Reaching the Milestones
When I started this blog, I did so to meet a personal challenge. My goal was to see if I could blog each and every day, see what would happen in terms of traffic and page rank by doing so, and get some creative flow going. So far, so good! I’ve hit 120 articles and have been blogging consistently for over three months now, which is something I wasn’t sure I could do. Quite frankly, when I started out, I wasn’t sure if I could think of something to write about every day. It turns out, there’s plenty to write about!
Kudos to Reason Magazine for its Web 2.0 Technology
Constantly evolving Internet technologies is just one fertile area of many that provides something to review in a blog. For example, I was totally impressed with Reason’s online live coverage of the presidential debates last night, in which the magazine invited Bob Barr, the Libertarian candidate, to participate in real time.
CAPTION: Screen shot of Reason's online debate coverage.
With over 1,000 viewers logged in, the live stream was surprisingly good. There were a couple of times that the sound disappeared, but by refreshing the page, the debates would load quickly and the sound was restored. While the debate was taking place, viewers could comment in the chat area on the right of the screen. Bob Barr handled the debate questions and comments wonderfully, and you could hear a lot of hooting and clapping from the audience. From a small business perspective, live telecasts such as what Reason put together for the debates would be an awesome way to market. Thanks, Reason!
Google Page Rank Update and Alexa Traffic
It appears that Google is either in the midst of a page rank update, or it has just finished updating PR. I didn’t think this blog would get any rank for at least six months, but it turns out that it got a rank of 1.
CAPTION: Google Page Rank as of September 26, 2008
For back links, I’ve been submitting to web directories and a few marketing blogs that are free to use. Meanwhile, traffic has been climbing steadily, and much faster than I had expected.
After hovering around an Alexa Rank of 10 million for the first week, the blog jumped to 7 million, and then started climbing in traffic pretty quickly after that. On Labor Day weekend, I was showing a friend the rank, and it was around 568,000. Today, it’s hit an Alexa traffic score of 366,558.
CAPTION: Alexa traffic score as of September 26, 2008
In case you’re wondering where these screen shots came from, I use a Firefox plugin called SEO Quake. You can get it here.
Why Am I Telling You This?
If you are sitting on the fence about starting a blog, it’s time to jump off and make a commitment to yourself. The holiday season is around the corner, and having an active site, whether it’s a blog or e-commerce site, will pay off for you. Believe me, as a self employed small business owner who regularly puts in 12 hour work days, if I can write totally unique blog content every day, so can you. You’ll probably do a better job of it. The main thing is to start set up your blog and start writing.
Consistent blogging is a good way to generate traffic to your other sites by linking to your main site(s) in your posts or blog roll, can be a good method to start making a bit of money online, and is an excellent tool to start setting goals and make yourself create new and unique content. What’s more, it’s kind of fun — especially if you write about things that interest you. You don’t have to blog every day. Once a week may be fine. The key is to stick with a schedule.
Have You Reached a Milestone?
If you, too, have started blogging and challenged yourself to be consistent about it, please add a comment and a link to your blog in the comment section below. I’d love to hear your success stories and strategies.
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