Erik’s Blog: Board Shorts and Business Suits

I recently sent out my monthly traffic report to the Blogtown Press bloggers and was able to report some great news! Ever since I launched the network with my link-baiting contest and hired bloggers I’ve been able to promote and create more incoming links, which I am happy to report has helped immensely.

Below is a quick recap over the past few months of the effects the contest, hiring writers, and focusing more on link building and site promotion has had on my network. The graph below displays only the 12 main blogs within the Blogtown Press Blog Network and doesn’t include this blog “Board Shorts and Business Suits”.

As you can see the increase, percentage wise is very large. My numbers are still relatively low compared to other Blog Networks, but the possibilities to grow are noticeable. From the Novemeber Blog Network Launch to the end of last month Blogtown Press has seen a 393% increase in pageviews and a 480% increase in uniques. (Sounds much better than 3.9 and 4.8 times more visitors don’t you think )

As for this blog, I’ve increased my unique visitors by 293% and my pageviews by 265% since November. I really feel like I can get my pageviews up with a few quick tweaks and more internal linking, but that’s another subject altogether.

I’m going to continue to push forward with the techniques I’m using right now as well as some new ones that I inevitably learn along the way.

OK, this is really nothing compared to the big boys and girls out there in the blogosphere but I had to share my excitement. I haven’t had many huge milestones in the blogging world, although I’ve made progress, so I have to take each one with a bit of joy when I hit them. 

This week was a good week as I’ve found a few new ways to promote my blog network and I’ve been able to align better where I want to take that network. I’ve also been working on this blog by focusing more of the effort on what I’m trying to accomplish. Become a true entrepreneur.

With that I’ve hit really two milestones this week. One, I’ve averaged over 200 Unique visitors a day for the past week, and two I’ve finally reached 100+ RSS subscribers. Although that subscriber number is always in flux, hitting it once is surely moving in the right direction.

One of the main reasons this site is getting more traffic (aside from the obvious stumble phenomenon) is because I’ve focused more on providing something useful for my readers, rather than solely reflecting on what I’ve done. My most recent 5 Part Series about Buying and Selling Domain Names has been picked up by several people, dugg, and has provided me with a lot of traffic. Sure I’ve let the cat out of the bag on a few things I do to make a great return, but I’ve provided something useful and that is what brings readers in and keeps them.

I’m really taking a liking and learning about SEO and site promotion and I’ll be sharing what I’ve learned as I go along so be sure to look for more helpful series.

As you know I’ve started Blogtown Press and have been looking to hire a few bloggers. I posted over on the network blog about the need and received one response from that and I also was able to talk to a friend of mine who I hired on as a blogger as well. We’re working on a one month trial basis, but so far so good.

The main reason for hiring bloggers is because I can’t blog on 12 different blogs, organize advertising for the blogs, promote the blogs, and launch other products and sites all at the same time. It’s just not possible for someone who also holds down a full-time job. So finally, I’ve been able to make enough money to tryout employing bloggers of my own. I’m making just enough money on my Internet endeavours to pay for a couple 2, 3 bloggers (yeah I’m from Wisconsin if you caught that).

Some people around me have asked, “Why hire bloggers if you’re only making enough money to pay them. Don’t you want to make money?”

I do, and that’s precisely why I’m hiring bloggers. See building blogs is a long term thing. You can get super lucky have a bunch of big name blogs think your the cats meow and you’re set. As long as you provide interesting content on an almost daily basis you won’t have any trouble. But if you’re trying to lay the foundation of a blog network, meaning multiple blogs, you need to put in a lot of time creating content, gaining readers, and moving up the search engine results pages.

By hiring bloggers, I can gain more pages, more content, more consistency, and do it faster.

I’m currently working on the payment terms which is why I say trial run. I’m not sure what how lucrative having full time bloggers on several of my blogs will be. My current plan is to increase the base pay that I pay bloggers over the next few months with the opportunity to make even more through percentage based payments. Of course, we’ll see how it goes.

The good thing about hiring bloggers now, is that I’ll always have the content they produce, so while I’m paying to see gains in the short term, there is also the possibility for long term gains by having the content always there.

And that’s why I’m hiring bloggers while Blogtown Press will make only a small amount.

The first winning coconut went out in the mail and here’s a sneak peak at the beauty. Straight from Hawaii to your doorstep, you could win it. All you gotta do is enter the contest! (PS all you have to do is write one post with a few links)

 Look at that, I’ve been blogging for almost a year and I’ve made it to my 200th post on this blog. Now overall I’m around 700 posts for all of the blogs in my network, but I think it’s and interesting milestone to hit, any century multiple on a blog is reason for announcement. Plus I thought I would update you all on my progress.

Blogging
For those of you that don’t know, I started blogging last November, November 12th to be exact with the hope of creating a blog, a site, or a network of sites that received over 500,000 visitors a month. Well, I can honestly say that I’m way, way off from that.

However, the process of trying to get there over the last year has allowed me to learn so much that if I didn’t have that goal of 500,000 visitors I probably wouldn’t have learned nearly as much. I more than likely would have become one of the millions of bloggers that try it out and then drift away after about three months. If you look through many bloggers blog rolls you’ll find these blogs, especially if a blogger hasn’t cleaned up his/her blog roll lately.

But I’ve stuck with it and I’ve actually expanded from just this one blog into a whole network of blogs called Blogtown Press Blog Network. The network launch is coming along, however I feel as though it would have been a little more successful had I practiced what I recently preached over at Blogging on Empty about building content before a launch, but I’m a “do then learn” type. I’m still working on promoting and hopefully my Blog Network Launch Contest and blog network gets picked up by a big time blog and helps spread the word. (Hint Hint)

Forum Building
I’m working on a much needed forum (I have one called the Rants Forum over at Sprint Rants). I want to wait on the launch of that forum but hope that it is not only successful but also helps a lot of people out. I’ll be looking for some “beta testers” soon so let me know if you’re interested.

I’m also busy on some super top secret stuff that I can’t mention at the moment.

Thanks to everyone who has kept me motivated and kept me going at this blogging thing. I never thought I would actually have started a blog let alone 13 of them and continued blogging for over a year.

This is an important update. Blogtown Press will now Ship Coconuts Worldwide!!!

We’ve had several people interested in the contest but dissapointed that we only shipped to 4 countries. Well we checked again and the USPS will ship worldwide a Coconut, without the box, like a postcard to anywhere it ships!

That’s great news to those of you interested but living in different countries than what we originally mentioned!

The Link to a Coconut Contest Rules have been updated and a blog post has been made. Please update you postings if you mentioned this or tell your pals the good news. Anyone can enter and win a coconut postcard!!!

That’s a good explanation, a Coconut Postcard.

In an effort to make it easier for bloggers to enter the contest I’ve posted links to all the post-by-post Archives of each blog. These are the title and date archives so it should be super simple to create post to enter the contest. You can be blatant about the entry and say it’s a linkbaiting entry or you can just copy and paste what I have written here.

Here are the daily archives:

Blogging On Empty
Wicked Backhand
Getting to Scratch
Wie Blogging
Freddy Adu Blog
Financing Wealth
Blog Silver
Erik Vossman’s Blog
Fueling the World
Sprint Rants
Aloha Update
Rumor Patrol
Good Luck!

Ok, for those of you who have emailed me regarding the contest and what the post needs to entail I say, not much. Just a simple post. If you’re one of the first 5 to enter the contest you can get a free PR5 link from this blog to yours active for at least two months on all pages. In fact here’s two examples of how simple the post can be……

Example 1:

TITLE: Link to a Coconut Contest Entry

I’m trying to win a coconut from Blogtown Press Blog Network and in the process found these articles you might enjoy.

Tim Roth wonders who killed the Electric Car over at Fueling the World, while Freddy Aduworks out with Man U.

Example 2:

TITLE: Use a contest to promote your Site launch

Using a contest to promote the launch of your site or product isn’t new. Blogtown Press is utilizing this method through their Link to a Coconut Contest where you can win a coconut by linking to posts in their blog network.

I ventured through their blogs and found some helpful hints at Blogging on Empty about not wasting time checking stats.

See it’s super easy! You can win a coconut and get some good pr links.

It’s finally here! I give you to Blogtown Press. A network of blogs where we bring you news, entertainment, and reward you, our readers!

To kick off the launch of Blogtown Press blog network we’re having a contest where we’re giving away a coconut straight from Hawaii, where Blogtown Press is headquartered! That’s right you can win a coconut like that in the image below in our Link to a Coconut Contest!

 We’re choosing three posts within our network of blogs and you can win one of three coconuts. All you have to do is link to the correct post and you’ll get a genuine Hawaiian coconut plastered with some genuine Hawaii postage stamps.

You can see full rules at our Link to a Coconut Contest  Page. Feel free to use the contest image to help promote the contest and our blogs!

Aloha and

The launching of my blog network, equipped with a new layout, new blogs, and a brand new name, is less than 24 hours away!

I’m working on some finishing touches as well as making sure the associated blog network launch contest is ready to go. I’ve checked with the post office and they tell me I’m allowed to send the contest winnings through the mail so now all I have to do is fine tune the contest rules and the contest will be in the launch.

The contest is going to need YOUR! participation to make it a success so please stay tuned to see how you can help and win.

Oh, yeah, and I hope you like the new look and are able to navigate the new color themes. I’ve allowed users to switch between a University of Michigan Inspired theme, a Green Bay Packers inspired theme and a neutral red and black theme. Have fun with the colors and enjoy the new looks.

Almost there….