Today has been a massive day of blogging for me. While I tend to have full days with moments to relax – today was full steam ahead.
I woke up to find that Lifehacker had picked up the Blogging for Beginners series which was bringing in considerable traffic and quite a few emails from new readers wanting to know more. I designed the post that everyone was landing on a little to make it easier to understand and to capitalize on the traffic a little (highlighting newsletter and RSS subscription options).
As I was doing this I noticed that the post had begun to climb the del.icio.us popular page which was bringing in more traffic. It’s still got a way to go to get to the top but has been hovering in the top 10 most of the day.
After getting that post in order and posting a couple more posts to ProBlogger to keep the series fresh I started doing the rounds of my other blogs, only to find that three digital camera manufacturers all decided that today was the day to release their latest ranges in the lead up to the PMA show next week.
I was also excited to find that a camera that I’d announced rumors on a month or two ago had actually come to be a reality (the Canon EOS 30D – a new DSLR). This was a bit of a scoop as most of the other digital camera sites out there are under NDA’s with digital camera manufacturers and were not able to write about it. As a result I had managed to climb to a reasonably good position in Google for it (I didn’t quite get to top spot). The traffic as a result of this position today has been pretty amazing.
The rest of the day has been spent maniacally trying to keep up with digital camera manufacturers. This will be my 40th post for the day.
When you’re blogging in a competitive industry with new products coming out regularly you need to be very alert to the latest news. The difference between posting something as it’s happening and posting it 24 hours later can be quite large in terms of the number of sites that link to you and the end position you get in Search Engines (which can have a big baring on how well your blog goes for the year ahead in terms of traffic and earnings). On a day like today with so many new products coming at once it can be almost nerve wracking to be a blogger – but at the same time is a load of fun!
Anyway – most of my normal blogging has gone out the window so I’d best get back to it – it’s midnight and I feel like I’ve just started for the day!
WOW! Thanks for sharing your day. Just reading about it gave me an adrenaline boost by osmosis. What a fun ride. As usual your post gave some excellent insight into what a breaking news day is like in the blogging world.
Sounds like you have had a busy day.
I am from Australia and hoping to move back there towards the end of the year. Living in Tokyo, the world’s most expensive city, makes it difficult to work at this full time.
I am hoping I can move back to Australia and work at affiliate marketing in conjunction with a part-time job, by the end of the year.
I am hoping to create a new forum for fellow Aussies who are working in the affiliate marketing industry. I have spent some time looking for something like webmasterworld and haven’t been able to find anything similar.
Perhaps the market is just too small, but I am hoping fellow Aussies will help me out by making a post or 2.
If you get a spare 30D for testing, send it my way. Thank you
:)
We’ve managed to be first to break new product news a couple of times now, but I guess there just isn’t as much competition to break the story of a new pencil ;)
I will be very interested to hear whether you are able to keep up like this after the baby is born, Darren. Having three young kids myself, all I can say is–your life will not be the same, including your blogging. (Try reasoning with an infant that’s crying for food or a diaper change, “But Daddy really, really needs to write this post, I really mean it!” Mine never listen to me about what I need, but maybe you’ll have better results.)
Congrats on all the traffic, sounds like you’re having a blast!
Sarah – I thin you’re right.
Am attempting to think of some strategies for keeping things running with less involvement from me personally over the first few months to take the initial load off. After that – well it’s anyone’s guess how it’s going to go :-)
Thanks for sharing your day Darren, and congratulations on a fantastic day in the blogosphere! I can imagine it would’ve been frantic but the rewards are always so satisfying.