The Secret Of Lots Of Blog Hits

My blog 67 Not Out has now had virtually 2.4 million visitors, so it has gone quite well.

I was asked, "How did you do this?"

It's no real secret - you just keep on going, day after day with new posts. Actually, thinking about it, that is the big secret!  Too many people set up blogs and soon get disappointed when floods of visitors fail to arrive to read their words of wisdom.

On 67 Not Out I've now published just over 730 posts.  Now here's the strange bit. Most of these posts keep on getting hits week after week throughout the year. So the number of visits increases as time ticks by.

It's often the back posts that makes the number of visitors look much healthier.

It's obvious why.  If you have just, say, 20 posts then you only have this number of entries in the search engines to attract visitors.  But if you have 700 posts - well, you get the message.  Your back catalogue of posts - as in the book business or the music industry - will make you money by bringing more visitors.  Think how someone like Paul McCartney is still getting royalties on early Beatles hits from 40+ years ago. It's similar with blogging.

Of course with blogging posts there are still the sensible rules to follow to get good results from search engines, and also from social networking sites.  One of the important secrets, however, is to keep on going, and have lots of posts floating about the Blogosphere.

The more fish you have in the water the more fish you are likely to catch.

Coincidence and Synchronicity: Coincidence stories and examples.

Make Money With Your Old Blog Posts

This may sound pretty obvious but I must admit that it has only recently dawned on me.

From most blog statistics it's usually possible to see which posts are pulling in the most visitors. I usually find there are about ten that get the most referrals from search engines and often from other places as well.

So I used to look at these and say to myself something like, "Look at that! One of my old posts from last year is still attracting traffic. Who would have thought that." And then I would move onto something else, some other statistic or interest and that's it.

Well that's what I used to do anyway.

What dawned on me was that these particular popular posts were potential money makers - or at least they should be.

If a lot of people are visiting these posts doesn't it make sense to check them over and see if they could become more profitable? Perhaps by adding or amending an advert or program on the post, for example.

As I've often said I believe the most money is made from individual posts and not from the banners in blog side columns. If this is true, and it is as far as I'm concerned, then it makes sense to see that high traffic posts are monetised to the best possible advantage.

By this I don't mean flooding them with ads but there should be something on them that could possibly make you money. If there isn't, then an opportunity has been lost.

I would therefore suggest checking which posts are pulling in the traffic, say monthly, and then double checking that these are 'selling' whatever it is that you are currently promoting.

Good luck,
Mike.

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The Money Making Blog Numbers Game

I think a lot of bloggers, especially newer ones, wonder how they are getting on traffic wise compared with other blogs.

They sometimes believe that the average blog is getting hundreds and hundreds, if not thousands, of hits. After all, more established bloggers shout it loud when their traffic hits new heights. Must admit I've done this myself.

This can cause newbies despondency when their own blogs perhaps aren't attracting as much attention as they had hoped.

So lets have a reality check!

These are figures based on my own personal research (you are welcome to disagree). Anyway, this is how I see comparative traffic figures.

Supposing there are 5000 blogs picked at random. To be in the Top 100 you would need around 850 visitors a day, but to be in the Top 500 you'd need only about 100 and for the Top 1000 just 50.

At the bottom of the list would be blogs with just 1, 2 or 3 hits.

You see the truth is that the majority of blogs are far from successful and most don't make much money.

This fact shouldn't put anyone off blogging because with just 100+ regular hits you'll be in the top 10% of the blogging elite.

Below are some traffic figures, plucked out of the air, showing where they would place a blog in a random selection of 5000 blogs.

To be in ...

6th position would need about 7213 hits (per day)
13th position would need about 4782 hits
21st position would need about 2687 hits
45th position would need about 1898 hits
65th position would need about 1422 hits
70th position would need about 1296 hits
75th position would need about 1110 hits
80th position would need about 858 hits
94th position would need about 844 hits
108th position would need about 593 hits
279th position would need about 193 hits
393rd position would need about 166 hits
370th position would need about 145 hits
480th position would need about 131 hits
506th position would need about 104 hits
622nd position would need about 70 hits
687th position would need about 81 hits
703rd position would need about 73 hits
819th position would need about 62 hits
907th position would need about 43 hits
3563rd position would need about 3 hits
5000th position would need about 1 hit

Does all of this really matter? Nope, not a bit. With money making blogs it's about how much money you actually make, whether this is with 100 visitors or 10,000 hits.

The truth though, as I see it and keep mentioning, is that it is all a numbers game. The more traffic you can attract to a blog the more money you'll make.

With say Google AdSense you may well need 10,000 page impressions to make $10. If you, therefore, have 10,000 impression a day you'll make $3650 in a year but if you have 100 page impressions a day you'll only make $36.50 a year.

Traffic is therefore virtually the most important thing needed to make money with blogging.

Yes there is good and bad degrees of traffic, quality is important, but ultimately if you attract the right amount of traffic - any traffic - you'll make money.

It's the same as a salesman talking to people at random. If he talks to some people he'll make some money, but if he talks to a lot of people he'll make lots of money.

If a guy at a formal dance asks one or two girls to dance he'll get one or two dances, if he asks lots of girls to dance he'll get lots of dances.

If a ... you get the message!

Good luck,
Mike.

P.S. John has emailed me that his latest Proven Earners Carnival is now published.

Images Bring Traffic

I was checking through my stats for yesterday and it suddenly struck home the value of images for attracting visitors to blogs. It's something that we, well I, often overlook. Below are the search engine referrals for yesterday for my celebrity blog.

Search Engine Referrals Nov 26, 2007

As usual Google heads the list, as it no doubt does for most blogs, but in third place is Google (again) but for Image Searches. For me 52 referrals from them for yesterday was a very worthwhile contribution.

Of course some blog niches lend themselves more to images (photos) than others but they are always of value.

Firstly because they make posts more interesting. And there's that saying about a picture being worth a thousand words and to a degree this can be true.

If, for example, I had simply written in this post that I had 'xx' amount of search engine referrals it wouldn't have had the same authority as seeing the actual report from which I got the information. Images can also confirm what we write is true.

The second reason is, because of what I have already said, images can produce hits/traffic/referrals or whatever else you may want to call them.

From my own experience I believe that it's best to name the image exactly what it is. Many people just give them a number - I'm sure search engines appraciate this.

It's also important, I feel, to use "alt" and describe what the photo is.

Some say alt was originally introduced in case the image wasn't always visible, because of differing formats. This may be true but it's also an opportunity to use a keyword and maybe a couple of other secondary words - all useful for SEO. Seemingly Yahoo search engine likes this.

So sprinkle a few images, photos, illustrations around your blog and at the very least it will make it more pleasing on the eye. Hopefully it may bring a few additional benefits as well.

Good luck,
Mike.

Blogging Good Blogs. Books on blogging and how to become a successful blogger.

Worldwide Blogging Brings Home The Bacon On Cliche Day

I'm going to bore you again with statistics today. This sort of follows on from my posts on Sunday, Monday and Thursday. zzzzz .... zzzzz ....

This time it's about where in the world visitors came from - during August - and how long they stayed.

First a map! This is from Google Analytics and all of the world with a shade of green indicates this blog had visitors from those countries in August. The white spaces are where I've missed out. Not too successful in Africa.

For August the blog visitors came from 72 countries - though there has been hits from 149 countries since the blog began. I must admit I'd be hard pressed to point to some of them on an atlas.

The two main countries are the USA and here in the UK where visitors stayed for 7mins 02secs and 7mins 52secs respectively.

It's interesting though that people from Singapore stayed much longer at 18mins 09secs and the longest stayers in this blog's top 20 countries were the Mexicans at 25 mins 28secs. It was the Germans that liked me least and only hung around for 1min 52secs - could be a language thing I suppose. I won't say anything more on that as my wife was born in Germany.

Does all of this information help? A little as it once more emphasises the potential of blogging. The whole world is our oyster - and other such naff cliches.

What it does show is the value of affiliate marketing which is truly international. It's probably why the likes of friends and contact programs work so well.

Of course we can get carried away with stats and spend too much time perusing them. It's much more important to actually get on with things and do what 'brings home the bacon' - Friday must be cliche day. Not sure why I mentioned bacon as I'm a vegetarian.

Tomorrow is my Money Making Report - see you all then.

Good luck,
Mike.

Other reading:
Money Making Test: Friend Finder Group

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