One the road to the front page of Digg and we need YOU!

A couple days ago I was approached by Teasa from teasastips.com asking me to participate in an experiment to reach the front page of Digg. Front page of Digg?!?! Hell yeah I want to participate!

Now this isn’t just some willy nilly seat of our pants experiment. Nope, this is an organized, well planed, methodical experiment. In fact its more of a rock solid plan of action than an experiment.

We’re using information provided to us from the ebook “Breaking The Digg Code” by Khalid Saleh of the Invesp Blog and Invesp Consulting, in addition to our own experience and resources. Khalid and his firm specialize in online marketing and conversion optimization, and have worked on social media optimization for some pretty big clients. They no longer work in social media and the tactics they’ve used and perfected have since been made public. According to Khalid they were successful reaching the front page 63% of the time they attempted to using this system. Impressive stats, but we think we can do a little better.

What’s the big deal with Digg?

Digg is by far the most popular of social media sites and receives millions of hits daily. Getting on the front page will usually result in 40,000 to upwards of 70,000 hits in the 1-3 days you’re there. I dunno about you but I would love a little boost like that.

We need you!

Teasa has also recruited Kat from PromotionalMagazine.com and we need one more dedicated person to join our team. We will be modifying Khalid’s techniques slightly and would like a four person team. We are looking for a person that can dedicate at least 1.5 hours per day 4 days per week for the next 4 weeks. If all goes perfectly to plan (in my best Dr. Evil voice), participants can expect to reach the front page 1-2 times per month as long as the team remains intact. Once we have accomplished the tasked initially needed there will only be slight maintenance needed. I can’t imagine that would take more than an hour or two per week. I don’t foresee the team braking up anytime soon and if a member needs to leave we can recruit someone to replace them.

Requirements to join the Breaking Digg Team

Here’s the prerequisites needed to join the team:

1. COMMITMENT - you MUST be willing to dedicate at least 1.5 hours per day, 4 days per week for up to a month.
2. A quality blog - Well written and professionally designed blogs, no SPAM blogs, no blogs under 3 months old (we need to see some level of previous commitment to your blog - this is negotiable and not set in stone), and no non-English blogs.
3. You must reside in the USA. Due to the organization needed for this effort, we all need to be in relatively similar time zones.
4. Basic Excel skills and access to Excel itself. We will be using Excel sheets to track data, if you don’t have excel or a program that will read/write to .xls docs we cant use you - you can always use Open Office, it’s similar to MS office but FREE! It is preferred you have Excel though.
5. Google Talk IM access (free on Google.com) for chat/brainstorming sessions.
6. Dedication!
7. Commitment!
8. More dedication!
9. Did I mention you MUST be 100% committed to this?

That’s it. If you feel you qualify and can GUARANTEE you will be 100% dedicated please feel free to contact me ASAP. If we feel you’ll be a god fit for team we’ll let you know ASAP. We want to fill this position within two days as we’ve already started our efforts.

If you’re interested in knowing if our efforts are paying off you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed as I’ll be posting updates regularly! Once we reach success (and I’m 100% confident we will) I will do a series of posts explaining what we did and how you can do it too.

It’s all about backlinks

If you’re looking to get traffic via Google Search Engine Results Pages (aka SERP’s) you need to start building backlinks. If you didn’t know, Google counts links pointing to you as a kind of “vote” for your site. The more link pointing to you, the higher you rank. Now I don’t want you to think that this is the end all be all of SERP ranking, but it does account for a very large portion of the determining factors.

Your backlinks also help to determine your Google PageRank. Having a high PR is valuable to you in that it inherently makes your blog more valuable for potential advertisers and is also a determining factor in your SERP’s. After less than 75 days online I received a Google PR of 4. I must be doing something right.

As I stated in my last progress report my inbound links are steadily going up. Today I did a search on yahoo site explorer and was spyched to see I have 13,002 inbound links when I search www.tysblog.com and 15,489 when I search tysblog.com (no “www”). This gives me a total of 28,491links pointing back to me on Yahoo. It really jumped a lot in the last few days. I’m not sure why it increased so much in just a few days, but am guessing that those extra links were just recently indexed. Who knows… yahoo’s results fluctuate quite a bit from day-to-day too. Either way, not too shabby for a blog only 82 days old.

One thing I do know is that I’ve been actively working on securing backlinks. It’s not just an accident that I have these backlinks, I worked hard to get ‘em and did several things to do so.

But first…

The first thing you’ll need to know is that your looking for sites with high PR to link back to you. I’ve heard its comparable to have one site with a PR 4 or 5 linking to you as having 100 with no PR. The exact ratio is a mystery as Google guards their algorithms closely. Now, I’m not saying you don’t want links from poorly ranked sites, but if you have the choice between 10 links on sites with PR 0 vs. one link on a site with a PR 3 - take the PR 3!

To help you see what a particular page on any given site’s PR is I recommend you download the Search Status plugin for Firefox. It’s a handy little tool that will display PR and Alexa data as well as letting you easily check backlinks on individual pages or entire domains. It’s a useful tool.

You’ll want to try and get backlinks on blogs/sites that are relevant to yours. They should contain similar or the same keywords you’re trying to rank well on. The more relevant the links pointing to you are the better. Also, if you can control the anchor text (the actual link text) try and use anchor text that contains the keyword(s) you’re trying to rank well on. So if you’re looking to rank well on the term “get backlinks“, the words “get backlinks” should link to relevant page in your blog/site. As I just did in the last sentence you can also link internally. This will help too, and you can control the anchor text all you want. Google likes blogs/sites that deep link internally.

Here we go…

Forums. Finding relevant forums and leaving thread replies is one way to start building backlinks. If you leave a really useful comment you can also generate a little traffic. Make sure when you set up your account on the forum of choice to create a signature with your URL. This way any comments you leave will automatically post your URL. Don’t leave crappy replies, make ‘em relevant. I’ve even spent time researching how to solve a problem for someone just so I could leave the best comment in the thread. This will ensure your comments aren’t perceived as SPAM and that they don’t get deleted by the forum mods.

MyBlogLog.com. MBL is a great resource for not only generating some backlinks but is also good for a little traffic and garnering regular readers. When a MBL user bookmarks one of your pages it creates a backlink! The best thing, these backlinks are SEO friendly (there’s no “nofollow” tag added)! My advice; Be active, join groups, add lots of friends, and use the “my community” widget on your blog (you can see mine in the right toolbar). using the widget will encourage people to join your community when they happen by your blog if they’re a member of MBL. I’ve had about 200 people bookmark posts I’ve done and that’s an extra 200 backlinks!

One way I’ve built up quite a few backlinks is through my Drop Your Entrecard 300 times in 15 minutes program. The reason this has been successful is because I found a way that I can help other bloggers to receive more “drops” on their Entrecard and in doing so created a page on my blog that many other bloggers want to help promote. The more drop they receive, the more credits they earn to advertise. Every blogger I add to the list has a reason to help promote my blog (at least that page) because they will also benefit. The more people that use my system, the more the people on the list benefit. Try to come up with something you can offer other bloggers that they’ll want to help you promote. I know it may not be easy to come up with something but if you think about it you could come up with something really great. Just keep it in the back of your mind.

SiteHoppin’ is a great way to build some backlinks and get some great traffic while you’re at it. Set up a profile page and then make sure you submit every post you do. Each time you submit a post or page you create a backlink for it. This one’s easy and you will also see some decent traffic too. You can also buy Beer Stock for as little as $0.75 each and every stock you have can be a page that links to you. It’s also a great way to get traffic. I own several Beer Stocks and get hits from each one every day. I love SiteHoppin’.

And the best way to create backlinks: Other bloggers! You can leave relevant comments on blog posts you like and will receive backlinks for each. You should “make friends” with the other bloggers and do link exchanges. You can also just ask to be added to their blogroll if your blog compliments theirs (it shouldn’t be in competition, or they’ll like decline). Once you’ve become friends with other bloggers you may have chances to sponsor their contests. This is a GREAT way to build backlinks as most contests require entrants to blog about the contest and it’s sponsors as a mean on entry. Sponsoring one contest can result in hundreds of backlinks.

Finally, I wrote a post about specifically finding blogs with high PR that are relevant to yours that are SEO friendly (no “nofollow” attribute). If you know the right search terms to use, it’s really easy. I’ve used this method a lot. Click Here to read that post on how to get backlinks with a high pagerank- it’s a good one too!

UPDATE:  I just came across a great post on DotComMogul.com with a very useful list of blogs that are dofollow and all have a high PR.  This is SUPER useful!  I highly suggest you check it out too!

Free traffic? Well, a little…

I came across a site called LinkReferral.com and so far it seems like an easy way to generate a little extra traffic. With 150,000 member sites and an Alexa ranking of 3,894, they’re doing something right.

Promoting your blog is a never ending process and one the you should always be working on. Whether it’s via submitting your URL to directories, being active in forums, exchanging links with other bloggers, or whatever, it’s something you should dedicate a little time to every single day.

I’m always looking for new ways to generate traffic, even if it only generates 10 visits per day. If I can set it and forget it, and/or it doesn’t require tons of work its worth it in the long run.

LinkReferral.com is a directory of sorts. In addition to the directory the have a forum, offer member reviews of your blog/site, and claim to offer SEO benefits in that their directory is search engine friendly (dofollow) and indexed regularly.

The real benefit

Another way to generate traffic is through their referral program and what their service is based on. When someone clicks through to LinkReferral.com via your referral link the landing page will have your link placed in the featured sites section on the side bar on the right. If you refer someone your link is in the tops spot, they refer someone their link will be on top and yours in the second position, the person they refer refers someone your link is now in third and so on. There are nine spots in the featured sites section so by the time you were near the bottom of the list the potential for views you would be receiving is quite high. It could actually translate into ten of thousands per day, and based of their Alexa they’re receiving the traffic to support this.

The more you participate the higher your rating within their system. Top contributors are given prime spots for free in the directory. A little participation will give you more views and potentially more traffic. Since I’ve been participating (only a couple days) I’ve been getting around 30 hits perday, and this is without any activity, thus I have a very low rank and do not have a prominent position in their directory. It would seem if I do a little work I could generate a couple hundred hits a day and maybe worth it. I’ll get a little more active and report back later.

I suggest you check ‘em out. It’s painless to sign up, only take a few seconds, and even if you only get 25 extra visitors a day over the course of a year that equals 9,125 free extra visitors. Well worth the two minutes it takes to get set up. Click Here to get started!

Not a bad month if I do say so myself…

Well April was a good month and a bad month. My average visitors per day only increased by 16 per day, from 740 in March to 756 in April. Not a very big increase in whole, but actually an increase I’m pleased with none the less. The reason; In March I was getting tons of traffic from StumbleUpon vs. diddly squat in April. I wasn’t as aggressively pursuing Stumble in April and focusing more on natural traffic. With around an 80% decrease in Stumble traffic I’m glad to see my overall traffic is still on the rise.

And the numbers are…

Here’s the total breakdown for April:

• Total Visitors for the month of march: 22709

• Total Page views for the month of March: 54683

• Alexa:
  • 3 mo. average: 216,974
  • 1 week average: 177,150
  • Yesterday: 65,015

My Alexa ranking dropped a fair amount in April but I attribute that to the Alexa Change last month. As I reported in this post, Alexa changed their ranking algorithms and doubled the number of sites they track from 14,000,000 (+/-) to 28,000,000 (+/-). Even with the change my ranking is steadily going up. It’s all good.

• Technorati:
  • Rank:51,009
  • Authority: 149

The rank is only 1,009 higher than my goal, and authority is 29 better than my goal for April so this is good.

• Backlinks according to Yahoo site explorer: 7,745

This is 755 short of my goal - close enough.

• RSS subscribers: 144 as of today.

45 subscriber’s more than last month - roughly 45% increase. Was at 155 a couple days ago. The number fluctuates as it’s really only based on how many people “accessed” your feed that day, not total subscribers. I’d say pretty much right on goal.

• DNScoop.com valuation: $7,900

$2,500 increase from last month. Not too bad and only $100 shy of the goal.

I’m no longer tracking my IzeaRank. It just seemed pointless to have an extra unneeded script running, and I don’t really care about what Izea thinks of me.

Overall, I’m tracking pretty much on target for my growth expectations. And as it just so happens this is also my 100th post! This translates into an average of 1.25 posts per day. I’m going to work on this as I’d like to see an average of 2 posts per day.

Goals for May

Here’s a quick rundown of what I’d like to see for the month of May:

• Alexa: Less than 110,000

• Technorati:
  • Rank: better than 35,000
  • Authority: 200+

• Backlinks according to Yahoo site explorer: 18,000+

• Total RSS subscribers: 200+

• DNScoop.com valuation: $10,000+

We’ll see at the beginning of next month is these are realistic numbers, but I’m confident I can hit these goals!

A fun a unique way to surf the net!

First things first. I’m sittin’ here at the Denver airport waiting to catch a plane out to L.A. for a meeting with a potential business partner for a new project I have cookin’. The weather here in Denver is awful and I missed my first flight. It’s just been one of those days. Traffic was less than smooth, I was randomly chosen to receive the full body cavity search at security, and they way it looks outside I don’t even know if the next flight I’m on is going to be able to take off. Argh…

Since I’m just hanging out killing time I decided to do what I do best, I hopped online to check out a few of my preferred blogs, and noticed a post on Josh’s Unconventional Marketing blog that caught my eye. It was a post about SiteHoppin’s new toolbar release. The toolbar was released yesterday in a private beta test and Josh has invites. Well, if Josh has invites I want ‘em too!

So I just shot an email out to Max (the ever so friendly proprietor of SiteHoppin’) asking if I could join the bandwagon. In his usual fashion he replied within like 30 seconds and gave me a fancy schmancy personalized invite code of my very own. Cool.

And just FYI

If you’re not familiar with SiteHoppin’ you should be. It’s a cool “Browser within a browser” that let’s you hop from site to site. You can choose categories if you’re looking for particular genre of sites to visit (it’s a great way to visit Entrecard sites to drop on!), or just go for total randomness. The site’s also totally compatible with the iPhone and iPod touch too so if you use one of those devices I suggest you check ‘em out.

Another benefit of SiteHoppin’ is if you have a site or blog of your own you can earn free traffic just by surfin’ the net via their browser within a browser and helping to tag (discover) new sites. Seriously, you can get a ton of free traffic and find some great sites you may otherwise may never have found.

If you want in just let me know!

If you’d like to participate in the private beta test of the new toolbar just contact me and I’ll send you an invite code!

Going once, going twice…

I’m holding an auction for a review of your blog/website/product and there’s just a week left to bid. The auction is for one honest review consisting of at least 400 words and two (likely more) backlinks to the URL’s of your choice with anchor text of your choice. The review will remain above the fold (viewable when the site first loads without scrolling down) for at least 24 hours and will remain on the blog forever! Right now the current bid is only $5.10 so it’s likely you can still win for less than $10!!! Not a bad deal to get a few valuable backlinks from a PR 4 blog, and less than you’d pay on any other comparable blog for sure.

TysBlog.com Stats

This blog receives over 20,000 uniques visitors and over 50,000 page views per month and has recently been upgraded to a PR 4 by Google.

Here’s you chance to get some valuable backlinks and generate a little buzz for one heck of a deal!!

To bid look for the auction widget in the right sidebar and simply click the Bid button!!!

Bidding ends in one week! Good luck!