Showing posts with label Darren Rowse. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Darren Rowse. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 07, 2012

SEO Takes Care Of Itself


Darren Rowse, the top blogger in the world perhaps, has a Google Plus post on SEO.
While I once did spend more time on SEO (particularly on structuring my site right, getting keyword density up, interlinking my posts lots and quite a bit of researching keywords) I've increasingly found more value in working on other areas of my business and have found that the result in doing so has been that SEO has to some extend looked after itself....... more search traffic to my blogs .. direct traffic, traffic from social, referral traffic .. Understanding the needs, problems and challenges of readers (and potential readers) is key. ..... you're writing on topics people are searching for, it means that when they find your content they are content with it and are more likely to share it (link to it) - all of which helps to increase search rankings/traffic. .... I work hard and getting inside the heads of my readers by surveying them, running polls, running focus groups, asking questions and giving them space to share what they are doing, learning and struggling with. All of these gives me a fantastic picture of how I can serve them better. ...... the creation of content that is both relevant and useful. This is a daily process of writing, commissioning our writers with assignments and editing their work. ..... ensuring high quality of work but also keeping the quantity up .... More articles mean more doorways into the site. ..... Community - giving readers ways and spaces to engage with you and one another brings a blog alive. .... a reader who feels a sense of belonging is much more likely to be sharing links to your blog than one who never interacts .... I spend a lot of time monitoring our site 'outposts' (Facebook, Twitter etc), creating community centred content (discussions, homework/challenges), focusing our team upon our forum area and investing into customer service (I have a dedicated team on this). .... the dPS Email strategy. .... That blog was well optimized for Google and naturally ranked well. The result was 90% of our traffic was Google traffic. All was good until the day came when Google changed its algorithm and the blog all but disappeared from Google. ...... for the next 6 weeks 90% of my traffic (and income) disappeared. It came back almost as quickly as it disappeared 6 weeks later but the experience taught me an important lesson - to work on other traffic strategies. ..... the graphic with the regular spikes and troughs pattern. The troughs are weekends and the spikes.... are newsletter days. .... Our newsletters drive massive traffic to the site. .... While I wouldn't want to loose the search traffic - the site is now at a point where we wouldn't need it to survive because we can now drive our own traffic each week. .... We now have 100,000 Facebook likes on dPS and it too is sending more and more traffic than previously. The same's true for Twitter and even sites like Pinterest. ..... diversifying our focus on multiple forms of traffic (particularly those we have complete control over like email) gives us a much much much stronger foundation than if we only focused our time and energy upon SEO
In short.

(1) Actively seek to understand your reader's needs.
(2) Write quality and quantity.
(3) Build community at the blog. Hello Disqus.
(4) Email/newsletter can be powerful. Facebook and Twitter are useful.
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Thursday, July 15, 2010

Darren Rowse's Seven Links Challenge

Image representing FeedBurner as depicted in C...Image via CrunchBase
Take the 7 Link Challenge Today #7links
  1. My first post: When Web Hosting Is No Longer A Problem
    This is me celebrating the new, free Blogger platform.
  2. A post I enjoyed writing the most: Social Media Week: The Best NY Tech MeetUp Ever
    I have received so much positive comments from people I know about this one.
  3. A post which had a great discussion: Online Dating Newsflash: Race And Religion Matter
    This is just Alex and me talking. But the talk went on and on.
  4. A post on someone else’s blog that I wish you’d written:
    How I Make Money Blogging: Income Split for June 2010
    Darren Rowse makes it look so easy. Just jack up the traffic and run Google ads. His Feedburner count is at 140K, mine is at 2K.
  5. My most helpful post: Could 2011 Be Venmo's Year?
    The founders of Venmo really appreciated this. I touched lives with this post.
  6. A post with a title that I am proud of: Me @ BBC
    This is me hitting the big leagues.
  7. A post that I wish more people had read: To Iran, With Love (3)
    Darren, I think you should help me with this fundraising. It is a good cause. You should help me with this because you are the top pro blogger on the planet, and I am the top blogger in terms what big stuff I have been able to do politically through the blogging medium. What I did for Nepal, I want to do for Iran. I want you to take the lead on this fundraising.
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Saturday, December 05, 2009

The Pro-Blogger's Daily Routine

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Thursday, April 16, 2009

Blogging Tips

Darren Rowse: How I Make Money Blogging

:en:Seth GodinImage via Wikipedia

Seth Godin: How to Get Traffic to Your Blog
Rand Fiskin: 21 Tactics to Increase Blog Traffic
Skellie: 25 Paths to an Insanely Popular Blog
Yaro Starak: Why Don’t Bloggers Understand Email Marketing?
Maki: 6 Fool-Proof Steps to Make More Money With Your Website
Liz Strauss:


Chris Brogan:



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