I started my how to make a blog on October 25th so this week my blog turns one year. As I have recently achieved the 200,000 visitors landmark, I thought this was a good time to put down some of the things I have learned from the first year that I would recommend bloggers to think of when launching a new project and building blog traffic.
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Commenting on bigger blogs can bring you initial traffic
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StumbleUpon is a nice place to get the first spikes in traffic
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Use Twitter to get an audience and spread your links
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Write a guest post for biggest blogs in your field
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Keywords are a must in the domain name
- How to make a blog
- Make a blog
- How to make my blog
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Use big brands to attract attention to yourself
- 8 things every blogger can learn by studying Perez Hilton
- How Gary Vaynerchuk built a multi-million dollar empire around a video blog
- 13 blogging lessons learned from Stephen King’s On Writing
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Write magnetic headlines
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Hitting Digg or Delicious is worth it – spikes and links
My first visitor other than myself was someone clicking over from a comment I had left at ProBlogger. In those first days all my visitors came from comments I left on ShoeMoney, DailyBlogtips, Mashable, Chris Brogan and other relevant blogs. For example on November 9th 2008 I left a comment on GetRichSlowly and that sent me 15 unique visitors first day, 20 the second day and 7 the third day which was huge back then!
Read more: How one blog comment can bring you 230+ unique visitors
I started looking for targeted people on StumbleUpon fairly soon after launching the blog. First time someone stumbled my post was on November 8th 2008 and that sent me 19 unique visitors first day and 37 the second day and that was huge! Even to this day, Stumble is one of the top 4 sources of my blog traffic.
Read more: 10 Simple Steps To Increase Blog Traffic Via StumbleUpon
On November 30th 2008 I joined Twitter, immediately started looking for people in my audience and got 55 unique visitors from there on the first day. It never stopped really, so Twitter along with Google is the biggest source of my traffic.
Read more: How I got my blog post retweeted by @problogger, @GuyKawasaki and 250 more
On December 14th my guest post was published at ProBlogger and that sent me 97 unique visitors on the first day and again 97 on the second day. Writing guest posts not only sends you traffic, it gives you authority, spreads your name to a targeted audience and also gives you a great value link for your search engine optimization.
Read more: How to get your guest post featured at biggest blogs
Looking at the traffic Google sends me, the 3 most popular keywords used to find my blog are very closely related to my blog domain name itself.
If I went with MarkoSaric.com I would have had a much harder time getting ranked for these three keyword phrases.
Read more: How to choose a domain name for your blog
In some of my most popular posts I have used other brand names to attract attention to myself. It is a great strategy as these brands have many fans so it is much easier to attract them to click over to you, much easier to get them to comment and also much easier to get them to share the story with their friends. See these examples:
In RSS, on Twitter, in Google search results, we are bombarded with choices to click on wherever we are online. The only way to attract attention among tons of other blogs is to write remarkable article headlines. In my experience “how to” and “top list” headlines work the best, are very clickable and shareable.
Read more: How to write blog headlines that make people click
The spikes in my traffic are from the days when my articles went “viral”. For example my Twitter plugins article hit the front page of Digg for few minutes and sent me 2799 unique visitors on that day, then my most downloaded WordPress plugins hit front page of Delicious and sent me 3602 unique visitors on that day. These events also bring you lots of links and that improves your SEO and increases your traffic in the long run.
Read more: How I got two consecutive record breaking blog traffic days
All these factors should contribute to your blog getting a momentum in social media and search engines, and this along with you writing great content regularly, would be able to achieve you similar or even better blog traffic results in your first year in blogging.
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{ 80 comments… read them below or add one }
Congrats Marko! That is such a big accomplishment for you I bet. My blog will be 1yr as well in January, and traffic wise – we’re very far off! 200,000 in your first year is great. I’m really happy for you man, and congrats again!
Just keep working Alex, and hopefully you might have a spike or two and beat me until January!
After reading this post I checked my overall traffic as well – after 1 year it is 301 000 unique visits.
Nice way to motivate yourself
wow man, thats really impressive performance i see so far for a one year old blog. congrats man!
Yeah that article on Stephen King’s ‘On Writing’ was great. I mentioned it in one of my posts. This also creates great traffic by the way: trackbacks. Mentioning your article in my post brought me 50 unique visitors that day. Which is a lot for me.
My blog’ll be one month old next week so I’m still learning. I’ll be digging into point 2, 3 and 4 of this article tomorrow.
Anyway, Congratulations with your blog’s 1st birthday!
Wow that’s huge! You did one for this article as well. A bit sneaky but I guess it can be done without looking too spammy.
Could be a good guest post topic maybe? If you put your trackback strategy down and include some stats, I’d consider publishing it here.
That would be an honor! This trackback brought me 25 unique visitors today. I guess it could’ve been more, but I think I made a huge headline fail. You’ll be hearing from me soon.
Thank you for this opportunity!
Marko,
Congratulations on a very impressive first year with the site. Most of the success is due to the fact that the site is helpful to a lot of people. Myself, to name one.
Keep up the good work.
Chris
Great tips and they all work. The thing I’ve found about guest posts is that if you just ask, most bloggers will say yes. Also, get out to places like Blogworld Expo and meet them face to face. Priceless.
I’ve figured this one out lately myself Nathan, definitely a way to go!
Congrats on the great progress in building this blog!!
And thanks for sharing your experience!
Marko – Congratulations on the tremendous milestone in your blog. Not only is it one year old, but you put up an impressive number for traffic! There is no doubt that these tips work. The trick is to consistently put them into practice!
I look forward to your next year’s achievements!
Commenting and Stumble Upon were the biggest help to get some traffic when I started. I still don’t really understand Twitter… that may be great depending on your niche though.
Participating in relevant forums is still a big part of my daily traffic.
You should try to spend some time on Twitter and scan for some relevant keywords, there might be enough people there in your niche as well.
Forums brought me some traffic here and there, but never too much, I find it though that starting a thread works much better than just responding to one.
Happy Birthday howtomakemyblog! I love your lists! They have really helped me bigtime! Hopefully you continue the same growth next year!
Wow!! Big congrats to HowToMakeMyBlog’s first year. That’s an incredible number and hopefully a nice reward for your hard work and fantastic comment. Looking forward to the next year. Thanks for the nice tips as well.
Awesome stats Marko, congrats !
Thanks for all the nice words guys! I appreciate your support!
That is an incredible result! I love your idea about using big brands to help you. I might have to try that myself
Hey Marco,
and this time I was lucky when I checked my RSS!
Congratulations on your achievements and thank you for sharing your how to methods here!
Can’t wait to see if I can accomplish the same as you have… Let’s talk again August 20, 2010 and I will let you know!
Maria
Marko
Great stats!
Guest posting has been one of my best traffic getting activities. Once point to add on guest posting, if the blog owner says ‘no’ to your post, don’t take it personally. Simply try someone else.
Andrew
Definitely, you have nothing to lose, everything to win!
Well done Marko and happy first birthday to HTMB
well said and briefed and straight to the point! your articles is a great push to all new bloggers who wants to take their blogs to the next level.
Congrats Marko
Best,
Steit
Congrats for these figures in only 1 year and moreover thank you for your advices … even if I know that a french niche blog won’t get 200 000 visits a year.
Keep on …
Cédric
Those are impressive numbers and great tips. Thanks.
This latter part of the year is the only time I started thinking about being serious with really growing my blog more and more.. and i think the suggestions here are something that I can use a lot.
Thanks for the nice writeup..
Congrats Marco, nice doing. You may perhaps write a future post on traffic sources to your blog, like Google (organic), direct, referrals, Google (paid)..
Thanks for the suggestion, I may just do that.
Marko,
One of the most awesome things about social media is that when you get a FP like on Digg or delicious it’s like SEO on steroids. In terms of link building. It’s really amazing what you can accomplish w/ some well crafted link bait, a good headline, and a little know how.
“a little know how” is very important though, and not many know it. I still have to figure it out myself.
Congratulations Marko! Well done! It really is amazing how you’ve built the blog from scratch and attract the audience numbers you do now. Three cheers to you!
Cheers,
Keith
Congrats. This is truly timeless advice I will use. I have been six months in and I used one of the methods you mention “commenting on bigger blogs” and I got a spike in my readingship according to Google analytics.I will implement the rest as well.
Thanks
Tate
Thanks for all the nice comments guys!
Great post.
Amazing stats marko. My blog is also fairly new and I also get most/all of my traffic by commenting on related blogs. Twitter isn’t really bringing in much traffic. You’ve listed nice imnspiring tips and by showing your stats I think it inspires everyone that anyone who works hard to achieve this, will eventually get the same stats as you.
Good write-up. Thanks for the tips.
wow great tips…
keep it up!
While you have great numbers, I’m not so sure that keywords are always required in the domain name. It might make it somewhat easier to rank, but then you could lose out on your ability to brand your name. Its a tossup for me, and something that should be thought about on a case by case basis, I think.
Sure, I am just thinking more traffic wise. It will always be much easier to rank with keywords in the domain name compared to one that is branded with your own name.
Congratulations Marco! You have achieved a lot in the last year. Great work!
I love the way you interlink all your blog posts. Your posts always remind me of the importance of doing Internal links.
I do see your point in having a keyword rich domain name. But don’t you think having a focused name such as “HowToMakeMyBlog” will limit your blog’s ability to venture into other topics?
Yeah, I guess my content has to be blogging related with a domain like that. But I would say it is always best to have a niche topic you cover instead of covering multiple topics on the same blog.
Wow, and to think, I got excited when I hit 10 daily visitors! I’ve only been blogging for a few months, so this info is extremely helpful. I will try it out and report back.
Very good points. The main one that has helped our blog here at I.R. Gilyeat & Co. is blogging about big brands. It has definitely spiked our hit rate as well as increased our overall traffic.
Excellent Article, Which is the reason why you have had such great success, simple to the point reading, with headlines that grab you! Great work from a fellow Brit!
another great lesson!
i appreciate your success.
like your blog and i am becoming a regular visitor of your site.
Marco, you are a fantastic casestudy and I have been following you for a number of months now as I build up the bravery and intelligence to start my own blog. For being honest and so helpful to the rest of us – a big thank you.
Sharon
Thanks Sharon, I appreciate it!
That’s wonderful set of tips. Thanks Marko.
Though I am still a long way away – looking to get there sometime…
Congratulations! Before I started my blog I read a lot of your articles about Thesis and your blogging tips. So I learned a lot from you. That is what makes a blog very useful.
The results for your first year are really fantastic. Keep doing the great job!
Marko, I have been trying to find ways to expose my blog to a larger audience. Another blogger recommended having a contest of some sort. I decided to have a commenting contest. What do you think of this? Good idea, waste of money or what?
Thanks
Tate
Not sure, I have never run a contest. Try it out, nothing to lose really.
thanks, will share the info if it goes well.
Congratulations on your success. It’s nice to see how the little things add up, and that luck isn’t as big of a factor as people seem to think. Not that it hurts.
Nice tricks, tips and info thanks for share
Good. It is a very clear and easy to be understood and implemented especially for the newbie.
Happy Anniversary blog
or is it Happy birthday?
One of the most visted pages on one of my blogs is the page where I talk about the highs and lows leading up to our 7th birthday. I never thought of giving the blog itself a birthday!
Loving your 8 lessons and will try some of them myself.
Sarah
nice post, do you have any tips for regular websites? not just blogs
When I clicked on the link yo this post I didnt expect much because I didn´t Knew ur blog, but I got to say awesome post!!, very useful for starters like myself. You earned a new reader!
Very valueable information,I got from you.It is very helpful for the new commer like me.great stuff.
Very inspiring success story there! Congrats on your first anniversary and hope you have more success to come.
My blog is just starting and will really look up to your success
I am just hitting 40,000 at 6 months in. I don’t know if there is anyway I can try to get to 160,000 within the next 6 months. I will try and use your advice – thanks!
Great post … i am new to blogging and you have really good articles for me .. keep it up
Congrats man! That’s really very good performance, I’ve never seen such type progress from others. After reading your post I am going to check my traffic and I will try to achieve more.
WOW, I am suitable impressed.. My blog is close on year and a half, and I do not have the kind of traffic that you do. So your points are well taken.
This is my first stop over here, I found your blog via a twitter list. Can you believe that. For once Twitter Lists were useful.
My goal is to definitely try and achieve what you have achieved for the next year. Which me luck
Thanks Robert, some Twitter lists are really useful hehe all the best luck in reaching your 200,000 visitors!