Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

Note: If you would like me to link to your site please contact me about exchanging links.

Week 1 is in the bag and it was a decent week increasing traffic to my site. Thanks for all of you who have stopped by and looked around. I hope I have brought some insight into the topic you were looking for. I know I have learned a lot of new ways to become good at developing websites. I am learning that the there is a science behind getting people to stay and getting people interested in reading what you have to say.

Week 1 Results

Unique Visitors - 613
8 search engine hits - 7 Google, 1 yahoo
1 New link a day for 7 days - mostly forums though still useful, 2 unique links from outside sites

Tip of the Week
You might be wondering how I got 613 people to visit my site within the first week without having a lot of people arrive here via a search engine. Well one way that I alluded to in Week 1 - Midweek Stats and Tip was to add useful content to forums and either include a link within my post or within the signature. This worked well and referred to me 83 visitors which I will assume to be unique. I also picked up a link from a similar site and received 3 visitors from that link. (Thanks for that by the way)

The other way that I was able to increase links was by joining a few click for visitors blog exchange programs. I do not think this is an artificial way to boost visitors. Instead I think of it as a great way to promote your blog to other users. Yes, I realize that people will probably not even look twice at your site. I don’t look at most of the sites and I don’t expect others to be any different. However, if you get your site out there enough and update it enough, people will notice the change, look around, possibly bookmark you and be a repeat visitor. How do I know this? Because I have done it. Those sites which have updated since the last rotation in which I saw them I have tended to look at more in depth.

The two sites that I use are Blogxchange.us and blogclicker.com. The way they work is you sign-up, add your blog to your options and then start surfing. You must spend 20 seconds on each site (don’t worry they both have counters) and then you must click on a little icon at the top or bottom of the screen. The best part about these two services is that you don’t have to be looking at that browser window or tab. You can have it running in the background while you search the internet, work on another program, update your site, or watch TV.

I have found this to be a great way to increase traffic to my blog and increase exposure to a greater variety of people. I plan on doing this for at least the first month until my site really gets going (the power of positive thinking).

I hope that helps those of you looking for a way to get more traffic to your blog. Getting visitors, even if for a few seconds, will help reach whatever traffic goal you have.