Following the launch of PSDFAN, my most ambitious project to date, things are looking good! My first two tutorials have been very well received, and whilst it’s really too early to provide accurate traffic details I will say that the site looks set to easily break 1000 visitors again today!

I have to say that I love this post-launch madness. It’s SO much work - promoting/writing content pretty much non-stop. However, if you look at how much the average person is willing to work, then by working as hard as you possibly can you really stand out from 99% of people out there. I just wish there were more hours in my day.

If you would like to check out the first two PSDFAN tutorials (and let me know what you think), then please click the thumbnails below:

Within webmaster communities there seems to be a great drive towards niche markets, and whilst they can be profitable, I don’t see them as the be all and end all of website ownership. For one thing almost all good niche markets are already full, and it can be damn near impossible to discover profitable new ones. This leaves non-niche markets, or ‘regular markets’. Most webmasters seem to be of the opinion that if niche markets = good, and over-saturated markets = bad, then within the spectrum of markets between these two parallels the markets closest to being niche will be more profitable. For example, it might seem better to create a website that focuses on digital art, rather than art in general. This makes a lot of sense, but things are rarely so black and white as this example.

Over saturated markets can in fact be very profitable, and should not be a no-go-zone for webmasters. The reason for this is what I like to call ‘exponential viral marketing potential’. To put this in more basic terms: In an over saturated market there are far more people to discuss your website and help promote it. Many niche-market advocates would argue that it is extremely hard to get noticed in an over-saturated mass market. However, I’m not saying that you need to rule your over-saturated mass market, but merely that to even make a small impact in a huge market will mean big things for your website.

It’s like the classic analogy of being a big fish in a small pond versus a small fish in a big pond. Both situations have there merits but most people would agree that the big pond, whilst daunting offers a lot more potential. Here are a few reasons why I like larger markets:

Now, moving back to my point of viral marketing that I mentioned earlier. This is perhaps my biggest reason for supporting over-saturated mass markets. Taking the example of my photoshop tutorials on Push Standards, they have hugely helped the blog through exploiting a over-saturated mass market (Photoshop tutorials). There are thousands of websites posting Photoshop tutorials, but rather than this negatively impacting me, it has had quite the opposite effect. With each of my tutorials I’ve only posted them to maybe two websites. This drives some initial traffic. However, the more valuable, passive, long-term traffic comes from the ripples of these initial promotions on my part. In the subsequent weeks I’ve seen people blog about my tutorials, and seen them featured on several other small-medium Photoshop websites. From two simple submissions my tutorials have ended up being seen by a huge number of different audiences, and thousands of visitors.

The key is to find an over-saturated market where people are viral. In the market of tutorials people love to share good content with one another - hence instant viral marketing. If you provide a great service, or piece of information within such a market then it will spread beyond anything that you could achieve personally and be close to the kind of exponential growth that all webmasters hope for.

I’m not giving up on niche-markets all together, but will definitely continue to exploit both kinds of market. Please let me know your own experiences with niche/mass marketing.

Hi everyone. Sorry for the brief update but I’m having a night out with friends to celebrate the end of an intense period of university work…

I just wanted to share a technique that I’ve found very helpful in increasing blog traffic. Most bloggers will tell you that replying to all blog comments within your post page is one of the keys to great blogging. Whilst this is a good idea, I like to utilize a more effective method.

Instead of replying to commenting within your own blog, why not reply to the comment on the commenter’s blog? This may sound very simple but very few people I know actually do this. The benefits are essentially that your commenters will feel more rewarded for commenting on your blog (by receiving more comments themselves) and therefore will feel more encouraged to leave you a comment in the future. Many commmenters won’t bother to check to the page which they commented on, and therefore will miss your reply to their comment.

It’s really just another form of networking but takes absolutely no extra effort and rewards you more than traditional comment replying in my opinion…

I hope this little tip was in some way helpful. I’ve been working really hard lately on a great new photoshop tutorial that will teach you how to create a stunning blog layout. The tutorial will also include a .psd for the design which you will be able to use completely free on your blog, so be sure to check back soon. Thanks!

Blog commenting is important sure, but I’m not sure that every blogger realizes quite how important. The main reason why I value blog commenting so highly is the QUALITY of traffic that it can drive. A blog comment won’t drive the traffic levels of social networking sites, but it’s a lot easier to do and will bring you far more worthwhile traffic. Below is an example of what arose from me spending 10 seconds commenting on a fellow blogger’s blog:

“Thanks, Tom! Really nice website you’ve got there. I’ve subscribed!”

Notice the difference from your average 5 second social networking visitor? I’m connecting with a fellow blogger in a personal one on one way, and they are doing the same to me. How many 5 second visitors will bother returning or subscribing to your blog?

In my eyes commenting produces not only great traffic, but in fact the absolute best quality of traffic. More often than not it will be the blogger who’s blog your are commenting who will return the gesture and come and check out your blog. Bloggers as a rule are less fickle than the average internet user, and so will be the people to stick around, learn a little about you and leave you a comment.

Now, the problem soon arises of time management. It can be very time consuming searching endless blogs to read/comment upon and often bloggers get stuck in a rut of commenting on a very small number of blogs that they are familiar with (I’m guilty of this myself). However, a great idea hit me the other day… I figured that why not utilize the power of RSS to boost your commenting productivity? If you begin to view commenting as a form of marketing rather than simply ‘chatting’ with fellow bloggers you will become more efficient at doing it.

The basic idea is to get a feed reader, and then start subscribing to EVERY SINGLE good blog that you come across that is relevant to your audience. No more subscribing solely to your friends blogs, I’m talking EVERY worthwhile blog you come across. Then, devote a set amount of time each day going through the new posts for ALL these blogs and leave a comment on each one. This task will start relatively small, but will grow as you subscribe to more and more blogs. This should effectively cut out all the worthless time you spend surfing idly around the blogosphere. You’ll become a commenting machine, systematically going through your list of new posts every single day.

Of course I’m not encouraging you to use this idea to spam people. This is absolutely wrong. Don’t even say something ‘friendly’ like “Hey nice blog! Check out mine”, or “I have a similar contest check it out”. You want to be leaving the BEST QUALITY comments that you possibly can. Try to build on the original posts, or give constructive feedback as to what you thought was good/bad about their article. Don’t be afraid to disagree with other blogs, as long as you are polite and constructive they’ll probably appreciate the feedback.

The thing is, once you get into a systematic and practiced routine you’ll be surprised at how little time it consumes. Most wasted time occurs in the time between reading posts, that is to say just surfing around/between various websites. By going DIRECT to each post, with the view to leaving a comment you’ll be able to quick pick up on the key points of the article and leave constructive feedback. If you increase you subscriptions by say 10 blogs per day, you’ll soon be leaving hundreds of quality comments on a variety of blogs relevant to yours, and DRAMATICALLY increasing your exposure in the blogging community. You’ll also be making a name for yourself as someone who knows what they’re talking about - an expert in your field.

Please let me know what you think of this idea, and if you choose to use it how it works out for you. I’ll post the results for Push Standards soon hopefully.