guest post by Kelly Diels
In November, I rebranded and relaunched my blog. I screwed up, I suffered, I sniffled, I refuted the advances of a pervy tech wizard. And I thought: I’d better track my results to see if this was worth it. This better have been worth it.
It was.
On November 10, my Alexa rank was 1,082,076.
Two months and one day later, it is 173,556.
So, in just two short months (and one day), I raised my Alexa rank by almost one million places.
In three months (in the screen shot above, look at the bottom right figure of 1,766,896), my Alexa rank increased by almost two million places.
How’d I do it? I’m so glad you asked.
Once you get past the first set of ingredients – have a seriously small and unpopular blog – the recipe is simple. It simply requires a ridiculous amount of work and a bit of creativity.
Still, I’ve itemized and analyzed what I did differently in the last two months just so I could whisper sexy blog secrets in your ear.
Here is a list of my torrid confessions.
1. Write unique stuff
Yes, this is just another way of saying “write great content! great content! great content!”. There’s a reason everyone says it, repeatedly: because it works.
I admit it. When I started blogging, I was a wannabe. I wanted to be Steve Pavlina, Darren Rowse or Yaro Starak.
Now, I just wannabe myself. I’m lit-on-fire for the written word, I have big, ballsy opinions, I’m in bed with surprise, and I love to love. That all shines through in my transparent and sometimes pulpy posts. I know the blogging and business-writing rules and alternate between obeying them and breaking them with abandon. It is roller coaster writing, to be sure, but it seems to be a ride with an lengthening line up.
The lesson: be you, write you, and write wild and free.
2. Get your great stuff out there
In two words: guest post.
I don’t have a commenting strategy – or maybe I do, but it goes like this: don’t really do it, unless profoundly moved or delighted by the post or am crushin’ on the writer and you know who you are – so guest posts are almost exclusively how I get in front of new audiences.
Guest posts bump up my traffic significantly. In the last two months, the single greatest driver of my traffic was, you guessed it, ProBlogger. There was even one day when I had two guest posts up on both ProBlogger and Write to Done.
That day was a good day.
(That day was the day I started making money – but that’s another post, entirely.)
You know who I blame for my promiscuous guest-posting?
Josh Hanagarne, World’s Strongest Librarian. He encouraged/pushed/nagged me to guest post, but I was too timid. (Really. I was scared. What if people said no? Rejection is not my thing.) When coaxing me to approach other bloggers failed, spectacularly, he took a new approach.
He demanded a guest post from me for his site. So I sent him one and his people loved me up. It was like rolling around in a meadow full of daisies and puppies and then a unicorn slid down a rainbow and gave me a cupcake. Magic.
Then, after more encouraging/pushing/nagging from Josh, I wrote a guest post for Darren Rowse at ProBlogger. Of course, I didn’t submit it for ten days until I got exasperated by my own cowardice, cursed myself out and straight-up courted that fearsome dragon – Rejection – by pressing send.
Darren accepted it in something like 15 minutes and made nice virtual noises. Later, he said he’d publish as much as I could send him. That was all I need to hear. I sent him A LOT.
Suddenly I had confidence and started sending pieces all over the place.
And my blog grew. So did my traffic.
The lesson? Guest posts work predictable magic on your blog. Go forth, guest post, bewitch and bedazzle.
And have big, strong, nagging friends.
3. Write more, more often
I used to post new pieces 1-3 times a week. Now I post 5-7 times a week. I’ve simply developed a habit of writing every night. It is sometimes painful, almost always exhausting, I’m wasting money on cable I never watch, Facebook misses me something fierce, and I have very nearly stopped dating.
(Very nearly. Not entirely. If I stopped dating, what would I write about? I romance in the name of research. THAT’S HOW MUCH I LOVE ALL OF YOU.)
And then there’s Twitter. I’ve written 322,560 words on Twitter, which is basically a novel in Tweets.
Oh. That just made me a little sad.
But other than that twinge – I could have written a novel in the time I spent Tweeting, oh yes that stings – I’m ecstatic. I’m having so much fun. I’m seeing results.
And my blog is growing.
The lesson? Don’t worry about statistics. Worry about quality.
I didn’t set out explicitly to raise my Alexa rank. I set out to improve my blog, light my writing on fire, and make a lil’ love to my people (and find more of them). And, as a result, my blog took off and took my Alexa rank with it.
You can do it, too. Please do.
And then tell me all about it on Twitter, where I still won’t be writing my novel.
_____________________
Kelly Diels is a wildly hireable freelance writer and the creator of Cleavage, a blog about three things we all want more of: sex, money and meaning.
some very nice advice! totally love the “ridiculous amount of work and creativity” advice–which is really true. Blogging’s tough–and it takes a whole lot of focus to do what you did. congrats!
Old content, new title. Awesome use of the 31DBBB Workbook. Congratulations!
I have launched my blog in Oct. 2009 and it was like 20 million in alexa, in 3 months it is 190,000 and Google PR3!
The tips you mentioned do not only work with Alexa, they work with any ranking script/site since those tips motivate visitors to get back to your blog/site and expose it to the public!
Well said :)
Thanks
Great advice for new bloggers like me. I have been writing for a yea and a half now and it has been quite an adventure. However, my numbers, altough growing slowly but steadily, are not even close to where I want to be. I will guest blog more and stop worrying about statistics. More frquent and high qualuty posts will be my thing! Thanks for sharing this and congratulations!
“The lesson: be you, write you, and write wild and free.”
That needs to be BEAT INTO THE HEAD of every new blogger. No one wants a copy cat! They want something original.
Great guest post Kelly.
I tend not to watch Alexa that much…but your tips are just good common practice for successful blogging.
Hiya Kelly, I dont think I ever read your posts before, but this a great article and is really helpfull to me, as my blog is extremely new I havnt put much focus into Alexa, so I just checked and my rank in the world is 2,026,868, I will keep an eye on it now and try and use your techniques to raise my rank, thanks kelly!
http://www.studentspayless.com
Great post, yes guest post help you to increase traffic as well as adsense click also, I think if your blog is new then you must habbit to post regularly on your blog as well as other blog
I think it’s important to remember that an Alexa ranking is hardly an indication of blog popularity. You can easily increase your Alexa ranking by the quantities you have discussed simply by installing the Alexa toolbar into your firefox browser, and using it to look at your own site a few times everyday – you will soon see an increase. I have seen many websites achieve great Alexa rankings using this method. It is for this reason that web-related sites receive the best Alexa rankings, – developers are more likely to use the firefox browser with the Alexa plugin enabled.
With all this said, I’d be more interested to see how your points for success have effected your traffic figures and conversion rates – because that’s where the real value is. Perhaps you’d post this info?
Kelly,
This is confirmation that I”m heading in the right direction. I started my blog in November to the amazingly awesome Alexa rank of 10,736,000. After a few months and finally getting to posting just about every 3rd day and understanding the power of “Link Luv” today I’m at 3,235,000ish. I’ll celebrate when I break 1,000,000. :-)
Lately my mantra has been quality not statistics. I’m opening up to featuring like minded guests and doing some outreach of my own.
Great post! Guest posts is a great idea thanks. Cant wait to try it!
– Jordan
TechClicked.blogspot.com
I agree with Robb that every new blogger should think and write like you.
Great Job Kelly !
It’s no joke. I improved mine by just under 6 MILLION in 3 months.
Unfortunately for me, I’ve learned what little I know about growing my blog by trial and err.
I should have just read others’ advice and carried it out to begin with!
Kelly, your writing always has me smiling – it has so much personality!!
I think “be you, write you, and write wild and free.” is the real reason your rank has gone up. Sure, guest posting helps get you in the eye of the public, but something has to keep the public coming back, and writing laden with unique personality is SO key!!
keep the posts coming – love ’em.
very cool, well done.
I would love to guest post, but to be honest – I find it hard enough keeping my blog consistent. I would have to take a risk. But I would love people to guest post at my blog, woot, anyone game?
lol
but essentially, stamping your brand out there, at high ranked places like problogger and at the little guys (like me)!!!
Well .. came at the right time … I have been trying to work on my Alexa ranking for the last few months and yes I got some views ideas from your post Kelly. Thanks for that help .
@Tom You’re right. There are loads of people writing about Alexa as a flawed – and easy to game – metric. I have lots of other ways that I measure progress, and yes, I will write another post to list them – including my traffic – in detail. Great idea. Thank you so much.
kert resembels the same thing like me before posting on my blog,I was thinking what people will say they accept or not
Beginners Guide to Blogging
I don’t want to spoil your enthusiasm or anything but getting from 1 mil to 170k is not so hard so really 1 million places is really a small achievement.
It’s a lot harder to get from 170k to 50k or try getting from 170k to 5k. See the differences between those numbers is a lot smaller then 1 mil but the amount of work required is a lot greater.
Seems like a no brainer to me. Top 50K or bust! lol
Tip number three sticks out to me because I often wonder how many times a week I should write in my blog. Some bloggers say once a week, some say every day; for me it’s just 3 times a week. How much of a boost did you get from posting every day? Is is worth it if you aren’t a professional blogger?
Thanks for the post!
@Mihai you’re right…and sounds like a challenge to me! I’ll report back in a couple of months :)
@ Kelly, you’re welcome. As I say, I’ve every confidence in the techniques/points you present as real traffic drivers. Guest posting on ProBlogger, as you mentioned, will be doing wonders for your web traffic I expect – I mean, at the time of writing this reply, the article has been retweeted over 100 times. That said, the point of my comments are to illustrate that Alexa Rankings are not statistics which your techniques are aiming to improve…you are looking to improve qualified traffic levels and real business.
Alexa is an outdated website scoring system and should be treated as such. Unfortunately, your readers don’t seem to see it that way – with many of them stating that they are actively looking to improve their Alexa rankings despite my comment. It’s frustrating when people seem to confuse such statistics with success. It’s time people focused on qualified traffic and conversions as a measure of web success.
Hey Kelly… Superb article. I love your writing style, which is something I’m continuously trying to find.
I have also started guest posting just recently. I’ve had plenty of rejection throughout my life so that’s not an issue, but not feeling like the quality of my guest post writing is. Actually, the quality issue is across the board, even on my own posts.
Anyway, great read and I loved seeing your writing style.
What you said really is common sense, but nearly everything can be solved with good common sense. A lot of people simply don’t follow common sense and get distracted by things which aren’t even close to as important, as Darren pointed out in his What’s Your Blogging Vice video. Without writing good, unique content often and marketing, you will get nowhere. However, so many people waste time marketing or designing when they don’t have any content. Huge mistake.
The tips you share are indeed, true.
However, as Mihai wrote above, it’s not very hard to do a big jump in Alexa – until a certain point.
For example, as far as I recall, my site jumped by over 2.5 million places in less than 2 months. It all depends how good and helpful your content is, that’s what I’ve learned.
Cheers!
Kelly, I started blogging last year and have enjoyed the process. Yet, I have been pretty much on hiatus since mid-December due to a surgery [which I am recovering well from!] and moving my business website over to the Hubspot CMS. I am gearing up to start blogging again and your piece is inspirational. Also, I just got a kick out of visiting your blog! Clever branding and posts. Wishing you a great 2010.
I had a goal to make one new post per day in January. There is no way that I can write on a daily basis, but I can write several posts on certain days. So I just write posts and date them into the future so that I get one new post per day and I don’t have to fret about making today’s post. Just something to think about.
I’ve be striving to post one article a day for my new website. Luckily I can easily do this at the moment, because I just love writing the content I am doing at the moment, I hope it stays that way.
Great guest post Kelly!
This is one of those real good kick in the pants that I need every now and then!
Good post. As you mentioned, focus on your content and spend time adding new content on a consistent basis and your stats will improve on its own.
Alexa is not very accurate, however a good indication and the only true measurement at this time. I think your doing the right thing and writing what you want is great. Cheers
I agree on the tips as I raised my Alexa ranking from 1,537,401 on 9/15/09 to 349,067 on 10/15/09
This is entirely true. I have also found that no matter what you publish, if you publish everyday, Alexa Ranking increases dramatically. But if you publish quality contents, your retention rate and search engine traffic will definitely increase.
Kelly,
Glad I have been there since the beginning days and caught you in my interview series :). I think it may be time for a post revisiting all of the interviews I’ve conducted. Like I said now I can say “I knew her way back when”
@ Tom: You’ve really got me thinking now… I’ve been resting on my laurels ever since I got under 100K, but now I’m thinking that may be completely irrelevant. I might need to track you down (twitter maybe?) to find out more about traffic figures and conversion rates.
@ Kelly: Great post. I definitely can’t argue with the all-around effectiveness of guest posting… particularly at problogger. You have reason to be proud that all your hard work is paying off for you. :)
@ Lisis: Thanks for your response, it’s nice to see that someone is finally looking beyond Alexa and wants to find out more.
I’d be happy to get in touch, you can follow me on Twitter @zuludigital, or you can visit either of our sites, http://www.zulucreative.co.uk or http://www.zuludigital.co.uk.
Thanks
More search traffic for us will translate into more traffic for webmasters who have listed their websites in ExactSeek. Gift Idea
Kelly, great article! Quality content, though it seems obvious, is THE primary key to blogging success and it can’t be emphasized enough. Glad to know this played out in your Alexa rankings. I asserted yesterday that it can have a significant impact on your AdSense results, too — http://bit.ly/7bbNGL — and I would think that it would hold true across the board.
I do have one follow-up question. As to guest blogging (a component I am seriously lacking) do you write the article first and then shop it around? Or do you pick the sites where you’d like to guest blog and ask them what topic they’d like to have covered? I should be having guest bloggers and also guest blogging, and I’m slightly embarrassed to have never thought of it. Thanks for this piece of inspiration!
Good post and I’m happy for your success. All the tips are great for bloggers and good for growing your blog.
But please, forget Alexa ranking: Alexa is a joke. A system that relies mostly on a voluntary plugin / toolbar that no one else but web masters and bloggers benefit from, which boosts the rankings of “tech sites” and gives false bragging rights.
The only chance one has is to install the plugin and try to get all your readers, family members, cats and dogs to install it as well and then browse through your website without actually reading anything. My own site has monthly traffic of about 2000+ and Alexa ranking at 73k. There are sites that pull in 10000 and more every month and are way past 100k marker on Alexa.
Advertisers: stop staring at Alexa. Bloggers: Make sure you have Alexa plugin installed and browse through your own site at all times and ask your friends to do the same.
There, rant off. Apologies Kelly, this had nothing to do with your great post, it’s just that I think Alexa gets way more respect that it deservers :)
This is like the fifth guest post I’ve read with essentially the same theme: guest post.
I hope the market for guest posts doesn’t get too flooded.
Also, I think your post goes to show, a lot of blogging success is just about showing up. You didn’t get success until you guest posted. It isn’t an accident.
Great advice, especially number (2). I really must start guest posting more often!
Alexa ranking is a joke.
With a simple JavaScript and a fairly small network of people you can boost your rankings big time within few weeks.
My point is that it is easily influenced.
However, people that might be interested in purchasing your site don’t know this ;)
@ Tom, Antti, and Stan: You would not believe how dumb I feel right now. I had no idea how alexa worked AT ALL… in fact, I’ve often wondered that very thing. I may have to get my cat and my kid to start clicking through my blog’s archives. ;)
@ Darren: Have you written about alexa and it’s lack of reliability as a metric? If so, might you point me in the direction of that post?
All your tips are great, but what’s also important is to install the Alexa toolbar. Installing this will help your ranking, without hardly doing anything other than visit your own blog once in a while :-)
@Lisis – This is true – much ink has been spilled on how game-able the metric is, and therefore unreliable. BUT: advertisers and PR people pay attention to it. So it still counts. (see Tom’s comment above: it shouldn’t, but it does.)
A good post on Alexa rank as a metric and how to influence it:
Dosh Dosh – http://www.doshdosh.com/20-quick-ways-to-increase-your-alexa-rank/
A funny post about increasing your Alexa rank:
http://www.arksark.org/blog/2009/12/08/the-best-way-to-raise-your-alexa-ranking-a-most-ingenious-paradox/
Also: just want to note that I don’t have the Alexa toolbar installed. The rank increase was organic, and, as I said, not explicitly intentional.
It is just a way to tell a story. All metrics are.
Guest posting works wonders. I’ve seen it first hand build small blogs into big blogs with lots of followers.
Nice work by the way.
So did you ever pop a bottle of champagne and say nice job to yourself for all the hard work? Sometimes, it’s good to reward ourselves.
Congratulations! I definitely hope to be in your situation a couple months from now… Great advice.
Another great post, Kelly. Moral of the story: write great content and the stats will work themselves out.
Rockin’.
I love the post Kelly. Great sense of humor and drama. Great work on the blog. It gives me hope!
Thanks Kelly. You always have my permission to blame me when things go well for you:)
I am not intimidated or frightened to be honest. At least not much.
But, you have an interesting situation where you have a blog about sex, and you don’t suppress yourself, you write from heart. That is what makes your blog different, standing out from the crowd. That’s one part, which then leads to people (me first) getting interested in following your blog, because people (read “I”) love controversy.
I, however, don’t have such an interesting situation.