Last night I was up past 1 AM putting the classes for Blog Traffic School into a manageable folder structure so I could more easily visualize what I still need to do. Needless to say this was a very exciting job for me since I could see how far I had come. I went through many of the previous lessons I had written, some from as far back as January this year, and I could see how the course is really coming together.

There are six classes each filled with 10-20 lessons and activities. Each class has a printable activities list which you are to work through for that month’s worth of lessons. Of course you can work through the course at a quicker or slower pace but I have designed this course to teach you how to grow your blog traffic from 0 to 1000 daily visitors in six months, so I have to be sure the structure represents this accurately.

As a special sneak peek you can take a look at the folder for class one so far…

At the moment Class One, Two and Three are basically done. Class Four is almost done and Class Five and Six have parts done. Remember too that the course is presented in a blog, not as word documents as you see above. I will also make PDF downloads available for those who prefer to print the classes out.

I expect as the course progresses there will be many more lessons added to each course as more great blog traffic tips and techniques are tested and developed (not to mention the ones I forget about). All people who take the course will have access to lifetime updates so won’t miss out on anything that is released after they join.

I’m excited!

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(13)

As many of you will be aware since you came from the link in the last few days, Darren Rowse from Problogger.net published a blog post - How to Find Traffic for a New Blog - which linked to my last article - How To Launch A Brand New Blog.

Darren and I are good friends and we met through blogging a few months ago (close to a year now I’d say). Darren features in a few sections of the Blog Traffic School course and in one particular area, the relationship building section, I’ve recounted the story of how Darren and I first met. It’s an important story because it really demonstrates the power of relationship networking - when bloggers work together to increase exposure for their blogs. I can’t republish the whole class here because that would be giving away too much - plus it’s over 3000 words for just that class!

The last few days since Darren’s post have once again illustrated the power of relationship building for blog traffic. Darren sent through over 700 unique visitors in two days and this would not have happened if Darren and I did not have some form of relationship.

Besides the raw traffic influx from Problogger, the following additional beneficial events occurred:

I had over 60 new sign-ups to my Blog Traffic Tips Newsletter in 48 hours and they are still continuing to come in.

A bunch of other bloggers joined in on the conversation, including -

• How I got 120 Visitors to a Brand New Blog on Day One - Jamdo provided an argument against my claim that blogs start day one with no traffic and offered some tips to generate an audience on your blog’s day of birth.
• Yaro Starak’s Blogging Mantras - Asian Business published a flattering article (thanks!) with possibly the most links to my previous articles I’ve ever seen - it’s like a mini-review of my online life!
• Building Traffic, Building Clients, Building Income - Be Your Own Boss wrote quite an extensive article in response to points Darren made in his article and my points but with a slant towards starting a new business (not just a blog).

Plus there were sixteen (…and counting) comments that came through on my post plus quite a few were made on some of the older posts in this blog.

Unpredictable Traffic Techniques

It’s important to note that my article sat online for quite a few days before Darren found it and it sparked enough interest in him to produce an article of his own and link to this blog. It may never have happened at all and I was surprised when it did (I love waking up to all those emails from comments, newsletter sign-ups and people saying hello - and yes I’m still getting through them all now - I will get back to you I promise!). The run off effect is completely unpredictable. That’s the beauty of blogging and why building your blog traffic is so up and down. You never know what’s going to happen next.

That being said, there are certainly some proactive things you can do to enhance your chance of triggering an event like this and keep it growing. I’ve covered some techniques in more detail in the course, but just for example posting an article like this after the fact encourages further discussion and helps keep the traffic flowing. I send some traffic to the blogs who took the time to contribute to the conversation as a way to return the favor, expand communication channels and build relationships.

Remember you have to be in the conversation to benefit from the traffic reading the conversation.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(6)

I just received an email from a subscriber of my Blog Traffic Tips newsletter all the way from New York in the USA (it’s all the way because I live in Australia).

She asked me how she can announce her blog to the world since it is brand new and no one knows about it. This is a common question many first time bloggers ask - how can you get the word out about a new blog and convince people to come visit?

In her email she mentioned that she had seen “announcing” services advertised online and wondered whether they would be worth paying for.

Day One Blogging

On the day your blog is born you will have no readers. As I’ve written previously, if you are famous or pull off a publicity stunt you can quickly gain a readership. A few well timed joint ventures with established bloggers or website owners, or a massive email newsletter blast promoting your new blog can do the trick. These are the powerful answers for establishing a big audience quickly but are only available to those with money or connections or fame. If you don’t have any of those, well, you need to have one thing - patience.

The Pre-Launch Checklist

At the start of class two in Blog Traffic School I have something I call a Pre-Launch Checklist. The checklist is important because it ensures you are ready to get out there and promote your blog. It includes things like -

Pre-Launch Checklist
• Write at least five pillar articles, the more you have the better.
• Make sure your new visitors can easily find your pillar content by creating an articles page or linking to your top content on your blog front page.
• If you aim to use your name for personal branding make sure the title of your blog includes your name.
• Make sure your contact information is available.

Little tips like this mean that when you do finally announce your blog you aren’t wasting energy. Your new traffic will A) Stay around and come back, and B) Spread the word for you. Without completing a good pre-launch most new visitors to your site will click away within 30 seconds, never to be seen again.

Baby Steps

The simple fact is there isn’t a magic formula for getting traffic quickly to a blog. You need to start promoting your blog by leaving comments on other blogs, forming relationships with other bloggers, producing viral-word-of-mouth-spreading content pillars and community cohesion. When all these initiatives combine over time, only then do you gain solid and sustainable traffic.

Advice For All New Bloggers

One of the problems new bloggers of today face is the hype generated by established successful blogs. You read stories about bloggers earning thousands of dollars per day, with hundreds of thousands of visitors, huge exposure and big profits. Bloggers enter the blogosphere chasing big goals. Once their blog is set up and they have made their first few posts they stop and wonder why nothing is happening. The impatient bloggers head out looking for quick fixes - methods that promise huge amounts of traffic in a few days or weeks.

The reality is you have to pay your dues for success online just as much as you do in the real world. Nearly all big time bloggers have a history of hard and consistent work, only as a snapshot in time *after* something great has been built does it look easy.

If you just launched a blog and you want traffic I have the following advice for you -

Tips For Brand New Bloggers
1. Focus on your content, don’t worry about the traffic.
2. Start commenting on similar blogs.
3. Start building relationships with other bloggers.
4. Link to other blogs with trackbacks.
5. Be prepared to work long and hard before big traffic comes.

Should You Pay For Blog Announcing Services?

A final word before I end this post - don’t bother with blog/website announcement services. Most of these promise to submit your blog and/or RSS feed to thousands of directories online, increasing your backlinks and traffic. Many of these services use automated software that submits your blog URL and RSS feed to directories. Most of these directories are useless and carry very little weight in the search engines. You will get very little, if any direct traffic from these directories and it won’t do much for your search engine rankings either.

Remember, if it was that easy wouldn’t everyone do it and wouldn’t everyone have hugely popular sites as a result? Don’t trust the hype - only quality and value are rewarded in the blogosphere.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(140)

You may have already read this article either on one of my other blogs or in a forum but most readers of this blog will not have so I thought I would post it again since it has some good advice.

This article was one of the most popular articles I have written about blog traffic and continues to receive comments and compliments. Many of the concepts discussed below are analyzed in more depth within the Blog Traffic School course, in particular pillar articles, blogtopsites, blog commenting and trackbacking.

Top 10 Blog Traffic Tips

In every bloggers life comes a special day - the day they first launch a new blog. Now unless you went out and purchased someone else’s blog chances are your blog launched with only one very loyal reader - you. Maybe a few days later you received a few hits when you told your sister, father, girlfriend and best mate about your new blog but that’s about as far you went when it comes to finding readers.

Here are the top 10 techniques new bloggers can use to find readers. These are tips specifically for new bloggers, those people who have next-to-no audience at the moment and want to get the ball rolling.

It helps if you work on this list from top to bottom as each technique builds on the previous step to help you create momentum. Eventually once you establish enough momentum you gain what is called “traction”, which is a large enough audience base (about 500 readers a day is good) that you no longer have to work too hard on finding new readers. Instead your current loyal readers do the work for you through word of mouth.

Top 10 Tips

10. Write at least five major “pillar” articles. A pillar article is usually a tutorial style article aimed to teach your audience something. Generally they are longer than 500 words and have lots of very practical tips or advice. This article you are currently reading could be considered a pillar article since it is very practical and a good “how-to” lesson. This style of article has long term appeal, stays current (it isn’t news or time dependent) and offers real value and insight. The more pillars you have on your blog the better.

9. Write one new blog post per day minimum. Not every post has to be a pillar, but you should work on getting those five pillars done at the same time as you keep your blog fresh with a daily news or short article style post. The important thing here is to demonstrate to first time visitors that your blog is updated all the time so they feel that if they come back tomorrow they will likely find something new. This causes them to bookmark your site or subscribe to your blog feed.

You don’t have to produce one post per day all the time but it is important you do when your blog is brand new. Once you get traction you still need to keep the fresh content coming but your loyal audience will be more forgiving if you slow down to a few per week instead. The first few months are critical so the more content you can produce at this time the better.

8. Use a proper domain name. If you are serious about blogging be series about what you call your blog. In order for people to easily spread the word about your blog you need a easily rememberable domain name. People often talk about blogs they like when they are speaking to friends in the real world (that’s the offline world, you remember that place right?) so you need to make it easy for them to spread the word and pass on your URL. Try and get a .com if you can and focus on small easy to remember domains rather than worry about having the correct keywords (of course if you can get great keywords and easy to remember then you’ve done a good job!).

7. Start commenting on other blogs. Once you have your pillar articles and your daily fresh smaller articles your blog is ready to be exposed to the world. One of the best ways to find the right type of reader for your blog is to comment on other people’s blogs. You should aim to comment on blogs focused on a similar niche topic to yours since the readers there will be more likely to be interested in your blog.

Most blog commenting systems allow you to have your name/title linked to your blog when you leave a comment. This is how people find your blog. If you are a prolific commentor and always have something valuable to say then people will be interested to read more of your work and hence click through to visit your blog.

6. Trackback and link to other blogs in your blog posts. A trackback is sort of like a blog conversation. When you write a new article to your blog and it links or references another blogger’s article you can do a trackback to their entry. What this does is leave a truncated summary of your blog post on their blog entry - it’s sort of like your blog telling someone else’s blog that you wrote an article mentioning them. Trackbacks often appear like comments.

This is a good technique because like leaving comments a trackback leaves a link from another blog back to yours for readers to follow, but it also does something very important - it gets the attention of another blogger. The other blogger will likely come and read your post eager to see what you wrote about them. They may then become a loyal reader of yours or at least monitor you and if you are lucky some time down the road they may do a post linking to your blog bringing in more new readers.

5. Encourage comments on your own blog. One of the most powerful ways to convince someone to become a loyal reader is to show there are other loyal readers already following your work. If they see people commenting on your blog then they infer that your content must be good since you have readers so they should stick around and see what all the fuss is about. To encourage comments you can simply pose a question in a blog post. Be sure to always respond to comments as well so you can keep the conversation going.

4. Submit your latest pillar article to a blog carnival. A blog carnival is a post in a blog that summarizes a collection of articles from many different blogs on a specific topic. The idea is to collect some of the best content on a topic in a given week. Often many other blogs link back to a carnival host and as such the people that have articles featured in the carnival often enjoy a spike in new readers.

This concept can be confusing so I suggest you take a look at the Carnival of the Cats for an example. You can also find a list of all the carnivals and submit your articles at the Carnival Submit Form.

3. Submit your blog to blogtopsites.com. To be honest this tip is not going to bring in a flood of new readers but it’s so easy to do and only takes five minutes so it’s worth the effort. Go to Blog Top Sites, find the appropriate category for your blog and submit it. You have to copy and paste a couple of lines of code on to your blog so you can rank and then sit back and watch the traffic come in. You will probably only get 1-10 incoming readers per day with this technique but over time it can build up as you climb the rankings. It all helps!

2. Submit your articles to EzineArticles.com. This is another tip that doesn’t bring in hundreds of new visitors immediately (although it can if you keep doing it) but it’s worthwhile because you simply leverage what you already have - your pillar articles. Once a week or so take one of your pillar articles and submit it to Ezine Articles. Your article then becomes available to other people who can republish your article on their website or in their newsletter.

How you benefit is through what is called your “Resource Box”. You create your own resource box which is like a signature file where you include one to two sentences and link back to your website (or blog in this case). Anyone who publishes your article has to include your resource box so you get incoming links. If someone with a large newsletter publishes your article you can get a lot of new readers at once.

1. Write more pillar articles. Everything you do above will help you to find blog readers however all of the techniques I’ve listed only work when you have strong pillars in place. Without them if you do everything above you may bring in readers but they won’t stay or bother to come back. Aim for one solid pillar article per week and by the end of the year you will have a database of over 50 fantastic feature articles that will work hard for you to bring in more and more readers.

I hope you enjoyed my list of traffic tips. Everything listed above are techniques I’ve put into place myself for my blogs and have worked for me, however it’s certainly not a comprehensive list. There are many more things you can do. Finding readers is all about testing to see what works best for you and your audience and I have no doubt if you put your mind to it you will find a balance that works for you.

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(4)

I’m a steadfast WordPress supporter and have been ever since I switched away from my first blog on the MoveableType platform. Many other bloggers started out on a blogger.com (blogspot) domain. There is a fair good chunk of TypePad users out there and I can’t forget other bloggers using lesser known systems such as blogharbor.

While producing Blog Traffic School I am very conscious to make certain that any blogger, no matter the blog platform they use, can benefit from the course. About 99% of the theory and activities I teach in the course are applicable to any blogger and can be implemented on any blog.

However, there is a small percentage of tips I offer that specifically deal with features available only to WordPress users. Most of them have to do with the fantastic array of plugins available for WordPress, some of which have been particularly helpful in growing my blog traffic. I include installing some key WordPress plugins as part of the activities in the course.

If you currently don’t blog on WordPress I strongly recommend you make the switch as soon as you can. Of course there is no reason why Blog Traffic School won’t be fantastic to grow any blog’s traffic, but it will be just that little bit easier if you are a WordPress blogger.

The latest version of WordPress comes with some fantastic importing tools to transfer your current blog content into your new WordPress blog so there really is no excuse, head to WordPress.org now and make the change, you will be glad you did.

Comments(0)

I’ve just spent the last two hours mapping out every class in Blog Traffic School. I’ve broken down the course into six classes designed to be done over six months. Each class includes theory to study and a list of activities to complete during the month. Each month builds up on the previous month’s theory and activities. As soon as I finalize the structure I’ll be sure to post it here.

After mapping out the course I’ve come up with a bunch of new content that I have yet to include in the first release of the course. Looking ahead I have a lot of topics to write to make sure you get my best techniques and theories.

You might say I released this pre-launch blog a bit too early since I’ve got at least two months worth of writing ahead of me before the course will go live. That’s a loooooong pre-launch. However I’m not too worried since I think you appreciate having some form of updates source so you know when the course will be available (rather then be left in the dark guessing) and I certainly like having a blog like this available to communicate with you about the course.

Why A Text Based Course?

This is the first time I’ve produced a course this big. People have told me that I shouldn’t devote so much time to this course by doing all the writing by myself. Why not pay someone else to write it or record audio or do a teleseminar, all these methods are less time consuming. My answer to these questions is that my style of teaching through text is unique and only through my own words can I convey exactly what I have learnt clearly to my students. It wouldn’t feel right to do it otherwise.

Your Unique Voice

One of the topics I cover in Blog Traffic School is titled “Your USP: Your Unique Voice”. I think it’s appropriate to give you a sample from that chapter now:

A USP is a term you will often hear in business circles. It stands for unique selling proposition. Basically it refers to what it is that makes you different from everyone else.

For your blog you also need a USP. If you are blogging for business chances are your USP is the same as your business USP so you will continue to work your business angle, but there is one other unique thing you need to make use of that no one else can ever replicate, which can be your USP – your unique voice and point of view.

One of the most powerful assets you have as a blogger is how you write and think. Don’t make the mistake of trying to copy another blogger. It’s definitely smart to analyze and determine what it is that other successful bloggers do well and absorb that into your blogging, but never try and be someone else.

Your unique writing style and how you view the world is interesting to other people when it comes from your heart. Be truthful in what you blog about and the way you blog and people will be magnetically attracted to you. Don’t worry if you are not a great writer – it’s more important to write honestly with passion than it is to make use of big words or poetic phrases. Ultimately it’s what you say – not how you say it – that counts.

Comments(13)

Here’s a question I’m sure you are dying to know the answer to. How much will you have to fork out to be one of the first Blog Traffic School students? I’m going to be completely upfront with you and give you my honest answer…

I don’t know.

Yes yes, what a cop out! I’m sorry if that frustrates you but I’m telling you the truth, I haven’t decided how much it will cost when Blog Traffic School finally launches. What I can tell you is the variables I am factoring in when pricing this course.

Why Blog Traffic School is not free

If you know me and my policies on blogging I generally prefer to give away all my content for free. That’s why if you visit my blog at www.Entrepreneurs-Journey.com you will find my best work at no cost. I don’t hold anything back and teach everything I know about the topics and industry I work in.

For Blog Traffic School I did consider making the course free because I want to help as many people as I can and someone actually asked me whether the course would be free so I had to think about. I very quickly decided that no it would not be free for several reasons -

• I wanted the course to be comprehensive, a real methodology on traffic building, not a handful of articles sewn together. From my point of view to be able to devote the time and energy into creating such a course meant I simply couldn’t afford to do it for free.
• I want the students who take the course to get tremendous results. This means the course has to be good, real good. Of equal importance is the calibre of student who pays to take this course. The best course has to have the best students. If you are willing to pay to take a course like this I expect you will be willing to put into action what the course teaches. I don’t want any get-rich-quick seekers or lazy students.
• It may sound wierd, but if I released this course for free less people would really benefit from it. I don’t deny that it would probably reach more people if it was free but that doesn’t mean more people would benefit from it. If it was free not as many people would take action and implement the activities I instruct you to do. Less people would read the course carefully, absorbing all the nuggets of information, preferring to skim read due to lack of patience. Sometimes you have to be exclusive in order to maximize performance.
• The course is a professional product and in order for it to be perceived as so it needs to cost money. You may not like it but humans tend to value things based on how much they cost, not necessarily how good they are. Two products of equal worth may have different perceived values based purely on price. Blog Traffic School is the real deal and I want it to be realized AND perceived as the leading course on blog traffic building.
• When you go to university to take a course you pay a lot of money per subject. Nowadays you can expect to pay $1000+ per subject and for your money you get a full six months worth of education, taught by a professional trainer with industry experience and a history of results from working in the industry.

  Blog Traffic School won’t cost as much as a university course but the standards will be just the same. I don’t possess a PhD in blog traffic (although if they existed I’d be first standing in line to get mine!). I’m one of the only people who can claim to be working with and studying blog traffic every day. I’m as close as you are going to get to a “professor of blog traffic”.

• Blog Traffic School is much more then just an e-book. You get to interact with other students through a private forum. You receive a very special invitation to the exclusive blog traffic student blogroll, which includes links from all my blogs as well as all the other students in Blog Traffic School (that’s sum powerful backlink action!). You get a direct line of communication with me to ask any blog traffic questions specifically about your blog and access to all future blog traffic materials that I produce (that includes audio podcasts on cutting-edge blog traffic trends).

  Yeah, okay, I’m excited, but as you can see it’s a comprehensive blog traffic package, this is not an e-book I sell to you and then run away and leave you by yourself to figure out.

Ultimately you will tell me how much blog traffic school costs. Since I plan to make myself available to the students of this course I can’t have thousands of people take it at once. I want a tight core group, a community of bloggers who know the value of paying for top education. The price will reflect demand and supply won’t be endless. I will only allow onto the course as many people as I can help and support and who are eager to work hard on their blogging.

Is that you?

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(6)

I’ve been working with another Aussie Internet business owner called Brent Turner who owns Ecover Frog, to have some virtual boxes and books created for Blog Traffic School. Images such as these help give an information product a tangible feel. I was very excited to start working on them for Blog Traffic School because it was the first time I’ve had my name on an Internet product and it meant I was getting closer to launching it.

Brent is a bit of a graphic artist and does the design work for many virtual boxes, folders, books, CDs, website templates and complete information product packages. He’s good at what he does and was patient with me to work back and forth over MSN chat to get an initial design done for Blog Traffic School.

I gave him some basic ideas, a color scheme and some images I wanted included (such as my photo and a the soon to be famous blog traffic light). After some playing around I liked the overall design but unfortunately the color scheme, while I thought it looked good, it was, well, see for yourself…

It just looked too much like a pizza box!

The Italian flavor was clear and strong. My intention was to use the colors of the traffic lights but it didn’t turn out quite right.

Brent and I have since made some changes and settled on a new color scheme that doesn’t look like a pizza box but retains most of the elements you see above. I’m happy with the new look and hopefully I can show it to you soon. It’s funny how a virtual box can make you excited

Comments(3)

In a previous career I worked for the University of Queensland in my hometown of Brisbane as a web developer. During that time I had extensive experience with the online course web system called WebCT. At that same university I worked as an IT helpdesk support officer for the main library, where some of the most common questions students had were problems using the WebCT online system. Consequently I experienced the system as a backend system admin, and as a support officer dealing directly with the users of the system.

My conclusion from this experience was that clearly WebCT wasn’t great. I never received good feedback about it and was well aware of it’s shortcomings coming from student feedback.

While managing one of my other businesses I had an opportunity to play with another online course system, which I considered better than WebCT but still not the easiest to navigate through. I’ve also been a paying customer of several online membership sites and I’ve yet to find a system that is simple and efficient - they all seem to try very hard to make it difficult to find things.

All that experience taught me one thing - delivering an online course should be simple (how surprising!).

Using A Blog To Teach About Blog Traffic

When it came time to consider how to deliver Blog Traffic School I put to good use my previous experiences. I definitely knew what to avoid - too many useless functions and horrible navigation.

Then I thought - “Why not use a blog to deliver the course?”

Blogs are great because they are simple. Content takes center stage in a blog. Having the function to leave comments is a bonus, which I believe will become an essential question and answer tool for students and myself (as teacher) to interact through.

A blog is clean, easy to navigate and I suspect as students of a blog traffic course you should find using a blog very familiar. It fits perfectly.

The Classroom

Blog Traffic School will deliver the majority of content through a private blog broken down into classes. Students can directly ask questions pertaining to each class by leaving a comment. There is a single navigation bar on the left giving direct access to each class in a clear and simple manner.

I can’t wait for you to see it

Yaro Starak
Blog Traffic King

Comments(16)