Increasing blog readership

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Oscarpop

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Now before I get accused of blatantly selling our blog on here. I promise you I am not. In fact I am not going to mention it's name on here. I'm sure it exists somewhere on the blog part of the site, but I can't do much about that now.

So. We have a blog, a Web domain name. Facebook page, twitter account and have started blogging ( about sailing).

Problem is I can seem to generate much interest in it. This could be because it's dull, however even our visitor counter is showing no activity.

Can you lovely people please advise on how to increase traffic, aside from he measures I've already done.

Also, from my research on he Internet, there is a suggestion that you "guest blog" on other sites. Can anyone give me some suggestions of who to approach, and whether they have any helpful hints.
Ta
 
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Oscarpop said:
Now before I get accused of blatantly selling our blog on here. I promise you I am not. In fact I am not going to mention it's name on here. I'm sure it exists somewhere on the blog part of the site, but I can't do much about that now.

So. We have a blog, a Web domain name. Facebook page, twitter account and have started blogging ( about sailing).

Problem is I can seem to generate much interest in it. This could be because it's dull, however even our visitor counter is showing no activity.

Can you lovely people please advise on how to increase traffic, aside from he measures I've already done.

Also, from my research on he Internet, there is a suggestion that you "guest blog" on other sites. Can anyone give me some suggestions of who to approach, and whether they have any helpful hints.
Ta
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I for one dont give a monkey's about people advertising their businesses on here ad long as they contribute as well. Indeed i think it should be encouraged. So tell us what it is and then we can tell you if its dull or not!!
 
The first three things that drive traffic to your site are content, content and content.

Then active links through to Social media.... links to your posts on FB, Twitter, Google+ etc

Produce lots of content updates. The most popular blogs are updated very regularly, some several times a day.. not that this is neccessarily appropriate for a sailing blog, but if you only update it once a month, traffic growth will take forever.

Then links to your site from other respected sites.... get your site up on Google rankings... think about unique keywords... you'll not compete with the big boys on popular keywords like sail, boat, etc.. Guest blogging helps here, as you'll get a link from a respected site, and possibky carry a few readers over with you... but its hard to get a slot on a decent blog.

Last, but not least.... patience. It takes a good while to build up traffic. I've been doing my blog for just coming up 10 years, and the traffic has slowly but steadily grown over that period. And in that time i've done approaching a thousand entries, which is nowhere near enough.... I have unique keywords I use regularly, that are individual to my blog that index near the top on Google... it works slowly... yet I still only get around 1500 to 2000 pages views a month, which in Internet terms is vanishingly small.
 
roblpm said:
I for one dont give a monkey's about people advertising their businesses on here ad long as they contribute as well. Indeed i think it should be encouraged.
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Not that I'd actively object but if I applied the whole mindfulness thing to my reactions I'd say that I find people starting threads saying (explicitly or implicitly) "look at my new blog post" rather annoying. I don't seem to have a negative reaction to people putting their blog url in their sig. At least start with that. Having said that I'm even too embarrassed to do that for my blog, but it's reasonably technical so there may come an opportune moment on PBO to post a link....
 
Just looked at your blog Oscarpop... its great.... nicely laid out, and well written.... your traffic problem will almost certainly be related to volume... 3 posts since September. You need to be doing that many a week!

PS, Oscarpop is obviously, to his credit, concerned about annoying people by posting links.. But I don't have to concern myself with that, so here it is...

http://rumsodomyandthelash.com

:D
 
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Oscarpop said:
Now before I get accused of blatantly selling our blog on here.
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No one can accuse you of blatant egomania if someone explicitly asks you where to find your blog. Where is it then? (and you can be entertained by the visitor count once you post the link :-)

[Edit: Ah: see PoH has just obliged...]
 
Why would you want to drive traffic to your blog if not for commercial reasoning? Not trying to be provocative, just trying to understand why you care whether you have a high hit rate or not?
 
PoH has hit the nail bang on the head

Content, content, content

The key question you need to answer is "who am I blogging for?"

Our blog, I decided long ago, is primarily written as a log / diary for my own amusement and that if family and friends. Thus I care not a jot if weeks or even months go by with no updates

But if you want to drive traffic to your site on a wider front and significant scale you're going to have to find something interesting or erudite to say virtually every day or have a USP like "Keep Turning Left"

And even if you drive the traffic up into thousands of hits, you won't make any real money (if that was ever the intention). It is,just about, possible to make a living out of Web advertising revenues on a blog / website but you need content of the highest quality and lots of it and you need to invest a huge amount of time building your profile up

(and I don't think a sailing based blog would ever generate enough traffic, it's too small a market)
 
Erbas said:
(and I don't think a sailing based blog would ever generate enough traffic, it's too small a market)
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Where did Panbo come from - real niche stuff.

I'm guessing, that like writing - if you are interesting, strongly motivated, know your stuff and find an empty niche - you can get the numbers up and if you are really serious (with some luck) can make money.

But not many meet the criteria.

Jonathan

edit - Panbo took some real patience before it became mainstream close edit
 
J Neeves said:
Where did Panbo come from - real niche stuff.

I'm guessing, that like writing - if you are interesting, strongly motivated, know your stuff and find an empty niche - you can get the numbers up and if you are really serious (with some luck) can make money.

But not many meet the criteria.

Jonathan

edit - Panbo took some real patience before it became mainstream close edit
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Yes, Panbo is a good example of a site that is very specialised, uses lots of unique and targeted keywords that make it attractive to Google, and has carefully constructed, high value content. There is a very similar one in my other area of interest, triathlon, with a guy that leads on the technology element and has similar levels of success at www.dcrainmaker.com

I bet neither of them are making much money out of it though... for sure, they'll be making some, but not what many on here would call a decent living. In order to make money out of advertising revenue alone, you need tens of thousands of page views a day, let alone a month, and that's probably just scraping by.

My own blog is run very much along the lines of Erbas' motivation above.... I run it for me, a few friends and family, and frankly, don't care about making money out of it, in fact, don't want to. The only motivation for page views is my own ego, and that's robust enough to not lose sleep if the site isn't read! I do however, know a fair bit about this subject, having led projects building and running some of the biggest B2B sites in the UK. (I'm also smart enough to know that I'm no genius when it comes to the written word, and that my content will never cause heart palpitations :D )
 
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Tradewinds said:
Does Demonboy make a living out of his website?

http://www.followtheboat.com

It feels like it's a more than just an amateur blog.
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I very much doubt it. The closest I got, was when I set up ThreePointFix (which is now deceased), and hit about 2,000 page views a day. To give it some context, that made £45 a year from advertising revenue. Didn't even cover the hosting costs. I could have done much more with it... I had the idea to get charts on line, had written a good chunk of the code, and even had an agreement with the Admiralty, well before visitmyharbour, appeared on the scene, but didn't have the time to devote to it alongside a full time stressfull job.
 
Phoenix of Hamble said:
The first three things that drive traffic to your site are content, content and content.

Then active links through to Social media.... links to your posts on FB, Twitter, Google+ etc
Click to expand...

Erbas said:
PoH has hit the nail bang on the head

Content, content, content
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Absolutely can't agree. You could blog every day about the most wonderful subjects.
That doesn't attract traffic.

The only way to attract traffic is to have a presence where there is already traffic.

http://www.mastermindblogger.com/9-killer-ways-to-make-your-blog-popular/

OK. Once someone visits you have to make it a must-read destination. But attracting readers without promoting is like winking at a pretty girl in a dark room. You are the only one that knows you are doing it.
 
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Robih said:
Why would you want to drive traffic to your blog if not for commercial reasoning? Not trying to be provocative, just trying to understand why you care whether you have a high hit rate or not?
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That's what I don't get.

Looks like a nicely done site for keeping friends and family informed and involved - and presumably you send them a direct link

Beyond that not sure why anybody else would want to go there - "couple gone sailing" is a great adventure for the couple, and I wish you well, but not particularly unique for the rest of the world

And the domain name will certainly cause some issues for anybody browsing from work computers, and presumably some search engines - that is certainly an own goal unless bikini pictures are going to become the driver of traffic (like one other yacht couple blogger seemed to do quite successfully)
 
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The thing that annoys me most about blogs is that when you log on for the first time you are reading the last entry and have to scroll down many yards/years of entries. Is there a way of logging on to the first part of the blog without reams of previous. :blue:
 
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