Damien at the Speed of Life – DATSOL

Traffic sources to my blog ‘Postcards’ 3-14-09 to 4-14-09

Blogging thrives on the gut of the everyman.  In other words: every blogger is a glutton for the same basic things.  One of those things is traffic.  If you are an artist, you want viewers.  If you are a musician, you want listeners.  If you are a blogger, you want readers and that means: traffic.  In my narcissistic quest to find more traffic I have learned a few absolute truths.  The biggest one is this: “Nothing I can ever invent will bring me more traffic than the existing tools around me.”  In the spirit of this truth, I have been exploring those services and tools that currently exist to help my blogs get traffic.

I have been dropping at Entrecard for about a month now after a long hiatus.  The only thing I have done in the past month is this (very important to note): Drop back on just the first page of my drops inbox every day.  I also have bought a few ads but only twice in a month.  The reason this is important to note in gauging Entrecard’s effectiveness is because I know there is far more that can and should be done with Entrecard.  I am a complete beginner there.  Still, if you look at the circled numbers, I got a significant return via Entrecard traffic.

Then there is Stumbleupon, my #1 traffic source.  The only thing I do there is submit my own posts in between other posts I find interesting.  MINIMAL EFFORT.  The number speaks for itself folks: 40% of my traffic last month came from Stumbleupon with minimal effort on my part.

I will continue to leverage Entrecard but I’m thinking I will read some more tutorials on Stumbleupon and spend more time using it … it seems the better investment, do you agree?

I woke up this morning and checked my CAN progress for the month on all my blogs only to find the analytics were in need of life support.  The past few months they have been pretty good which is why I am puzzled that now, with just as much if not more good content, they are floundering.  Well, I’m not one to sulk, I got my brain, my pencil, and a yellow pad to work.  I’m giving my traffic a jumpstart and I hope it works.  Here’s the plan:

• Stumble/review a post from each of my blogs, along with 3 other posts.  It helps to offset these to avoid looking like a showboat.
• Ask 3 people to stumble/review 3 other good posts I have written.  I might stumble three other blogs as well just for appearance’s sake.
• Comment on blogs as much as possible (keep them real).
• Twitter your latest, greatest posts.
• Research ways of getting traffic online.  Keep  a few good ideas and do them.
• Make a working routine you can do biweekly or even every day to increase traffic to your blog.

Have any traffic building ideas you care to share with this community?

If you haven’t discovered it yet, Entrecard.com is a relatively new service for blog marketing and networking. You have an “entrecard” and all the other blogs do as well. You get points to advertise your blog through “dropping” on other blogs. There is a lot more to it but that is the basic gist of it.

I used to spend countless hours dropping and trying to get thousands of points. It got to a point where I was wasting valuable time on the service. Today mark the day I have really come back to it and I spent a very short amount of time. I wanted to record my results to see if I am at a good pace or if I am too slow. Plus, I’m hoping to get some pointers from you all. Here’s what I have learned works best for me:

1) Use IE as FF seems to crash a lot doing this heavy memory load stuff.
2) Use right-click “Open link in new tab” function, one drop at a time. I have tried multiple opens through “LINKY” add-on in FF and as I said, crash city!  It is way better in my opinion to drop one at a time.
3) Don’t rush. Be deliberate with each drop and take time to read the latest post. I even watched a video entry today and was very happy to see that. I do those from time to time.

That’s about all I’ve figured out so far. Here is my tracked time for today:

11:54pm start
12:10pm end
total: 16 mins.

Progress: 12 ec drops and 2 comments left

Will you try Entrecard.com now that I’ve shared my tips? If you already do it, are there any good tips you can share to cut time? (Hopefully we’ll get some tips from dragonblogger)

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Blog Stats from January 21 to February 21, 2009
This is usually a monthly feature here where I measure my 3 blogs’ progress. This is a special mid-month post. My goal with this series is to provide 100% transparency. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category. First I list the CAN data for each blog. Then I reflect with a few notes.

Legend
C = Circulation, or backlinks
A = Analytics, or number of visitors
N = Net, or the amount of money earned by the blog

Circulation (# of Google backlinks)
Postcards from the Funny Farm: 166
Damien at the Speed of Life: 51
Dynamite Lesson Plan: 34
The Damien Riley Podcast: 0

Analytics (# of visits last 30 days)
Postcards from the Funny Farm: 9,233
Damien at the Speed of Life: 572
Dynamite Lesson Plan: 451
The Damien Riley Podcast: 217

Net
Postcards from the Funny Farm: $54.66
Damien at the Speed of Life: $8.05
Dynamite Lesson Plan: $19.00
The Damien Riley Podcast: 0

TOTAL: $93.01 (First thing I wanna do is go our and buy an electric blanket for each of my kids -and then one for my wife and I, it is cold!

Notes: This has been a skinny month in some ways.  In other ways it has been solid and productive.  I have put Entrecard back on all four blogs.  I am curious to see the effect on traffic.  Please note this particular post is only a mid month report.  These are usually published only once a month.  I’ll publish another CAN post after March 1st.

As always, I want to be open to your questions and comments through this series. The comment box is waiting for you. You’ve seen my results and read my notes, what do you have to say? Is there something I missed you’d like to discuss? How were your CAN results last month?

If you’re new here, you may want to subscribe to my FEED Thanks for visiting!

This is a monthly feature here where I measure my 3 blogs’ progress. My goal with this series is to provide 100% transparency. You can browse current and past entries in the CAN… category.  First I list the CAN data for each blog.  Then I reflect with a few notes.

Legend:
C = Circulation, or backlinks
A = Analytics, or number of visitors and feed subscribers
N = Net, or the amount of money earned by the blog

1. Postcards from the Funny Farm, a psychology and inspiration blog

Circulation
Google Backlinks: 224
Yahoo! Backlinks: 6,884

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 11,531
Page Views: 15,536
Feed Subscribers:  110

Net
$68.50

2. Damien at the Speed of Life, my online diary

Circulation
Google Backlinks: 36
Yahoo! Backlinks: 272

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 603
Page Views: 1,520
Feed Subscribers: 17

Net
$30

3. Dynamite Lesson Plan, a teaching blog
Circulation
Google Backlinks: 224
Yahoo! Backlinks: 6,884

Analytics
from 12-01-08 to 12-31-08
Visitors: 217
Page Views: 503
Feed Subscribers:  14

Net
$25.01

NOTES: December was a great month for traffic.  I had close to 12,000 visitors which is a record by about 5,000 visitors.  So what happened?  Well, my static “Crazy Quotes” page has gained the 5th place on a Google search of those 2 terms.  I have been getting 300-500 hits on that page a day!  This has really helped the normal traffic and boosted the totals immensely.  A special post or page can carry your blog without a need for traffic driving methods.

You may recall last month I decided I was done with empty clicker traffic such as Entrecard.  It hurt me at first but very soon my other methods far surpassed Entrecard.  I just feel that the quality of blogs there is not high and most people who came to my sites just clicked for their points and took off like a bat out of hell.  I chose to work with Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks a little more.  You will see attractive buttons in all three sidevars linking to my profiles on the social networks I am working with.  Please add me to your lists!

My net suffered this month because I didn’t bother much with it.  I decided to put my mental health above straining over sponsored posts.  I did make a nice chunk of change without trying hard at all.

Finally, I’d be remiss if I didn’t note my recent Google PageRank increase on all three blogs.  They used to be 1, 0, 0 and last night after the roll through, they became 2, 2, 2. This will enable me to get more paying posts and potentially more advertisers.  I am a very happy camper as you all know I have been working very hard to bring my PageRank values up.  Still though, I believe the future is going to be based on 100% pure transparency of stats and not on any dictator of value like PageRank.  That’s the reason I will continue to post CAN stats on all my blogs through 2009.

As always, I want to be open to your questions and comments through this series.  The comment box is waiting for you.  You’ve seen my results read my notes, what do you have to say? Is there something I missed you’d like to discuss?  How were your CAN results last month?

The title is a line from “O Holy Night,” my favorite Christmas song. I thought it a fitting way to start looking at my yearly blog stats which I am so very thankful for this Christmas.  Merry Christmas if you are one of the first readers!

I’ve learned more each day as this past year has whizzed by. I’ve learned how to be better dad, to meet my goals more efficiently at work, and last but not least: I’ve learned key strategies to be a better blogger. As I sat down to outline this post as I always do, I realized I could never fit all I’ve learned about blogging in one post. Better yet, I decided to craft it into a series of post. If you tune in each day until New Years Day 2009 (or when I run out of ideas) you will get all my blog tips, free of charge. If you are tuning in after the series is finished, I hope you find the set to be helpful to you in creating, maintaining, and enjoying a valuable blog.

Looking Back

Last year, I embarked upon a blog journey of the acronym C.A.N. The letters stood for the three goals I measured each month:

Circulation (inbound links)
Analytics (visitors)
Net (Income)

I made goals each month and reported them to you. You can find the last several months C.A.N. results here. This was a very efficient way to measure my own progress. Here is a chart showing how my three blogs Fared in traffic the past 4 months:

I think the smartest thing I have done this past year is to monitor progress toward goals through my monthly CAN post on my personal blog. My hope is that my lower two blogs will rise in their analytics and come close to my psych blog.

Moving Forward

Since this date last year and now, 12-24-08, I’ve earned a total of: $2,137 blogging. If you are interested how I made that chunk of change, here are the sources, in order of highest earnings:

Pay Per Post
PayU2Blog

Review Me
Buy Blog Reviews
Private Ads (Random people who’ve asked to advertise on my blog)
Text Link Ads

I made the majority of this past year’s income when my highest PR was a 4/10. A few months ago, Google reduced me to a 1/10 and much of my opportunities to make money disappeared. This is the irony of Google’s PageRank system: They penalize you for posting sponsored posts and yet the ones who sponsor you pull away when Google penalizes you. There is a solution but it is quite cumbersome: add the tag rel=”nofollow” to any paid link. I’ve been diligent at doing this, not only with paid links but also with links that are irrelvant. I have heard this can affect PageRank as well.

What’s an honest blogger to do?

The secret then, to what I hope is my future success is to always be relevant when linking (ie; no blogrolls, random “link love” posts), always write valuable posts with excellent content (paid or not), rel=”nofollow” ads and sponsored posts when the buyer allows it (note: does all nofollow), and measure my progress toward goals on my personal blog. Finally, as I said earlier, I hope to bring the analytics of my teaching blog and this blog, my personal blog, up to the region on the chart where the psych blog is. If I pull that off in 2009, I will feel I’ve truly accomplished something.

I have many other strategies I am playing with to hopefully put a plasma big screen on the tv stand. In future posts in this series I will discuss social media and networking along with personal habits like scheduling times to post and future time stamping posts. I’ll also be taking YOUR QUESTIONS.  I hope you’ll “tune in.”

Photo from Google Success

Soon I will be sharing my 2009 blogging goals and I am very excited about writing the post.  To make my goals I will use data of the past and aggregate it into a set of new goals I hope I can achieve.  The most successful blogs understand that good data analytics and goal setting are just as important as they are to something offline like a Subway franchise. Aside from numerical goals for traffic, monetization, and other measurable items, I will also be sharing the tools I am using to meet those goals.  Much like DerekSemmler.com does, I will be sharing the way I met my goals and the means I used to make them.  In blogging there are certain items one regards as “non-negotiable.”  For me and my blogging ventures, traffic is one of those.  I can do without many things, but not traffic.  Currently, these are the ideas I have to draw blog traffic in 2009:

• MyBlogLog
• Blog Catalog
• Social Media (up to 160 sites through SocialMarker.com)
• Reading and commenting via Google Reader.
• Entrecard I have decided, for ME and ME only, this service serves itself more than those who use it.
• Blog Carnivals
• Guest Blogging

What tools do you use to drive traffic?

Blog Bloke left a comment to my recent post 50 Blogging Tips that Deliver.  It was great and I wanted to make a whole new post about his valuable responses.  My original tips are numbered, then his comments are below that and finally my responses are in bold:

1. “Find your “niche” and become a slave to it.”

And also be sure to not choose a niche that is already saturated ;-)

Yes but that is an “advanced” concept.  I am talking to people who sit usually down to blog with zero focus.  Whether you write about a narrow focus like wakeboarding or the broadest like SEO/MMOL you are better off having a niche focus than not.  In the next class ;) your point would be a good one.

2. “Make posts over 100 words, around 200 words and usually not more than 400 words.”

Of course it depends on the type of post you are writing. If you write detailed tutorials like I do then it’s impossible to write a short post. (Btw isn’t this post over 400 words? :-)

Yes it is by absolute word count but if you count my sentences where I elaborate there are only about half of that.  In your lengthy tutorials it is likely the same situation.  I am speaking to writers who want to describe how much their day sucked etc.  If I want a “thesis” on someone’s day, I’ll listen to my wife.  LOL  PLEASE OUT THERE keep it to 200-400 words.  Of course there are always exceptions that work.  This is a guideline I have learned through time.

3. “Regularly post.”

I’ve hardly posted lately and my traffic is up more than 500%. So writing every day isn’t necessarily going to bring you good results. I would say that writing quality posts that are SEO optimized is far more important than quantity.

I call those “authority posts.”  I’ve also seen them referred to as “pillar posts.”  If you have enough of those, what you say is true.  For example, my “Crazy Quotes” page has a higher rating than my actual blog domain.  Still, if you want to gather followers/readers/contacts, posting regularly is a must.  After a few years maybe not so much though.

4. “Pick a simple theme and then test, test, test.”

Although I agree with the testing part (does it ever end) a “simple” theme isn’t always your best choice if you have a lot of content like I do. A nice looking site also doesn’t hurt to attract repeat visitors.

The Peter Principle says that every person will rise to their own level of incompetence.  I want to stay where I am competent.  To a beginner “simple” may mean using the Wordpress default.  To you or I it may mean using Ajax or not … just as an example.  I think simple was the wrong word choice so thanks for clarifying that.

5. “Here today, gone tomorrow: remember your post is not a bestseller in process. Write it and move on.”

Sometimes when we write a post we forget to optimize it for the SERPS. I’m always going back to my better posts and tweaking them for optimum performance. Like I said earlier good quality posts will bring you more traffic over the long term.

I only optimize my favorite posts.  The other ones get picked up anyway whether I liked them or not.  Can I get an AMEN?  No ryhme or reason sometimes.  I go back and tweak popular posts all the time, a very fruitful practice!

6. “Have a minimal sidebar. Most the “flair” out there is so distracting and lame.”

Agreed, too many bloggers have useless widgets such as showing what the weather is in your home town. But the sidebar/footer is a useful place to put your best posts, reader’s comments etc. So don’t neglect it.

Great thought about the sidebar.  Getting readers access to back posts is a great use of a sidebar!  Plus a little advertising as long as it is not too gaudy.

Hope that helps and cheers!

It helped very much, thanks for taking the time to read and comment.  Keep in touch!

Sometimes I wish I could fix all the annoying things I find on blogs.  Has that notion ever filled your head?  How do people think they can get blog traffic when they can’t write a cohesive paragraph?

It’s been said there is more than one way to skin a cat.  That is true of getting blog traffic.  It has also been said that if you work smarter you don’t have to work as harder.  This is also true of getting to be a pro-blogger.  One of the most basic ways you can work to get more readers is to write better with less errors.  By the way, I am not talking about spell-check.  What good is a spike of traffic if your writing is dull, or worse, incorrect?  Sometimes I take a break from the “making money online,” and “here’s what I did today” posts to try and help the world out.  This series is like that.

In the next several days I will be highlighting writing “shalls,” ie; you shall not repeat the word than in a sentence.  And I will present the “shoulds,” ie; you should noy use the same word too much in a post … use synonyms.  My hope for this series is that it will review the basic errors of grammar and spread some “tricks” I have learned as a Master of Arts in English composition and rhetoric and a teacher since 1997.  Oh yeah, I have three blogs I am fairly proud of as well.  I will be drawing heavily on Strunk and White’s classic work: The Elements of Style.  If you can’t wait to read my series, go ahead and preview it yourself online here.  Bloggers are writers right?  Okay, if that’s true this is a good series for bloggers.

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The Elements of Blogging is a series on Damien at the Speed of Life.  If you are interested in following this series you can subscribe via -or-

My C.A.N. results on all three blogs in August 2008 are detailed below. Some things could have gone better, but that is an “as always” thing. More things went right than ever before. I am very happy about these results across all three blogs.

Check out how I did in August 2008.

As always, I welcome questions in the comment section. Please feel free to leave a comment or question.

An explanation of the C.A.N. blog rating system can be found here. I maintain 3 blogs. This post combines all their results in one place.

Postcards from the Funny Farm

1. Circulation: 10 incoming links(below). Goal was 4. Percentage= 250%

2. Analytics: 3376 uniques. Goal was 5000. Percentage= 68% :(

3. Net: $410. Goal was $250. Percentage=164%

4. Overall Rating: 268/300= 89%

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Damien at the Speed of Life
1. Circulation: 1 incoming link. Goal was 1. (Thank you Katelynjane!) Percentage=100%
Blogging on a Postcard
2. Analytics: 787 visitors for the month. Goal was 600. :) Percentage= 131%
3. Net: $40. Goal was $20. Percentage= 150%
4. Overall Rating: 300/300= 100% :)

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Dynamite Lesson Plan
1. Circulation: 1 incoming link. Goal was 1. Percentage= 100%
2. Analytics: 634 visitors for the month. Goal was 300. :) Percentage= 211%
3. Net: $0. Goal was $0. Percentage= 100%

4. Overall Rating: 300/300= 100%

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Subscribe to this blog via and Watch how I do in September, as-I-do-it!

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Okay, now for the important stuff: Goals for next month!

1. Circulation: Well, last month I had a low goal of one because I just started the online diary. Matters got more interesting (difficult) when I bought and transferred a domain. This blog is now www.damienriley.com (in case you didn’t know – do change your bookmarks. There is no need to change your RSS feed). Okay, enough blabbering. I am going to go big here and try to get 10 incoming links. Probably 5-6 guestblogs so if anyone out there is interested, hook me up … I always hook up back ;)
2. I knocked this one out of the park. I have learned that you guys are interested in my online diary! Social media helped me get the word out and a couple ezines interviewed me which brought in a lot of traffic. I have a daily “surfing system” in place that I think is going to double my analytics in September but I am not going to go too crazy just yet. It was 780 last month and my goal was 600. How about I double the difference and add it to the 780: 1140 unique visitors for the month.
3. Net: $50

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Postcards from the Funny Farm

1. Circulation: I had over 10 incoming links last month and it was relatively easy. With the 2 newer blogs I really have to knock on doors to get those links but Postcards seems to generate them automatically. For that reason, I am going to challenge myself by doing guest blogs and links from other sites. I’m stepping up the circulation goal to 20 in September. Here goes nothin’!

2. Analytics: I missed my visitors goal by 32% last month. That’s when you have to get real and set a more realistic goal. I always have a feeling PFTFF will go huge any day now. I imagine it being up there with some of the big hitters. Alas, it hasn’t happened yet. For now, I will scale back the goal to a cool 4000 visitors in September.

3. Net: I beat my net goal by over $160. With a few other income opportunities through various means, I think I will go yet higher in September. Nonetheless, I don’t wan’t to get caught up in the “hard” money when I should be focusing on content and passively making the “easy” money. There will be a time to push up into the 700’s and higher but in September, we are not quite there yet. So, my net goal for September will be $400.

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Dynamite Lesson Plan
1. Circulation: This month I think I can get some interest in what I do at DLP. I am going to try and get friends to do that. I am also going to try and find avenues where my posts are read more and possibly “quoted” ergot “linkback” ed. Despite the blog only being one month old, I’m shooting for a bold 3 incoming links. Help me out if you read something worth linking to! ;)
2. Analytics: My goal was 300 and I beat it. This is a tough blog to get people to, moreso than my other two. However, I am going to try and find some educational forums and linkback. I will also use the normal traffic building services you find in my sidebar. Still, my goal is a conservative 500 visitors in September.
3. Net: $40

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Subscribe to this blog via and Watch how I do in September, as-I-do-it!