Need Advice For Generating More Traffic

[Anne]

My blog went live in December, 2007 but I'm not having a lot of success from generating steady traffic. I post five days per week. I'm a recognized authority in my field. I do get some jumps from Stumble, but not a steady stream of visitors who post.

I'd love some advice. Here's my blog:
» ShipCritic Blog

Thanks for your feedback.

[Evan]

I would only read your blog during the time I was choosing cruises.

Reading about cruises as such wouldn't really interest me.

In other words I'd really be treating it as a website with the information I want from it, rather than a blog.

If there are lots of people like me this would be the reason for lack of consistent readers.

[Paigy]

I would have to agree with Evan. The blog would only interest me if I was an avid cruise-goer, or if I were looking for cruises right at that moment that I stumble across your blog.

Have you tried any marketing techniques, for example Adwords, Dojohut, or other SEO strategies?

[masmilele]

Are there any communities online (forums, other blogs, perennial tourist and cruise taking blogs, retiree communities perhaps??) or offline communities (cruising magazines or cruising meetups on meetup.com) that you can join and become a part of?
Maybe you can JV with small shipping companies in some way......

Some random thoughts of the top of my head

[Laurence]

I think you should not be too concerned about the people who are looking for info on cruises only when they need it.

I know there's a specific public for your kind of blog, the one that don't have time/job constraints and that can let the cruise decides of their schedule and not the other way around.

That kind of public is always looking for good tips and opportunities.

So, I think like Masmilele that you need to go to find your public where it is. I suppose there's at least several websites about cruises that have forums? If yes, try to contribute and put your blog's url in your signature.

You are an authority in your field, so it means you are already well known by a big part of your potential readers. Where did they learn about you? In your magazines? If yes, do you put your blog's url in your articles (if it possible)? Everytime you publish an article, contribute on a website, try to let your readers know that you have a blog.

About your blog itself

I think that sometimes your articles are hard to scan. For example, your article "Taking the Torture Out of Travel", you have a list of tips, that's good. But I think you should make each theme more prominent (and use real bullets). I mean

• Book a pre-cruise hotel
  If at all possible, book a pre-cruise hotel and arrive in the port of embarkation a day early. [...]
• Purchase your own airfare
  While cruise lines do sell air/sea packages, I recommend purchasing your own airfare to insure you have a non-stop flight.

Let's say I already know about point 1, I skip it and move to 2. Readers on internet have short span attention. Help them don't waste their time and they will be back.

On the same idea, you sometimes have really long paragraphs. Break them to make them easier to read on screen and less frightening for the reader who scan before reading.

I would move your picture and small about, from the footer to the top of your right column. You're the authority and the blog is all about your knowledge. So let the people know from the beginning that they are on Anne Campbell's blog.

On the same idea, why are your pages called about us and contact us. Once again, it's all about you, so rename the pages "about/contact me" or better probably "about/contact Anne".

You have a thing called "Join us Every Wednesday for Cruise Bargain, selected by Anne Campbell". I supposed I could click on it. I was disappointed. It should be one of your categories or you should have a page behind this announcement to explain what it is exactly.

About your categories.
There are to many of them. It's difficult to distinguish the general categories from the one about specific kind of cruises.

Maybe you should replace the specific one by tags, or put them as subcategories (drop down menu).

Personally, I would prefer seeing something like:

* Cruises by destinations
___ Alaska cruises
___ Antarctica
___ Baltic Cruises
___ Caribbean Cruises
___ ...

* Cruises by themes
___ Carnival
___ Celebrity
___ ...

* Amazing but true
* Best of cruising
* First time cruisers
* ...

You see the idea.

You give tips, but you have 2 categories for that? Cruise Tips and Valium Free Cruises. Try to regroup things.

About the said tips, what about a small ebook compiling some of them, maybe "illustrated" with stories and you give it for free to people that subscribe to your blog by email?

That's all I can think of right now.

Hum maybe you'd like to read the excellent book from Steve Krug:Don't make me think. It gives you a good idea of how internet readers use websites.

[epm1013]

Originally Posted by Anne

My blog went live in December, 2007 but I'm not having a lot of success from generating steady traffic. I post five days per week. I'm a recognized authority in my field. I do get some jumps from Stumble, but not a steady stream of visitors who post.

Anne,

You have a wonderful blog. I'm new as well. What I have learned is that a blog like yours needs to be targeted to those that are interested in cruises.

Are you using keyword correctly. For example, in your title tags, you are using just your blogs name. By customizing your title tags, you can get search engine traffic.

My advice, is focus on search engine optimization over the next two months. If you like, you can join me and we can exchange ideas as we go.


Eric