Web Development Tips

When I wrote about the goals,
history and move of the Web Development Blog, I mentioned that the move would present some marketing challenges. Specifically I wondered how long it would take to transition readers to the new location so that readership would equal, then surpass the levels I had on the old site. In conversations I’ve had with many of you both online and in the real world I’ve promised to share my progress. It’s now been just over a month since the Web Development Blog moved to it’s new home, so today I thought I’d update you on the progress I’ve made so far and the strategies I’ve employed.

Where are we at now? How do readership levels here compare to those on the old site?

While I’m not going to share exact numbers, you can see from the following table that readership for the first month is now equal to 20% of readership at the old location. I’d love to tell you that I’d hit 100% already, but I think reaching 20% in one month is actually pretty good. I’m currently attaining numbers I didn’t reach until 17 months after originally launching the Web Development Blog at the old location.

The new site has 2 advantages compared to the original launch. 1) It has several years of content, so over time search traffic will grow. 2) The old site links to the new from several pages so readers of the old blog will be able to easily find the new one. These factors will continue to contribute to readership growth over the months to come.

The new site has the same disadvantage as the old one. I don’t blog as often
as many bloggers do. Each new entry provides new opportunities to gain traffic.
This will be the fourth entry posted since the transition. Increasing my posting
frequency (while maintaining quality) is probably the number one thing I could
do to grow readership more swiftly. Alas, I have Web sites to build (though
if you need a Web site or consultation
I am happy to take on new clients), advice to give,
and a special project I’m working on, so my goal for the time being will be
to try to post once per week. If I can change that to something more frequent,
I will.

How are visitors finding the site?

The following table shows the top 10 traffic sources for both the old and
the new sites. While there are some overlaps between the two, there are also
some differences. Sites such as StumbleUpon and blahblahtech.com that
are sending more traffic to the old site do so because they have several
pages that link to different entries on the old site. If I write more entries
here, that will appeal to users of those sites, then they will start sending
traffic to the new site as well.

You’ll also notice that the new site is getting 2 types of Google traffic.
Organic traffic is coming from people using Google search. Referral traffic
is mostly likely coming from Google Reader and from the RSS
feeds. I’m
using Feedburner for RSS and Google now owns that.

Additionally, the new site is getting traffic from sites that weren’t sending
much traffic to the old site. This is partly due to happenstance and partly
due to my marketing endeavors.

Marketing tactics that seem to be working.

Given my other projects I can only devote so much time to marketing the blog, thus I try to focus on the strategies that will be most effective. Here are a few tactics I’ve employed in the past month.

Blog Commenting

As I’ve mentioned on several occasions, leaving relevant
comments on other blogs is a great way to generate traffic and forge connections with fellow bloggers. Some companies hire staff who spend all day scouring the Web to find blogs and comment upon them. Often these are the types of spammy or irrelevant comments that I must delete from my own blog, so I don’t take the same approach. Instead I comment organically.

I’m subscribed to many Web development and marketing blogs that I read or
skim on a regular basis. Additionally friends send links to interesting blog
entries on Twitter, FriendFeed, StumbleUpon, etc. If I happen to read a blog
entry that interests me, AND if I have something to say that I think will add
value to that blog’s readers, then I will make a comment on the post. When
I do that, my name will typically link back here to the blog. If I’ve already
written an entry on the same topic, I can also include a link to that entry
within the comment.

Sharing Links on Twitter

I use http://twitterfeed.com/ to
automatically Tweet new blog entries as they are posted. Since these automated
Tweets compose but a small fraction of my overall Tweets this isn’t considered
spam. (It would be if I only used Twitter to promote my content.) I also
share links to specific blog entries in response to questions people ask
on Twitter.

For instance if someone asks “What is SEO?” I can Tweet something
like “SEO is a method to make sites more findable via search engines. Learn
more at http://www.heidicool.com/blog/2007/07/13/an-introduction-to-search-engine-optimization-seo-part-1/.” If
the Tweet is more than 140 characters I can substitute a tinyURL for the
full link. As with blog comments, I only do this if the blog entry I’m sharing
answers their question in a useful way.

Luckily I’ve been writing this blog
for several years now, so I actually have quite a few blog entries that pertain
to questions I see on Twitter. If I’ve not already written on the topic,
the question may inspire a new entry, so it’s a good way for me to get ideas
too.

Promotion via Facebook

Technically Facebook is still on my to-do list. I need to create a new Facebook page for the blog, perhaps a new Web Development Group or both—anyone have a preference? I have, however been using the Facebook application, RSS-Connect to publish the RSS feed of my most recent blog posts to my own Facebook page. While I updated the application to use the new feed, I think the real reason it is generating more traffic is because of the recent changes Facebook made to all of our pages. This feed is simply more visible now than it was before. I also announced the blog move in one status message, but I don’t know that this generated hordes of traffic.

Featuring the blog and answering questions on LinkedIn

LinkedIn’s WordPress and Blog Link applications make it easy to share your RSS feeds to your LinkedIn profile. I’m also using the Blog Link application to publish my Google Reader Share links there. Additionally I’ve included a link to the blog in my profile. These are all things one can easily set-up in a few minutes. But LinkedIn’s Answers area is what is probably making the biggest impact.

I started answering questions on LinkedIn Answers for the usual reason, to enhance my reputation and profile. When you answer questions on LinkedIn, the person posting the question can select which is the best answer. If yours is selected, that information is added to your profile indicating that you have expertise in the subject area.

It’s great for the ego, and the profile, to have an answer selected as the
best, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Answering LinkedIn questions
is rewarding on a number of levels. LinkedIn gives you a place to write your
response and add links to up to 3 sites that augment your answer in some way.
Typically I write a fairly comprehensive answer and include links to sites
that will offer more details or clarification. If the question pertains to
something I’ve already written about, I can include links to my own supporting
materials. By linking to my own entries I can provide more specific information
while also promoting my blog. This serves both the person who asked the question
and me.

While I’ve only been answering questions for a few weeks, I have
discovered a special trick to earning a best answer: read the question carefully
and answer what was asked as accurately and clearly as possible. There’s nothing
magic about that, but I’ve seen quite a few answers that don’t seem to follow
this simple rule.

Last but not least, social
media is people, and that includes LinkedIn. In the process of answering
questions I’ve met several interesting people who I’ve added not only to
my LinkedIn network but also to Twitter and Facebook. Conversing with them
has given me new insights on different marketing and social media practices
as well as ideas for future blog entries. They also have a good sense of
humor and are simply fun people to know.

As I employ new strategies or reach new growth milestones, I’ll write additional posts monitoring the progress of the blog. In the meantime you can find more tips and ideas in my
marketing entries.

More ideas for marketing your blog (or other Web site)

• Commenting before you post a link can be a great online PR tactic
• How to Get Noticed
• How To Market Your Blog in 2007 (also applicable to 2009)
• Is marketing evil?
• SEO tips for websites

Last chance to help Heidi win a blog scholarship!

Today’s the last day. Read Learning
for fun and adventure: online education comes in many flavors between March
18-30th, and click on the red “Edu Blogger Scholarship” image.
Every click made during that time period brings me one step closer to the
finals.

p.s. The marketing portion of the Edu Blogger Scholarship has now ended, and I made the finals! Thank you all for your support. You can view the list of finalists, and read their blogs at http://www.onlinecollege.org/. For those of you in higher education, I recommend taking a look, there are some great resources there. Cheers!

Related posts

• 8 things to consider when redesigning your Web site—let’s start with WHY? (0)
• 7 Things You Need To Do To Prepare Your Blog For The Search Engines – Useful Tips (0)
• Pimp My Blog (0)
• 2 Top 5 Lists = 1 Top Ten List: My most read Web Development Blog entries from 2008 (0)
• Seeing is believing: measuring SEO and visualizing results with Wordle Word Clouds (1)