hear this, you have to listen for yourself.
Here is an example from her blog:
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