So here it is! This post is the first of many to come, and documents my first amazing week of blogging. I will explain EXACTLY what I did each day to receive the traffic that I am doing, and will try to detail what’s worked best for me and what hasn’t.
Please excuse the length of the post, but if you’re really interested in your blogging success you will take the time to read it!
Firstly here are some statistics to allow you to get an idea of my blog’s success over such a short period of time. Nothing ground breaking I grant you… but looking at many hugely popular blogs when they started out many of them were receiving less than 100 uniques per day in their first weeks.
*NOTE* I have to go out tonight and so these stats are incomplete, there are still several more hours to go tonight so please put today’s stats at around 700. I could have made this post tomorrow but I wanted keep my word of posting Tuesday.
Here is a graph showing my rising subscriber levels. Again, starting out blogging it is very hard to build a solid subscriber base. I’m really happy to be close to reaching my goal of 50 subscribers within my first week online. I’m positive that this number will rise more steadily as my blog continues to grow.
Now, here’s the important part. The writing style is very informal and rough as I didn’t want to post a contrived or planned account. This is my unedited, daily notes on what I’ve been doing, NOTHING left out:
Tuesday 5th February:
Page Views: 869, Unique Visitors: 330, Returning Visitors: 16, Subscribers: 0.
Submitted to every updated Css Gallery (2 showcased my site in the first 12 hours online)
Asked for reviews at various webmaster forums
Included a link in my forum signatures and networked in large and niche forums
Commented on other blogs and subsequently met other bloggers
Exchanges blog role links with these bloggers
Launched initial contests (I offered cash/ad space for the best review in my first month online)
Submitted these contests to blogging contest websites
Paid $40 for a 125X125 ad on another related blog
Wednesday 6th February:
Page Views: 555, Unique Visitors: 156, Returning Visitors: 23, Subscribers: 1.
Hosted another contest giving away free ad spots
Continued to comment on other blogs
Networked on forums - focused on the one’s driving me the most traffic from Tuesday.
Started receiving traffic from blogroll link swaps, contest websites and css galleries
Low visitor count this day was only compared to a well advertised launch day, nothing to worry about. Returning visitor levels rose which was encouraging.
Focused on trying to refine my writing technique and decide on a specific niche for my articles
Thursday 7th February:
Page Views: 2,127, Unique Visitors: 1,139, Returning Visitors: 29, Subscribers: 1.
Tirelessly posts quality comments on high-profile blogs
Wrote new articles, important to keep up posting consistency as well as quality.
Requested to write for several very high-profile blogs in an attempt to raise my profile
Systematically went through a pre-written list of webmaster forums starting quality topics and replying to others.
Was accepted by Css Gallery giant Css Mania! Traffic exploded as you might expect.
Got some initial digg interest in a couple of my articles
Wrote a photoshop tutorial - will post it tomorrow as I don’t want to post TOO frequently.
Responded to every single comment so far on my blog - see this as very important. You must care about your readers.
Received several emails regarding design work.
Goal: Increase Rss Readers and make minor improvements to blog layout.
Contacted previous advertiser from my previous website to see if they were interested in purchasing an ad spot.
Friday 8th February:
Page Views: 1,458, Unique Visitors: 627, Returning Visitors: 51, Subscribers: 7.
Added a second link to my RSS in a prominent place, saw a rise in subscribers.
Added post categories, increased recent posts shown in sidebar, fixed minor problems such as ‘older posts’ button being inactive.
Posted photoshop tutorial. Submitted to several tutorial sites such as psdtuts.com. Felt it was important to diversify content a little.
Posted about site changes and asked for user feedback.
Saturday 9th February:
Page Views: 773, Unique Visitors: 392, Returning Visitors: 33, Subscribers: 17.
Traffic back to normal after CssMania featured me. Still very pleased with it.
RSS Subscribers not rising so offered a conteset to design 5 ad banners for my next 5 subscribers.
Received 10 new subscribers as a result of the contest, it was fun to do and showed of my design talents to potential clients.
Didn’t promote that much as wanted to focus on writing more quality content - this is better for long term success and increased readership.
2 High Profile blogs accepted me as a guest blogger - need to get writing!
Posted in many webmaster marketplaces seeking advertisers and link trades.
Completed on guest blog article. Very pleased with it, it will be published Wed 13th, looking forward to monitoring traffic.
Received an awesome review from Tish over at BloggingGal.com should also mention Jim’s great review (BloggingStartup.com) among others.
Experimented submitting articles to more social bookmarking websites.
Sunday 10th February:
Page Views: 861, Unique Visitors: 430, Returning Visitors: 51, Subscribers: 22.
RSS contest seems to be helping subscribers.
Traveling back to university today. Slow traffic as it’s Sunday, but pleasing considering this. Little promotion achieved as I didn’t have time with traveling. Managed to continue posting consistent articles though - this is VITAL.
Research how to improve success on social bookmarking websites.
Posted a contest to improve my RSS Subscribers, very excited about the concept behind it, should gain great exposure as my blog gets bigger.
Monday 11th February:
Page Views: 1431, Unique Visitors: 863, Returning Visitors: 58, Subscribers: 24.
Very early in the morning but my post about how to choose advertising wisely is being stumbled A LOT.
Psdtuts.com accepted my photo depth tutorial into their user link feed! Driving very decent traffic also.
I’m making sure to spend 1-2 hours before bed each night posting on all webmaster forums and commenting other blogs.
Very little time to promote today due to hectic first day back at university, however still posted articles and replied to ALL BLOG COMMENTS.
Tuesday 12th February:
Page Views: 897, Unique Visitors: 570, Returning Visitors: 42, Subscribers: 31.
Got some fantastic website reviews on webmaster forums, replied to all reviewers personally. Feedback on both design/content has been excellent.
Receiving good traffic from http://main.68design.net/COOL/ which appears to be a Chinese website showcase. Great to see other people beginning to link to the site.
Submitted to some lesser known search engines such as icerocket.com
Subscriber count is rising nicely
Tips for the Week:
If you’re going to invest in paid advertising do so VERY carefully, you can get much more traffic for free.
Css Galleries are great sources of traffic. I’ve got several design leads from the ongoing traffic from various galleries.
If you’re short on time post don’t promote. You should care about your current loyal readers more than potential visitors
Creative contests are great sources of traffic and good for generating ‘buzz’ around your blog.
StumbleUpon is the most effective social networking tool. Just give it a little time.
Promote on a few massive websites rather than tonnes of small ones. You’ll get more traffic this way with less effort. Spend the extra time you have left promoting on the smaller sites or writing though.
Don’t be afraid to be a person. Get to know your readers, interact with them.
If you made it this far well done! I hope that this post has been helpful for you, and please check back to witness the website grow. I will be posting another blogging diary next Tuesday. I couldn’t possibly go into a detailed explanation for each thing I did, but please if you have any questions just leave me a comment and I’ll get back to you.
That was a great read, thanks Tom!
No problem Kieran, I hope that it’s helpful for people. I wish that I could have expanded on my points more but the post was extremely long anyway. I’m really happy to answer any questions that people may have though. I’m still feeling pretty excited about being quite so open with my stats etc… I can’t think of other blogs that do this.
That’s an amazing start, Tom. Congratulations. The most important thing to note is that the traffic resulted from your hard work. Success takes effort…and it really paid off for you. BTW, here is my favorite piece of advice you gave in this post: “If you’re short on time post don’t promote. You should care about your current loyal readers more than potential visitors.” Looking forward to next Tuesday.
Thanks Jim. By the way - I just checked Alexa again and my weekly average has gone down to 114,894! And even more amazing my rank for yesterday was: 82,036! I really hope that I can hold onto that because that would already be my goal of getting below 100,000 reached within just 1 week!
Great article. Can’t wait to read more!
I myself am a newbie. It’s only been a few weeks for me. Sounds like I really need to get to work. LOL.
Sometimes I think my niche is a little too small though.
You gave me lots of things to run with though. So THANKS!!
Theresa
http://www.crafterbs.blogspot.com/
A crafting business blog with attitude!
No problem Theresa.
I can relate to being a newbie as of course this blog is only a week old. No niche is too small though! If you work hard and keep at it you’ll achieve success!
[…] should point new readers in the direction of Blogging Diary Week 1, which will explain what this post is all […]
I think this is an awesome blog/idea. But I don’t understand 1 thing. If the blog is really new, how did you get your visitor numbers in the 100’s straight after launch?
Thanks a lot Bolkie! I really just got the word out as much as humanly possible right after launching. Asked for website reviews everywhere I could think of, posted in the advertising sections of forums, submitted to Css Galleries, commented on a lot of blogs, changed all my signatures to include a link. It’s all in the diary really.
[…] I should point out that I’ve stopped my blogging diaries temporarily due to time constraints. It’s a shame really, but if I have to choose between […]