My time on the front page of ProBlogger.net is now up. My 15 minutes of fame, or more exactly 5 days, on the main page of one of the biggest “how to blog” blogs is done. This article will focus on what I accomplished by having my guest post published on ProBlogger.
The effect on the site traffic
My guest post was published on December 15th, 2008 at 12:12 am. There has already been 10 new articles published on ProBlogger since then, so it is important to note that each post doesn’t have much premium time.
- Unique Visitors
Total number of visitors from ProBlogger in these 5 days is 287, 238 of them in the first 3 days. ProBlogger sent me almost 16% of total blog visitors in these 5 days.
The traffic has now slowed down, but I expect ProBlogger to send me some 5-10 visitors daily in future as the site is so popular that even the archived posts get a good number of page views.
- Pages Per Visit / Average Time On Site
Pages per visit was 3.04 which is very good and 43% better than 2.14 pages per visit which was the blog average in these 5 days. Average time spent on site was 03:52 which was almost 67% better than the 02:24 which was the total site average of time spent on site in these 5 days.
This shows that it is very important to carefully choose a blog very relevant to your content, and write a very targeted article to a very specific kind of audience. Then you are sure to get the attention and interest, and that way you can get visitors who are very attracted to the content of your blog.
- Bounce Rate
Bounce rate was at 48.08% which means that more than half of the 287 visitors clicked on and visited another article on my blog. This was almost 28% better than the average bounce rate on my blog in those 5 days.
Your internal linking structure is a big part of your bounce rate. By linking to “popular posts” and “related posts” and including internal links within your articles, you can decrease your bounce rate and increase the number of pages visitors view per visit.
Which of the links worked best?
The guest post included three links back to my HowToMakeMyBlog.com. One from Darren as an introduction to the article and two links within the content of the post:
- In this post Marko from How to Make My Blog takes a look at how to develop a Media Kit to attract advertisers to your blog.
- Remember the key practices of writing blog content online.
- Keep working to build your blog traffic …
These are the stats for each of the links:
So the link in the introduction worked best. It was on top of the article and it was also featured in the excerpt which was on the front page of ProBlogger. The two articles within the content still did well and referred more than 100 visitors combined.
When writing guest posts, I would always recommend including a relevant link to your blog, where the reader can find more detailed information. Note how I included good anchor text in my links.
This will bring you another authority link to a page within your blog, with good anchor text description and will also give you direct traffic as readers will click to find more information.
What was the effect on the RSS subscribers?
My RSS feed subscribers increased from 90 on December 13th, to 150 on December 18th. So 60 new RSS subscribers in the first 5 days of my guest post being on ProBlogger.net. 40 of 60 subscribed within 24 hours of the post being published.
Important part of the RSS subscribers increase was that I used a very targeted message on top of my blog for all visitors from ProBlogger.net.
Welcome to ProBlogger readers! If you’ve found my article useful, please subscribe to my RSS feed for updates on similar topics about blogging.
See more details on how to welcome you blog visitors in style.
Conclusion
Getting guest blog spots is a very good way of getting good quality inbound link, a good number of direct visitors to your blog and a good number of new RSS feed subscribers. I would recommend it to any new blogger.
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{ 28 comments… read them below or add one }
I did not check, but were the links no followed?
If not, I would suggest you stumble an digg your guest post as well as send some article marketing links to it. As you know, you get the PR6 juice from him as long as you stay on the front page, but when you fall off, it will drop.
If you could get the PR of the post up, that would be a great juicer for the future.
(BTW–I read the article and got a lot from it, but did not know it was yours. I follow you on Twitter)
–AL
@Lawn: links were dofollow from what I see. Hopefully Google will recognize them at some point. I did submit at Stumble and Digg. Thanks for tips and for following!
@Dayne and @Rowell thanks for commenting and following!
@Sarah: as everything I have written until now, it is a service to other bloggers who are working on getting their blogs to grow. About traffic, any kind of traffic can be monetized, even the RSS subscribers. So creating content people find valuable and getting loyal readers is always a step number 1 to anything you want to achieve with your blog. Without loyal visitors, there is not much you can do.
@Sid Savara: I hope so. If I see any other trends, I will surely write about it.
@Geoserv: yeah traffic was alright but SU did bring more visitors in those 5 days. As I wrote Problogger referred around 15% of my traffic on those 5 days. But it was very quality traffic as you see from Analytics stats in the article. Very much worth going for it in my opinion!
@Roman: I was surprised when I saw that big jump on the first day as well! The plugin and message I used might have been part of it, try experimenting with it yourself.
Thanks for sharing your success story Marko!
This is very good information. Guest posts have been something I have been looking into and this information is really going to force me to put more effort into it.
I’ll also have to look into media kits now.
I found your blog via Twitter. I look forward to your future posts.
Thanks.
Very impressive stats there. Great analysis of your guest post and congrats on the rise of rss subscribers. Every blogger should invest some time writing guest posts. The results are rewarding.
OK, I read what you are saying here, and the question comes to me, as a neophyte:
“WHAT TANGIBLE BENEFIT DOES THIS AVAIL YOU?”
Getting read and reviewed is great in the blogosphere*, but what else are you benefiting?
* It seems like it is similar to seeing how many people will sign your yearbook. It is an ego boost to see how popular you are, but it does not pad the wallet.
Please expound at your leisure.
Blessings,
~Sarah
http://www.musevoxvoiceover.com
Well done, nice analysis.
I’m sure that there are other small things that add up (search engine visitors over time, a slow trickle of visitors over time etc). I would guess the “burst” you analyze is probably 50% of the benefit, and the rest comes slowly over the next days months and years.
Fantastic analysis. I am however surprised at the low numbers of traffic. I was assuming that you would have received far more visitors than 287.
It’s a good chunk but don’t you get that from SU?
The difference would be the quality of traffic.
I was impressed with your RSS subscription numbers though, it surprised me that it would result in such a big leap.
All in all good job, excellent post and analysis and again congrats.
Wow, I am very impressed in the jump of RSS readers.
This just goes on to show that when you get the right people to your website then the conversion rates (visitors > RSS subscribers) can be top notch.
About 20.9% of visitors from problogger subscribed to your RSS feed – I’d say that is an extremely good conversion rate!
Thanks, Marco. I have considered approaching several blog owners and asking them if I could do a guest post. I just need to get my nerve up! I have been invited by a blog owner to guest post. He particularly selected me, and told me to contact him in the future when I was ready. You have given me new incentive. Thanks for this post.
Krissy
my main blog: Sometimes I Think
my twitter: http://www.twitter.com/iamkrissy
@krissy: glad I could help! When you have content you are satisfied with, just go for it, you have nothing to lose.
Congrats on the guest post and the well deserved bump in traffic. I appreciate the tips in your post here, especially the tips on helping to reduce your bounce rate. I have received as many as 400 hits in a day via StumbleUpon, but with an abysmal bounce rate of over 90% and a PPV of just over 1.1. In addition to working hard to create quality content, I’ll be using some of your tips to help keep visitors on my site. Thanks!
@Evan: thanks, I am glad it is useful! Social media is tricky sometimes. Just checked from Nov19-Dec19 my StumbleUpon bounce rate is 73.9% and PPV of 1.40 so yeah it is very hard but surely should be worked on as all traffic is valuable and can be optimized.
I agree Marko that the traffic was definitely quality traffic compared to SU.
Good Insights
Thanks for sharing,
Wow. Great stats. I need to craft my perfect guest article…
That’s great. I love Darren’s blog.
The power of guest posting on problogger.
Thank you for this solid case study!
I’ve read that if you use your blog as a case study ON the problogger blog, it can convert REALLY well with traffic. Of course, this requires you do something really amazing prior to the guest post, to give the readers a solid reason to click through. I saw this done with Strong Lifts. Other bloggers even picked up on the story and did their own case studies. It was really fascinating to watch. Darren actually talks about this somewhat in his comments here: http://www.mytropicalescape.com/2007/11/27/the-problogger-and-zenhabits-effect-a-look-at-guest-post-traffic/
Thank you for the detail of your analysis – it was really intriguing! Have subscribed via RSS now and will probably be commenting heaps in the future. Hope you don’t mind me asking too many questions in the comment sections lol, I’m naturally very curious.
Hey Marko,
great post! I just started out a few weeks ago, so I’m very much still learning. I especially appreciate the heads up reg reducing my bounce rate, I’m going to implement a few things right now to fix my blog up a bit. Stumple Upon also sounds interesting, will be having a look into that as well. Thank you for all your help. Happy Holidays Marko
Annie
Great analysis Marko, cool to see what the numbers look like from the inside — thanks for sharing.
I never knew what bounce rate meant! I thought it meant how fast the person left my site. I was just talking to a friend today and she indicated that is what she thought it meant, too! Great post! Thanks!
Excellent post and analysis on the effect of your guest posts on Problogger.
I think many people pitch guest blog requests hoping for a flood of traffic – and your posts certainly did bring you a decent amount of initial traffic – but you touched on two benefits that are quite a bit more important:
1) New RSS subscribers; and
2) Long-term residual traffic.
I’m a big fan of building trust with my readers and sticking with a slow, steady long-term strategy, and these benefits support that approach. I’ll take 60 new RSS subscribers and a steady stream of residual traffic over thousands of new visitors any day.
Thanks Marko for sharing your stats.
@Lee, Blogger’s Workshop: Could you elaborate a bit more as to why would you prefer 60 new RSS subscribers over thousands of new visitors any day. Any good advantage with the approach ?
Wow!
This morning I found your article because I recently submitted a guest post to Darren at Problogger. I read the article and thought… “Man that would be so awesome!” Then I just went over to Problogger and “shazaam” I was the guest post for the day! Yippee!
I am definitely looking at this as long-term and am just excited that Darren would accept it. To read it the article: Problogger: How Sports Teach me to be a Better Blogger”
That’s really a great result. Today I saw your comment in problogger and I thought to see your result. It’s amazing. I knew guest posting works well but I did not have idea this much.
Cheers Marko!
Thanks! It works very well and should be used by all bloggers mostly because of the branding perspective and the SEO benefits. Some clicks here and there is just a plus.
Hey that’s great you got some visitors from problogger.com. My question is though, did you send them to this blog or a squeeze page. I would be good to capitalize on those visitors rather than just let them go away!
Hey that’s a lot of visitors you got. The problem for us though is that is is not so easy to be able to guess post on top blogs if we are just starting out. So I would love to know what are your recommendations!