First of all, let me say that in terms of traffic, I’d much rather be dealing with stumblers than diggers.  Stumblers have an average time on site that’s nearly 10x that off Digg traffic, at least on this one.  Digg traffic is kinda like a high school kid with his prom date.  In and out so fast it leaves you wondering… “did that just happen”.  It did happen my friends… it did happen.

Alright, so here’s the quick and dirty about Diggers.  The average age is 18-34, and they are an extremely technology orientated crowd.  My little site is nothing to them, and they’d much rather be reading about how Mac’s are better than Pc’s, or how Linux “rox their sox” compared to Vista.  All kidding aside, these people are extremely tech savvy.  So unless you have a half-naked pictures of your girlfriend ghost hula-hooping on the Nintendo Wii (over 5k Diggs!), then don’t be prepared to have huge results with Digg… at first!

Gaming the Digg system is incredibly possible.  It’s actually pretty simple too.

Here are a few keys.

• Add friends, lots of friends.
• Digg other people’s stuff, not just your own.
• Leave comments on other submissions, it’s a great way to meet new “Digg Friends”.
• Get your friends to Digg your stuff.  If you are doing your main job as a blogger (networking), it shouldn’t be to hard to find people to Digg stuff for you.  Just send them an email with the URL.
• Don’t get greedy!  If you try to submit too many posts at once, they’ll notice.
• Submit stuff from other sites too so that you can try to build some respect in the community.

Digg is a community, and they don’t take too kindly to spam-hungry newcomers trying to steal their thunder.  Make sure and build your Digg profile to an authoritative one before you get too submit happy with your own posts.

It’s really common sense guys.  The more of these people you can make friends with, the better your results.  Get out there and start Digging!

If you liked this post, why not Subscribe to My Feed?

Wanted to take a quick second to let everyone know that Site Flip U, is having a Site Flipping contest.  If you aren’t familiar with blog flipping, it’s the act of “buy low, sell high” on web real estate.  Basically you are purchasing junk sites or domains, or building them from scratch and then selling them to others who want a site that’s already “established” rather than building it themselves. It’s a pretty lucrative market, and one can make some real money doing it.

Contestants will be given points based on the following criteria.

• 10 Points for each Feedburner Subscriber
• 2 Points for each unique visitor
• 1 Point for each pageview
• 5 Points for each unique visitor from an ORGANIC source (i.e. Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)
• 10 Points for listing the auction
• 100 Points for a successful sale (price doesn’t matter)
• 50 Points for having the MOST traffic
• 100 Points for having the most ORGANIC traffic
• 100 Points for having the most Feedburner Subscribers
• 50 points to anyone who opens a new Hostgator account under this affiliate link.  The proceeds will be split with the winner of the contest.  Pretty good deal right? And it’s $10 a month for unlimited domains, and the best host on the market.

Prizes

• 1 Year of free hosting (Value $120)
• 1 Free banner advertisement on Siteflipu for 30 days  (Value $45)
• 1 Free blog review that will be posted on Siteflipu, and completed by me (Value $65)
• 1 Free copy of my Site Flipping Blueprint, (when completed) (Value - Priceless)
• 1 Lifetime membership into my Site Flipping Club, which will be a personal mentor program taught by me, and valued at $47 a month
• 2 Hour free SEO Conultation with a PROFESSIONAL SEO! ($200)
• 1 Free software package including some great tools for Site Flippers ($300)
• 1 Free copy of the Wordpress Dream Theme, Designed by Ben Cope.  Includes installation and customization.  (Value $247)
• 2 Free 125×125 Banner Ad Creations (Value $60) - Thanks To Forest, from The Random Forest
• 1 Free banner ad on The Piss Biscuit
• 1 Free blog re-design (Vaule $900) from The Piss Biscuit
• And lots more to come over the next few days.  I have a few sponsors that have already agreed to donate some fantastic prizes, but we’re working out the details… stay tuned!

Make sure to check out Blog Flipping, for your chance to enter and win some wonderful prizes!

If you liked this post, why not Subscribe to My Feed?

There are a lot of terms that get thrown around when trying to analyze stats on your blog.  Some of these can be quite confusing, so I’ve decided to clear up their meanings here.  If you properly understand what you are looking at, then it makes this part of the job that much easier.

• Unique Visitor - Just what it sounds like.  A unique visitor is ONE person that has found your page for that particular day.  Generally someone is counted as a unique visitor if they haven’t been to your page for more than 30 minutes.  So if they type in http://thatblogsite.com and then come back 5 minutes later, they are still only ONE unique visitor.
• Page View - This is how many pages your visitors have viewed on your blog.  You want this number to be at least double that of your unique visitors.  It’s tough in some blog niches, but it’s always possible.
• Average Time On Site - Just what it sounds like.  You would like the visitor to spend as much time as possible on your blog so that they can check multiple articles, and preferrably take a preferrable action.  A preferrable action would mean signing up for your Rss feed, clicking on your Adsense ads, or signing up through an affiliate banner.  The more time they spend on your site, the more likely they are to take an action that you desire.
• Pages/Visit - This is the average number of pages per visit.  As I said above, you’d like to keep this number above two, but with some niches it’s harder than others.
• % New Visits - This is the percentage of visitors that come to your site who are “new”.  Actually, it’s not that simple… everyone is a new visit eventually because this relies on a tracking cookie to let you know who’s been here and who hasn’t.  If they clear their cookies, they are a new visitor again.
• Bounce Rate - Bounce Rate is the number of people who visit your blog, and then leave without clicking anything.  This means they only see your homepage, and then they are gone.  This number should be less than 50%, but if you get a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon or other social sites… it will be much higher.
• Referrals - This statistic ties in to “referring traffic”.  It’s basically how many people visit your site that come from other sites, and referrals show you how they got here.  Referrals can be from a blog linking to you, or someong Stumbling your page from StumbleUpon.
• Organic - This means that someone found you through a search engine.  Organic rankings are those that are obtained naturally, meaning without compensation.  Organic rankings come from efficient use of SEO.
• Direct Traffic - People who type in your URL in their address bar to get to your site.

There are many more stats you can check, but these are those that are vital to your blog’s existence.  Check these regularly, and then use your analysis to create a better blog.

If you liked this post, why not Subscribe to My Feed?

Do you know what a writing voice is?

Every blogger has a blogging voice, whether they realize it or not.  It’s important that no matter how stale the topic, you inject a bit of your personality into your writing.  Whether the entire article be written as a So-Cal surfer, or an angry New Yorker… it’s important to be yourself, or at least the yourself you created for your blog.  This is by far the simplest way to differentiate your blog from the crowd, and believe me… it’s crowded.

I once read that the most effective way of establishing a personal connection with your audience was to provide a picture.  The picture doesn’t even have to be of you, or of a person in general.  It can be of your cat… people just want something to relate to.

One of the many tasks you should be taking on as a blogger is networking with your fellow bloggers, your audience, and friends of your audience.  It’s hard to stand out in a world with millions of other blogs, but the easiest way to accomplish this is by being yourself.  Nobody is exactly like you, so why give in to temptation and start writing like the bigger bloggers in your niche?  The truth is, however small you feel in this big blogging world, you are the only you, so it’s important to portray that in your posts.  It’s a simple concept really… why do people read popular blogs daily?  I can guarantee it’s not based on the information, because there are a million other blogs that have the same types of information, yet you keep going to the same one…  it’s you!  In a world where it’s difficult to network with people face to face (the blogging world), this might just be the only bit of “personal” touch you can add to a blog.  Why waste it?

Be yourself… write what you love, and reap the benefits!

If you liked this post, why not Subscribe to My Feed?

I read a statistic that got my attention today.  It stated that only 1 in 76 people worldwide had a blog.  That’s an amazing number.  Let it sink in for a minute.  What’s that mean for you?  Simple… if you have a blog right now, you are ahead of the curve!

Blogging is quickly becoming the new media, and is often cited in traditional media when stories are reported.  Bloggers are making millions, going bankrupt, getting sued, and forming empires.  Sound familiar?  None of us witnessed the television or print media at the same early stages, but I’d have to assume it’s about the same.  Blogs are becoming the source by which the world gets it’s news, and if you aren’t blogging… you’re missing the train my friend.

Whether it be for storing photos, keeping family updated on your life, or reporting on the news or your favorite niche, blogging is for everyone.  However, not everyone is for blogging…  this opens the door for you, and everyone you know to get in on the ground floor.  In the grander scheme of things, the internet is still VERY new, yet it’s overtaking growth records for any other form of media at an astounding rate.  Are you going to keep sitting still while everyone around you cashes in?

If you liked this post, why not Subscribe to My Feed?