By: Todd Brannan
Ok, So now you have your blog setup and you are posting great content, and sometimes you feel like your going nowhere? You don’t know if your going in the right direction. So now you’ve got a few quick ways to find out.
Way #1: Alexa
Go to www.alexa.com and click on the toolbar tab and install the toolbar or statusbar. This will tell you what your site is ranking globally. The lower the number the better. For instance when I first put my site up it ranked somewhere around 12,000,000 as I have written more post the number has dropped and is now at 858,253. Also the more frequently I post the quicker the number drops. If I don’t post and just leave my site dormant the number rises. Also as my number moves so does my traffic. The lower the Alexa number the higher my traffic. So even though I don’t see progress like I want on my site, all I have to do is check my Alexa number and I can see positive changes in the right direction. Every time I see the ranking lower I know I am on the right track. Everytime I visit my site I see the ranking number in my status bar on my Firefox browser and I log it down so I can track my progress in my spreadsheet.
Way #2: Cpanel
Check your traffic stats in your Cpanel. Just log into your Cpanel and the in the left sidebar scroll down to website traffic. There will be listed 3 stats, yesterdays traffic, traffic this month & traffic last month. Its that easy. This number I also log into my spreadsheet.
Way #3: Subscribers
Your Opt-in form should be on every page above the fold. This number will be the slowest moving. But these are actually the most valuable numbers and what you are ultimately looking for. These are your most interested following and they are looking to you for guidance. Send them great information, ask them what they need, what you can do for them to help them.
” New Blog Gaining Traction? 3 Ways You Can Tell” – Click to tweet
Nothing moves your blog in the right direction as much as being consistent. What ever you do, make sure you are posting on a schedule. It can be daily or weekly or bi-weekly or even monthly, but be consistent. Believe me when I say I have paid the price of being inconsistent. I have seen massive changes in the negative direction because I got distracted. Also I have pointed my blog in the ascending direction just by being consistent. It is also possible to speed up your progress by speeding up your activity on your blog. Also I have been able to achieve a lower number on Alexa in less than three weeks, than in the previous 8 months. Just by being more active.
Of course this is only a basic starting point, later I will cover some more advanced techniques.
Let me know if you have any techniques that have worked for you.
Update 04/26/2013: TweetAdder 4.0 software is no longer allowing the user to automate the auto follow / auto unfollow. For this reason I will be searching for new software to recommend.
03/24/2012 Upate: TweetAtacks is no longer available. So I have updated this post and I am now using Tweetadder.
This is the Super Simple Plan I use to drive traffic to my site and build my email marketing list.
One of the best Twitter Programs on the market today is Tweetadder.
This software allows you to follow automatically and then unfollow automatically if the person doesn’t follow you back in 3 days or whatever time period you want.
You can build a large list of followers automatically using Twitter programs. Now there are two views of thought on this.
1st, it has been said that you only need 150 targeted and active followers. Any more than that and it would be hard to keep up with all the questions and needs of your followers.
2nd, You look more like a trusted authority when you have a large following. Although a lot of the followers don’t even hear your tweets cause they just want a large following also. There are a lot of people on twitter just tweeting and tweeting and nobody is reading.
Now here’s my take on this question…..what is better?
I want totally targeted followers that engage me with questions and add to the answers for the whole group. In order to get these, I have to go thru a lot of followers to get there. You need to build a following as large as it takes to get these 150 interested followers. These followers are in my niche, some are for me to learn from and others are for me to teach from my experiences.
Ok, here is the step by step process.
Download Tweetadder (My favorite of all Twitter programs) It has a trial period for 300 followers and install and set it up.
If you need help on setting it up, just email me.
Run tweetadder every day or just leave your computer on and it will run automatically.
Follow from keyword or follow other guru’s followers, since these are already targeted followers.
Then start tweeting and retweeting premium content, some of it your own and some of it from other sites. Try and engage your followers. Use video and photos as part of your tweets. When you have a link to a video people are more likely to click on it than a regular shortened link. Always state it is a video or just use the Youtube link.
“Remember Engage, Converse, Share Ideas, Personally with your Followers”
If you try and build your followers too quick your account could be suspended. I have added 16 followers a day for the last 90 days on average using this software. I like to play it safe and be able to monitor all of the people the software is following. Of course you could set it up for a lot more.
By doing this method I am able to drive traffic to my site. Once there, the visitor then has a chance to subscribe to my site updates. That is what I ultimately want.
If you purchase the paid version you can do anything you want to market your product on twitter. It has to be the most powerful of all twitter programs I have seen.
Hope this helps, BTW tell me what Twitter programs you use for making twitter marketing easier?
Here’s To Your Success,
-Todd
How many times have you checked out a blog and it looks like a site with good information, you browse around a little and then you subscribe to their newsletter. Then in a few days you start getting email from the blog that is nothing more than telling you how great what they have to recommend is. You click on the link in the email and it sends you to a squeeze page that just wants you to buy something. You don’t get any USEFUL information in their emails. You just keep getting email after email offer. You can tell they are just in it for the money. They really don’t care to offer any help to anyone. I have emailed a few sites to ask for advice or help just to see if they would respond…..you guessed it nothing happened. I subscribe to about 20 sites a week, and don’t see much value in the newsletters, just lots of offers.
If you want to make an impact online and build a huge list for your blog, write great, valuable information and give it away in your newsletter and people will stay subscribed to your list and your following will grow HUGE. You will become the authority for them. Then you can recommend product and services and make an income the will surpass most of the other bloggers and websites. Remember the “money is in the list”. But before you get to that your subscribers needs come first. Give them the useful and valuable information that they seek. Then your list will trust you and your recommendations. And the money will come.