I just read a fascinating series of blog posts from Sodaware - about advertising, and how much traffic you can get for $19.95.
He examined a whole slew of different advertising and marketing methods, both free and pay - for the pay ad services, his budget was $19.95, and for the free marketing, he set a time limit of a half hour. This was a smart way to compare services, because as they say, nothing is free - your time is worth something too. A lot of times, it's more efficient to just pay for advertising than to spend hours on fruitless "free" ads.
Read part 1, the introduction and part 2, the results.
Many of Sodaware's results were as to be expected, but some lessons are worth repeating - like good targeting is key to successful ads. You'll get better results with ads on a well-targeted, medium-traffic side, than poorly-targeted ads on a huge-traffic site.
It's interesting to see the variety of uses and traffic that each ad service can bring - Stumbleupon users are low-attention-span, high-bounce visits that can spark a viral wave of traffic, while a well-targeted ad placed on a highly relevant site can bring in newsletter subscriptions and loyal readers. Which type you choose is up to you, or it could behoove you to diversify your tactics to get both loyal readers and viral bursts.
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How much traffic does $20 bring you?
December 19, 2011 advertising, blogging, marketing, website traffic, websites
Traffic from PostZoom
June 4, 2011 blogging, website traffic, websites
A few weeks ago I signed my main blog up to PostZoom. It's a website meant to be a directory of categorized blog posts, bringing quality posts to visitors and some extra traffic to bloggers. So, does it work? Let's see...
There are two things you need to do in order to start getting traffic from PostZoom. First, you have to have the widget on your blog. This widget can go anywhere - I put mine in the sidebar. The widget shows other blog posts from categories that you get to choose, and you can display as few or as many of these as you like. I like that you can choose the categories, so the only posts that show up in my widget are ones that are relevant to my readers.
Next, you load your blog posts into PostZoom. This takes some time, because you can only load two posts in per day to prevent spamming (which makes sense). Load some of your most interesting and informative posts into PostZoom, making sure to place them in a relevant category with a snappy image and good tags.
PostZoom will not give you a huge upsurge in traffic, but it will give you a little bit. As a not-very-active Entrecarder, I get about the same amount of traffic from PostZoom and Entrecard. The more posts you load into PostZoom, and the more popular those posts are, the more traffic you will be able to get from it. Unfortunately, you are likely never to make the main front page of PostZoom, because those posts are sorted by traffic. So the ones on the main page get clicked on more, bringing up their traffic, and leading into a vicious circle. But, you may find yourself at the top of your category, which will give you a little bit more traffic.
I don't trust PostZoom's internal statistics - if you click on the stats section of their website, they will give you some high number that will not match at all to your other analytics programs. I think those statistics are for the individual post pages on PostZoom, not your site. However, if you use an independent analytics program like Google Analytics or Sitemeter, you will be able to see PostZoom as a referrer and track how much traffic you are getting from them. It won't be a huge amount, but if your traffic is low to begin with, then it will make a difference.
There are two things you need to do in order to start getting traffic from PostZoom. First, you have to have the widget on your blog. This widget can go anywhere - I put mine in the sidebar. The widget shows other blog posts from categories that you get to choose, and you can display as few or as many of these as you like. I like that you can choose the categories, so the only posts that show up in my widget are ones that are relevant to my readers.
Next, you load your blog posts into PostZoom. This takes some time, because you can only load two posts in per day to prevent spamming (which makes sense). Load some of your most interesting and informative posts into PostZoom, making sure to place them in a relevant category with a snappy image and good tags.
PostZoom will not give you a huge upsurge in traffic, but it will give you a little bit. As a not-very-active Entrecarder, I get about the same amount of traffic from PostZoom and Entrecard. The more posts you load into PostZoom, and the more popular those posts are, the more traffic you will be able to get from it. Unfortunately, you are likely never to make the main front page of PostZoom, because those posts are sorted by traffic. So the ones on the main page get clicked on more, bringing up their traffic, and leading into a vicious circle. But, you may find yourself at the top of your category, which will give you a little bit more traffic.
I don't trust PostZoom's internal statistics - if you click on the stats section of their website, they will give you some high number that will not match at all to your other analytics programs. I think those statistics are for the individual post pages on PostZoom, not your site. However, if you use an independent analytics program like Google Analytics or Sitemeter, you will be able to see PostZoom as a referrer and track how much traffic you are getting from them. It won't be a huge amount, but if your traffic is low to begin with, then it will make a difference.
Entrecard and Project Wonderful: Hidden Gems
April 30, 2011 advertising, entrecard, website traffic
As you're dropping Entrecards, you may notice that a lot of blogs feature Project Wonderful advertising. Project Wonderful is a pretty neat service, because it allows advertisers to compete for ad space in an 'infinite auction'. It's win-win for advertisers and publishers, because the publishers get a fair price for their ad space, and advertisers can get some good deals. If an ad space is in demand, the price rises. If it isn't in demand, the price falls, and advertisers can even get ad space for free.
When I spot free ad space on blogs, I tend to submit my ad, because why not? Extra exposure is always good. Project Wonderful shows you traffic stats, sortable by geographical region, to help you determine how much you want to bid. And herein lies the great combination of Project Wonderful and Entrecard advertising.
Inside Entrecard, blogs are sorted by how popular they are IN ENTRECARD. There are blogs with Entrecard widgets, that get a lot of traffic. But on Entrecard, they are low in the listings, because not many people drop on them. Entrecard statistics are totally irrelevant outside of the Entrecard community. But, Entrecard allows you to advertise on websites without any monetary cost.
So, the trick is this: As you're dropping, look for the low-EC-cost blogs. Check their traffic via Project Wonderful, if they have PW ads. You could score some fantastic deals, if a blog is not active on Entrecard, but gets good traffic! When you find these 'hidden gems' on Entrecard, add them to your favorites and then you can keep advertising on them, for a low EC price (which also means free, since ECs aren't money).
The reverse is also true: there are high-ranked EC blogs which get virtually no traffic outside of Entrecard and Adgitize. Don't waste your credits on advertising there, because it won't be worth much.
When I spot free ad space on blogs, I tend to submit my ad, because why not? Extra exposure is always good. Project Wonderful shows you traffic stats, sortable by geographical region, to help you determine how much you want to bid. And herein lies the great combination of Project Wonderful and Entrecard advertising.
Inside Entrecard, blogs are sorted by how popular they are IN ENTRECARD. There are blogs with Entrecard widgets, that get a lot of traffic. But on Entrecard, they are low in the listings, because not many people drop on them. Entrecard statistics are totally irrelevant outside of the Entrecard community. But, Entrecard allows you to advertise on websites without any monetary cost.
So, the trick is this: As you're dropping, look for the low-EC-cost blogs. Check their traffic via Project Wonderful, if they have PW ads. You could score some fantastic deals, if a blog is not active on Entrecard, but gets good traffic! When you find these 'hidden gems' on Entrecard, add them to your favorites and then you can keep advertising on them, for a low EC price (which also means free, since ECs aren't money).
The reverse is also true: there are high-ranked EC blogs which get virtually no traffic outside of Entrecard and Adgitize. Don't waste your credits on advertising there, because it won't be worth much.
Four ingredients for website traffic
April 25, 2011 blogging, search engines, website traffic, websites
Everyone who has a website wants more traffic coming into it. Unfortunately, webpages are a dime a dozen and most will languish in obscurity. There are a million articles about how to drive traffic to your web site, but here's my take.
There are four main ingredients for increased web traffic: participation, originality, time, and a good dose of luck.
1. Participate. Being active in the community will not only give you more backlinks, but it gives you a chance to show people your opinion and information is valuable. It helps if you're already a member of communities that are related to your site topic, but if you're not, there's no time to start like the present. If you can help people out with your knowledge or participate in debates with your opinion, and people get to know you or even respect you, they will want to see more of what you write.
2. Be original. They say there's nothing new under the sun. But, there is always a way to put a new twist on an old concept. If you have original content, people will find you. If you have something that people can't get anywhere else, then well, they will get it from you! When you've got something that is actually unique to say, other people will pick your story up and link to you. Try to find something that is truly yours, and run with it.
3. Be patient. The traffic might not come rushing in, but in time, it will grow. An older website not only has a better pagerank, but the author has had more time to write more articles and develop their style. The more articles you have, especially if they are original, the more people will find you by searching.
4. Get lucky. Sometimes, there isn't anything you can do; the dice just decide your fate for you. That's OK. Work hard at the other three steps, and maybe you will get a new wave of traffic, or maybe nothing will happen -- until, one day someone catches your story - you get Digg'd, or Slashdotted, or Stumbled Upon, or whatever. It happens to some people and it doesn't happen to others.
I get a fair, but not huge, amount of traffic on one of my other blogs, so here is my real-life example of putting these ingredients into action:
1. I'm very active on a forum targeted to my readers, not in order to increase my web traffic, but because I earnestly love my hobby (knitting). I read and learn things from others, and I contribute when I can.
2. I write informational articles garnered from my own experience, not cribbed from other sources, and I also design patterns, both for sale and free. Both drive traffic to my site. Patterns are original content, that people cannot get anywhere else, so I am providing them a service -- and if they like it, they will return and I've gained a new reader.
3. I've been blogging for more than three years, averaging at about 2-3 posts per week. That's a lot of posts - not all my content is gold, but sometimes the search engines pick up the things you'd least expect. I'm one of the only people to have written about a certain technique, so I get a good amount of traffic from that (which ties back in to original content).
4. Every once in a while I get a surge of traffic from a big site - which is great. I get a few new followers, my advertising prices shoot up, and while most of those new visitors don't stick around, at least a few will. So, ignoring the spikes, my traffic rises steadily, if slowly. And the more that these spikes happen, the more exposure you get, so it builds exponentially. Nowadays, whenever I release something new, I will get a big spike.
Hopefully you can put some of these things into action, and it will do you some good.
There are four main ingredients for increased web traffic: participation, originality, time, and a good dose of luck.
1. Participate. Being active in the community will not only give you more backlinks, but it gives you a chance to show people your opinion and information is valuable. It helps if you're already a member of communities that are related to your site topic, but if you're not, there's no time to start like the present. If you can help people out with your knowledge or participate in debates with your opinion, and people get to know you or even respect you, they will want to see more of what you write.
2. Be original. They say there's nothing new under the sun. But, there is always a way to put a new twist on an old concept. If you have original content, people will find you. If you have something that people can't get anywhere else, then well, they will get it from you! When you've got something that is actually unique to say, other people will pick your story up and link to you. Try to find something that is truly yours, and run with it.
3. Be patient. The traffic might not come rushing in, but in time, it will grow. An older website not only has a better pagerank, but the author has had more time to write more articles and develop their style. The more articles you have, especially if they are original, the more people will find you by searching.
4. Get lucky. Sometimes, there isn't anything you can do; the dice just decide your fate for you. That's OK. Work hard at the other three steps, and maybe you will get a new wave of traffic, or maybe nothing will happen -- until, one day someone catches your story - you get Digg'd, or Slashdotted, or Stumbled Upon, or whatever. It happens to some people and it doesn't happen to others.
I get a fair, but not huge, amount of traffic on one of my other blogs, so here is my real-life example of putting these ingredients into action:
1. I'm very active on a forum targeted to my readers, not in order to increase my web traffic, but because I earnestly love my hobby (knitting). I read and learn things from others, and I contribute when I can.
2. I write informational articles garnered from my own experience, not cribbed from other sources, and I also design patterns, both for sale and free. Both drive traffic to my site. Patterns are original content, that people cannot get anywhere else, so I am providing them a service -- and if they like it, they will return and I've gained a new reader.
3. I've been blogging for more than three years, averaging at about 2-3 posts per week. That's a lot of posts - not all my content is gold, but sometimes the search engines pick up the things you'd least expect. I'm one of the only people to have written about a certain technique, so I get a good amount of traffic from that (which ties back in to original content).
4. Every once in a while I get a surge of traffic from a big site - which is great. I get a few new followers, my advertising prices shoot up, and while most of those new visitors don't stick around, at least a few will. So, ignoring the spikes, my traffic rises steadily, if slowly. And the more that these spikes happen, the more exposure you get, so it builds exponentially. Nowadays, whenever I release something new, I will get a big spike.
Hopefully you can put some of these things into action, and it will do you some good.
'Above the Fold' - history of a design term
March 6, 2010 history, website traffic, websites
If you've done anything with web design, if you have a website, or especially if you use Entrecard, you've probably hear the term 'above the fold'. What exactly does it mean, and where does it come from? This internet website design term actually has much older, and quite interesting, origins.
In a web design context, your above the fold content is what your reader sees without having to scroll down. How much is above the fold depends on the reader - people have different sized screens and different resolutions. I see a lot less on my little EeePC screen than a gamer with a high definition 1920x1080 monitor. But in general, a header and some blog content are going to be 'above the fold'.
The term 'above the fold' actually has its origins in newspaper publishing - important stories and photos were placed above the fold - on the top half of the folded newspaper page. When you're first handed a newspaper, you look at the top half first. It was an easy transition from newspapers to websites, since the top area of a webpage is the first thing the reader sees.
~Joy
In a web design context, your above the fold content is what your reader sees without having to scroll down. How much is above the fold depends on the reader - people have different sized screens and different resolutions. I see a lot less on my little EeePC screen than a gamer with a high definition 1920x1080 monitor. But in general, a header and some blog content are going to be 'above the fold'.
The term 'above the fold' actually has its origins in newspaper publishing - important stories and photos were placed above the fold - on the top half of the folded newspaper page. When you're first handed a newspaper, you look at the top half first. It was an easy transition from newspapers to websites, since the top area of a webpage is the first thing the reader sees.
~Joy
Adgitize blog advertising network for traffic and money!
August 11, 2009 advertising, blogging, make money, passive income, website traffic
I love Adgitize! After mediocre results with other advertising programs, both as a publisher and an advertiser, Adgitize has restored my faith in running ads and in displaying ads. Adgitize is a program that works for me, and boy does it work great.
Adgitize for publishers is based on a points system, with a maximum of 500 points per day. You get points through clicking on ads, pageviews, ad views, being an advertiser, and writing a blog post for the day. Your points are converted into money, and at the end of the month you get paid.
To advertise for the month on the Adgitize network costs $14 - and every month that I have advertised with Adgitize, I've earned more than my $14 back. Usually I earn about $20-$25 advertising with Adgitize.
Adgitize also works especially great for people who are Entrecard members, because you can do your Adgitize ad clicks and Entrecard drops at the same time, with very little effort.
I highly recommend the Adgitize advertising network. It is growing every day and giving more and more bloggers success. Advertising on Adgitize has given me 2000 extra visitors per month, for $14 that gets paid back to me at the end of the month. If you publish blog posts regularly (write posts in advance) and do your clicks, you will probably make back the $14 Adgitize ad cost (that's 50 cents per day).
Give Adgitize a try, especially if you already use Entrecard. I find it hugely rewarding.
~Joy
Adgitize for publishers is based on a points system, with a maximum of 500 points per day. You get points through clicking on ads, pageviews, ad views, being an advertiser, and writing a blog post for the day. Your points are converted into money, and at the end of the month you get paid.
To advertise for the month on the Adgitize network costs $14 - and every month that I have advertised with Adgitize, I've earned more than my $14 back. Usually I earn about $20-$25 advertising with Adgitize.
Adgitize also works especially great for people who are Entrecard members, because you can do your Adgitize ad clicks and Entrecard drops at the same time, with very little effort.
I highly recommend the Adgitize advertising network. It is growing every day and giving more and more bloggers success. Advertising on Adgitize has given me 2000 extra visitors per month, for $14 that gets paid back to me at the end of the month. If you publish blog posts regularly (write posts in advance) and do your clicks, you will probably make back the $14 Adgitize ad cost (that's 50 cents per day).
Give Adgitize a try, especially if you already use Entrecard. I find it hugely rewarding.
~Joy
Google PageRank: What is it, how is it calculated, why is it important?
July 26, 2009 blogging, search engines, SEO, website traffic, websites
The word on every blogger's lips is PageRank, or PR for short. If you're new to blogging and your blog is your first website, you might not understand what PR is, or what exactly it means, or indeed why is Google Page Rank important.
In a nutshell, your page rank will help determine how high or low you fall in Google's search results. A very big, successful website will have a high PR which means that when someone does a search on Google, chances are that big, high-pagerank website will be near the top. So why is Google pagerank important? Page Rank is important because the higher your PR, the more search engine traffic you will be getting!
A note: Google PageRank is not the same as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They both influence where a site will turn up in search results, but they are independent of each other. A search engine optimized page may not have a high pagerank, nor will a high-pagerank website necessarily be written for SEO.
Your website's Google page rank is sort of like your reputation with Google. Google knows that some sites are better than others, and this influences their results. While the exact algorithms for determining PR are top-secret, here are some of the things that go in to calculating Google PageRank:
Links. Backlinks are the most important factor for determining Google pagerank. Google assumes that if many people are talking about a page, if the page is linked to by many other websites, then it's a quality page. Think about popular sites that get spread around by sites like Digg and Reddit. Lots of people are talking about those sites, so they have a ton of backlinks. More backlinks = more PR.
The best way to get backlinks is, of course, to have quality content that gets noticed. If your page gets Dugg, or Stumbled, or Redded...it? (;), lots of people will see it and hopefully some of them will link to you on their own site. The amount of PR boost you get from a backlink depends on the PR of the site that's linking to you. So if you get a backlink from a huge site like Digg (PR8), it counts more than a link on someone's PR1 blog.
Other ways to get backlinks include commenting on blogs, participating in forums (linking your site in a post, or in your signature), and other techniques that range from kinda sneaky to downright unethical, which I won't discuss here.
Backlinks are the major influence on the calculation of Google PageRank. However, a few other things are taken into account:
Outbound Links. Links on your own site can affect your own PageRank: Namely, they can negatively impact it. If you have too many links on your page (to the tune of over 100), this will give you a penalty. Also, if you link to websites that Google has marked as shady, you may get a penalty for that as well.
Bounce Rate. Rumor has it that Google PageRank (or at least their general search engine ranking) is affected by a site's bounce rate. Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that leave the first page of a website without visiting any other pages. Bounce Rate is very high for blogs, and lower for other sites where more information is held on other pages. A low bounce rate (say, 40% or lower) reflects a quality site.
Age. Older sites have higher PR. Whether the age of a site is a factor in calculating PageRank, or whether it's just a reflection of more time to build pages and collect backlinks, I don't know, but if you have the choice between two domains, one which was just registered and one which is 5 years old, go with the older one for a PR boost.
Page Rank is a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Only the most esteemed sites get PR10, such as Apple's official site, Google Labs, and Nasa.gov.
There are a number of sites that will calculate or estimate your pagerank for you, as well as toolbars you can download. Google releases updated PR info every few months, but in reality a page's Google PageRank is always changing. So, the Google PageRank that you see might be 3 months out of date. Keep this in mind when comparing your site's PageRank with other sites.
~Joy
In a nutshell, your page rank will help determine how high or low you fall in Google's search results. A very big, successful website will have a high PR which means that when someone does a search on Google, chances are that big, high-pagerank website will be near the top. So why is Google pagerank important? Page Rank is important because the higher your PR, the more search engine traffic you will be getting!
A note: Google PageRank is not the same as Search Engine Optimization (SEO). They both influence where a site will turn up in search results, but they are independent of each other. A search engine optimized page may not have a high pagerank, nor will a high-pagerank website necessarily be written for SEO.
Your website's Google page rank is sort of like your reputation with Google. Google knows that some sites are better than others, and this influences their results. While the exact algorithms for determining PR are top-secret, here are some of the things that go in to calculating Google PageRank:
Links. Backlinks are the most important factor for determining Google pagerank. Google assumes that if many people are talking about a page, if the page is linked to by many other websites, then it's a quality page. Think about popular sites that get spread around by sites like Digg and Reddit. Lots of people are talking about those sites, so they have a ton of backlinks. More backlinks = more PR.
The best way to get backlinks is, of course, to have quality content that gets noticed. If your page gets Dugg, or Stumbled, or Redded...it? (;), lots of people will see it and hopefully some of them will link to you on their own site. The amount of PR boost you get from a backlink depends on the PR of the site that's linking to you. So if you get a backlink from a huge site like Digg (PR8), it counts more than a link on someone's PR1 blog.
Other ways to get backlinks include commenting on blogs, participating in forums (linking your site in a post, or in your signature), and other techniques that range from kinda sneaky to downright unethical, which I won't discuss here.
Backlinks are the major influence on the calculation of Google PageRank. However, a few other things are taken into account:
Outbound Links. Links on your own site can affect your own PageRank: Namely, they can negatively impact it. If you have too many links on your page (to the tune of over 100), this will give you a penalty. Also, if you link to websites that Google has marked as shady, you may get a penalty for that as well.
Bounce Rate. Rumor has it that Google PageRank (or at least their general search engine ranking) is affected by a site's bounce rate. Bounce Rate is the percentage of visitors that leave the first page of a website without visiting any other pages. Bounce Rate is very high for blogs, and lower for other sites where more information is held on other pages. A low bounce rate (say, 40% or lower) reflects a quality site.
Age. Older sites have higher PR. Whether the age of a site is a factor in calculating PageRank, or whether it's just a reflection of more time to build pages and collect backlinks, I don't know, but if you have the choice between two domains, one which was just registered and one which is 5 years old, go with the older one for a PR boost.
Page Rank is a scale from 1 to 10, with 10 being the highest. Only the most esteemed sites get PR10, such as Apple's official site, Google Labs, and Nasa.gov.
There are a number of sites that will calculate or estimate your pagerank for you, as well as toolbars you can download. Google releases updated PR info every few months, but in reality a page's Google PageRank is always changing. So, the Google PageRank that you see might be 3 months out of date. Keep this in mind when comparing your site's PageRank with other sites.
~Joy
Entrecard for increasing blog traffic
July 24, 2009 blogging, entrecard, website traffic
Using Entrecard on your blog - it's a controversial topic, gaining more controversy by the day it seems. And they like it that way - the Entrecard view is, there is no such thing as bad publicity. Entrecard creator Graham Langdon has said "I’m always amazed how controversy drives record numbers of signups."
Depending on how you use it, Entrecard can be a powerful force of good or bad on your blog. It can drive you a significant amount of new traffic, forge relationships with other bloggers, and give you a load of free advertising. Or, it can be little more than a glorified traffic exchange. It all depends on how you choose to use Entrecard.
Entrecard is great to use on a new blog that doesn't have much 'Google juice' yet. It's discouraging to start up a blog and see that it only gets single- or double-digit hits a day. Feedback like visitors and comments are important to a new blogger, to give them suggestions for improvement and confidence to continue blogging. Entrecard may be just the boost you need for your new blog.
Entrecard is a blog network where you drop your 'Entrecard' - sort of a virtual business card (a 125x125 ad) - on other blogs, using the Entrecard widget. Every Entrecard blog has this widget that you can drop on or advertise on. Dropping on a blog gives you one point, as does receiving a drop.
Advertising is based on powers of two, depending on how many people want to advertise on a blog - it starts out costing 2 credits, then 4 credits, 8, 16, 32, and so on. The multiplication breaks down in the higher numbers, for no apparent reason, but that's not important. Each Entrecard ad runs for 24 hours.
You can see what blogs have dropped on you by viewing your Entrecard Drops Inbox, and it's good etiquette to drop back on the blogs that have dropped on you. If you choose to do this, and only this, then Entrecard is just a traffic exchange. They visit you, you visit them.
However, Entrecard doesn't have to be a traffic exchange. It can be more valuable than that. You can use it to find new readers in your niche, targeting your drops and advertising towards blogs with a similar audience. You can also find new related blogs to read, learn from, and comment on.
Entrecard has recently introduced a cashout system where you can cash out your Entrecard credits at a rate of 1000 credits for $1. Some people have taken advantage of this, but I prefer to put my credits right back into the system for free advertising. For me, credits don't accumulate fast enough to make cashing out worthwhile, and Entrecard is more important to me for the traffic it brings and the advertising it offers.
Despite its bumps and screwups (if you don't know what I'm talking about, Google Turnip of Power, or the Official Entrecard blog - read some comments), I find Entrecard to be a useful service for bloggers, especially new blogs starting out. Depending how active you are on Entrecard (dropping, commenting, advertising), it can bring you between 50 and 200 extra visitors per day. For a new blog, this is an important traffic boost that can give you just the confidence you need to continue blogging.
Depending on how you use it, Entrecard can be a powerful force of good or bad on your blog. It can drive you a significant amount of new traffic, forge relationships with other bloggers, and give you a load of free advertising. Or, it can be little more than a glorified traffic exchange. It all depends on how you choose to use Entrecard.
Entrecard is great to use on a new blog that doesn't have much 'Google juice' yet. It's discouraging to start up a blog and see that it only gets single- or double-digit hits a day. Feedback like visitors and comments are important to a new blogger, to give them suggestions for improvement and confidence to continue blogging. Entrecard may be just the boost you need for your new blog.
Entrecard is a blog network where you drop your 'Entrecard' - sort of a virtual business card (a 125x125 ad) - on other blogs, using the Entrecard widget. Every Entrecard blog has this widget that you can drop on or advertise on. Dropping on a blog gives you one point, as does receiving a drop.
Advertising is based on powers of two, depending on how many people want to advertise on a blog - it starts out costing 2 credits, then 4 credits, 8, 16, 32, and so on. The multiplication breaks down in the higher numbers, for no apparent reason, but that's not important. Each Entrecard ad runs for 24 hours.
You can see what blogs have dropped on you by viewing your Entrecard Drops Inbox, and it's good etiquette to drop back on the blogs that have dropped on you. If you choose to do this, and only this, then Entrecard is just a traffic exchange. They visit you, you visit them.
However, Entrecard doesn't have to be a traffic exchange. It can be more valuable than that. You can use it to find new readers in your niche, targeting your drops and advertising towards blogs with a similar audience. You can also find new related blogs to read, learn from, and comment on.
Entrecard has recently introduced a cashout system where you can cash out your Entrecard credits at a rate of 1000 credits for $1. Some people have taken advantage of this, but I prefer to put my credits right back into the system for free advertising. For me, credits don't accumulate fast enough to make cashing out worthwhile, and Entrecard is more important to me for the traffic it brings and the advertising it offers.
Despite its bumps and screwups (if you don't know what I'm talking about, Google Turnip of Power, or the Official Entrecard blog - read some comments), I find Entrecard to be a useful service for bloggers, especially new blogs starting out. Depending how active you are on Entrecard (dropping, commenting, advertising), it can bring you between 50 and 200 extra visitors per day. For a new blog, this is an important traffic boost that can give you just the confidence you need to continue blogging.
You need Google Analytics for your website!
July 11, 2009 blogging, search engines, SEO, website traffic, websites
--Or something like Google Analytics, anyway.
Google Analytics is a free, easy-to-use method of gathering statistics on your website. You put a small piece of code into your website, and Google will start collecting data on your visitors. You will receive information on how many people are visiting, how long they are staying, what browser they are using, what search keywords or what websites they are coming from to get to your site, and much more.
Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool, and the best thing about it is that it's totally free. I could expect to pay a high monthly fee for such a service. I have Google Analytics code installed on all four of my websites, and I'm very happy with it.
Google Analytics has a bit of a learning curve, because it's so powerful, but there are many things you can learn from the Google Analytics data. To start out simple, let's see what search engine keywords are bringing people to your website. After you have installed the code, wait a few days for Google Analytics to gather data.
Once Google Analytics has collected some visitor data for your site, scroll down to the Traffic Sources pie chart. If you have a red wedge in your chart, that's your search engine traffic. Click 'view report' and view the full keyword report.
It's very important that you know what search keywords are driving people to your website or blog. When you find out what keywords are working, you can work on making sure those keywords are used more often.
Sometimes, you will get search engine traffic from a search term that is not addressed on your site. For instance, on my knitting blog one person searched for "how to dye roving". I don't have a how-to article about dyeing roving on my blog, but it sure would be a good idea to write one! Make sure that when your readers are searching for something, they will get what they want to find. Google Analytics will help you identify what people are searching for when they come to your page.
That's just one of the ways you can use the power of Google Analytics to improve your website or blog. There are other ways too, so poke around on Google Analytics and learn something about your visitors.
~Joy
Google Analytics is a free, easy-to-use method of gathering statistics on your website. You put a small piece of code into your website, and Google will start collecting data on your visitors. You will receive information on how many people are visiting, how long they are staying, what browser they are using, what search keywords or what websites they are coming from to get to your site, and much more.
Google Analytics is an extremely powerful tool, and the best thing about it is that it's totally free. I could expect to pay a high monthly fee for such a service. I have Google Analytics code installed on all four of my websites, and I'm very happy with it.
Google Analytics has a bit of a learning curve, because it's so powerful, but there are many things you can learn from the Google Analytics data. To start out simple, let's see what search engine keywords are bringing people to your website. After you have installed the code, wait a few days for Google Analytics to gather data.
Once Google Analytics has collected some visitor data for your site, scroll down to the Traffic Sources pie chart. If you have a red wedge in your chart, that's your search engine traffic. Click 'view report' and view the full keyword report.
It's very important that you know what search keywords are driving people to your website or blog. When you find out what keywords are working, you can work on making sure those keywords are used more often.
Sometimes, you will get search engine traffic from a search term that is not addressed on your site. For instance, on my knitting blog one person searched for "how to dye roving". I don't have a how-to article about dyeing roving on my blog, but it sure would be a good idea to write one! Make sure that when your readers are searching for something, they will get what they want to find. Google Analytics will help you identify what people are searching for when they come to your page.
That's just one of the ways you can use the power of Google Analytics to improve your website or blog. There are other ways too, so poke around on Google Analytics and learn something about your visitors.
~Joy
How soon will your blog get search engine traffic?
July 9, 2009 blogging, search engines, SEO, website traffic
Websites can get a large portion of their traffic from search engines, so it's always a waiting game wondering how soon a new site will start appearing in search results. You can submit your site to the search engines, give them site maps, and ping them, but how soon will people be able to search for you?
On July 7, my book review blog This Girl's Bookshelf got its first search engine hit. The search was for Bookmooch, which I had written an article about on July 6. The blog itself is a little less than a month old.
I'm very new at trying to write search engine optimized articles, but it's encouraging that my brand new article on my brand new blog is coming up in the Google results. This Girl's Bookshelf almost certainly has a pagerank of 0 at this point, but it is showing up in Google Search.
My websites are not very strong in search engines yet. My oldest and largest blog, Joyarna Knitblog, has a PageRank of 2 but search engine traffic only accounts for about 2% of my total traffic. Most of the terms that I get search traffic from on that blog are very specific knitting phrases. I do not try to write SEO-optimized articles on my knitting blog. Instead, I just write how I would normally write.
I discovered that I got my first search engine hit by using Google Analytics, which is a powerful and important tool for anyone running a website.
I was very happy that I didn't have to wait long for my first search engine hit on my blog. Older sites do tend to do better on Google, but new sites can indeed show up in results.
~Joy
On July 7, my book review blog This Girl's Bookshelf got its first search engine hit. The search was for Bookmooch, which I had written an article about on July 6. The blog itself is a little less than a month old.
I'm very new at trying to write search engine optimized articles, but it's encouraging that my brand new article on my brand new blog is coming up in the Google results. This Girl's Bookshelf almost certainly has a pagerank of 0 at this point, but it is showing up in Google Search.
My websites are not very strong in search engines yet. My oldest and largest blog, Joyarna Knitblog, has a PageRank of 2 but search engine traffic only accounts for about 2% of my total traffic. Most of the terms that I get search traffic from on that blog are very specific knitting phrases. I do not try to write SEO-optimized articles on my knitting blog. Instead, I just write how I would normally write.
I discovered that I got my first search engine hit by using Google Analytics, which is a powerful and important tool for anyone running a website.
I was very happy that I didn't have to wait long for my first search engine hit on my blog. Older sites do tend to do better on Google, but new sites can indeed show up in results.
~Joy
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