Welcome, challengers! So, looking to get your Alexa under 200,000 but not quite there, yet? Maybe you’re not sure about this whole blogging thing and are feeling a little burnt out? The truth is, getting under 200,000 is simple, but it’s not necessarily quick or easy. I want to share a few tips that I have learned over the past few months, as I believe that they will be able to help you out as well.
Build a community
One of the main differences between a blog and a website with static pages is that a blog has a sense of continuity and personality. Engaging blogs build a loyal base of readers and fans around them, and this community becomes an important part of the blog. Personally, I don’t know if I could keep on writing if I never got any comments or feedback. Without a community, a blog becomes a dead space.
Comment on other sites
Have you ever heard of the expression “you reap what you sow” ? To start building that community, you need to go out and start commenting on other blogs. When doing this, you can start with a list of the top personal finance blogs, and comment on those posts that you find interesting. Your comments should add value to the site, so be sure that you’re reciprocating and leaving valuable comments. Comments like “Cool stuff, dude. Come check out my site.” should be avoided in general.
While leaving comments on other posts, you will often see interesting comments written by others on these same posts. Following these comments will give you more blogs to read and participate in. Before you know it, some of these blogs and their readers will start coming by to check out your site, too.
Link out to others
As you participate on more and more blogs, you will find many posts that you would like to share with others. One way of sharing these posts is through social networking, or if you are like me, in weekend reading editions. :) These weekend reading editions can be a great way of promoting fellow bloggers, and they can also be a great way to discover new blogs. I discovered First Gen American through a roundup. Try linking out to others, and they will notice it and appreciate it over time; before you know it, they will start linking out to you, too.
Don’t toss your readers into spam jail!
One drawback of participating in the community is that most blogs run Akismet by default, and Akismet is too aggressive in flagging spammers. The more you comment on other blogs and the more you link out to others, the more likely you are to be flagged as spam! Many fellow members of the Yakezie community have been labeled as spammers by Akismet, including yours truly. In keeping out real spam, you also run the risk of alienating readers who are unable to comment on your website because they are getting tossed into your spam folder.
Fortunately, there is a plugin for WordPress that offers salvation out of the spam jail, and makes your spam folder much easier to manage at the same time! That plugin is Conditional Captcha, and it can be installed by going to the “Plugins” section of your WordPress dashboard and selecting “Add new”. With Conditional Captcha, a captcha will be displayed only for those people flagged as spam by Akismet (or Typepad Antispam), and you can then choose to place the comment in the pending queue, leave it in the spam, or automatically approve it.
Optimize your site
I recommend you take a look at the following websites and follow their suggestions. Optimization doesn’t have to be tricky or time-consuming, but a few simple tips will not only improve your reader experience, but will also help you crack that goal of 200,000.
- Blog Grader
- Website Grader
One optimization that I personally did was enable “WP Super Cache” with “Preload” enabled and “Use mod_rewrite to serve cache files.” This enabled my site to improve from “Very Slow” to “Average” on Alexa’s ranking website. Now that the search engines and Alexa are taking site speed into consideration, this is very important, especially for those of us on shared hosting!
Please note that if you do enable the super cache, some plugins may not work as expected since their output will now be cached.
Closing tips
Blogging will be tough if you feel that you are “obligated” to write about certain topics, in a certain way, or a certain number of times per week. Chances are, someone’s already been there and done that. You will have a lot more fun and success if you write with your own voice, write in what interests you, and if you are yourself. While standard search engine optimization says that it can be better to have a niche rather than to be a jack of all trades, that niche can be part of your personality. Many other sites, such as Yakezie founder Financial Samurai excel at writing with their own voice.
Remember: when in doubt, follow the Yakezie values of generosity and reciprocity. That alone will carry you far, and you will crack 200,000 before you know it!
So, reader, what are your own thoughts on building a community, as well as website optimization?
Thank you for the tips! I just joined the Yakezie a little over a week ago, and I’m determined to get my Alexa rank below 200,000!
When I joined, I was ranked at 4.9 million, and now, only about a week later, my rank is 2 million! Thanks everyone for your support and guidance. I’m certainly glad that I found such a great community!
When I started I was at close to 20 million. ;) You will get to 200,000 before you know it!
These are great tips! I started about 2 months ago at 6.8 million and today I’m down to 295,000! Yes, it takes time to drop the ranking, but if you follow the tips outlined here, you’ll definitely be on your way below 200k.
A big thanks to the supports within the Yakezie – couldn’t have done it without you.
The Yakezie has helped us both out quite a bit. Only 95,000 more to go for you!
Hey Kevin,
I have not been with your site since the beginning but in the short while I have your blogging skills and site have been exploding and you are quickly becoming a powerhouse….. You drag in some great discussion.
My blog is more like a website in the respect of the types of articles I generally write and I have been having a small urge to bring back my personal space for random writing.
Excellent tips here for new challengers and any blogger.
It would definitely be interesting to see some more of those types of posts from you, Forest. They come out every now and then in your posts, but we only see a glimpse. ;)
Kevin- you have done an amazing job with your site. Your articles are amongst the most insightful I read, and I am sure that many would agree with me.
This is an excellent post, and I wish it was around when I first started out. It can be hard to find your way; I know that I tried to write what I thought people would want to read. Then I found out that some of my most popular posts were ones I was the least fond of. Lesson learned: You can never predict what people want. All you can do is write, and do your best to interact with the audience.
Thanks for mentioning my site in this article- what an honor!
Kris
I agree with you Everyday Tips. He consistently churns out quality content.
Buy Like Buffett, Everyday Tips, thanks for the kind words!
I think you have it right, Kris. Honestly I wasn’t expecting my 3 contrarian investments post to take off the way it did, but it seemed like I hit a vibe somewhere. I believe writing based on inspiration and interacting with the readers leads to a more enjoyable blogging experience, and more success as well.
This is a really great post. I think that building a community is one of the most important parts of creating a website, and eventually getting it down to the low alexa ranking you want. Having people want to come back to hear what you have to say (and your other readers) is very important.
Also, thanks for the heads up on the conditional captcha – I’m going to install that on my site.
I think that’s the biggest part of it for me. Having the community “validates” the writing process, and helps you learn as the dialogue is a two-way process.
Kevin,
As always, well written and insightful tips. Reaping what you sow is key to growth, whether it be blogging or any other aspect of life. You have been practicing the principle on your site and your growth is a testimony to the validity of this post.
Thanks for sharing and demonstrating these principles.
Amazing how many parts of life that philosophy can apply to! I’ve learned a lot from you through your stories as well, so keep them coming. :)
Kevin, everything you said is so true. I do have to admit that life sometimes gets to us all and we feel discouraged and not quite motivated to write anything. Blogging community keeps me going. Without my blogging friends (like you!), I probably wouldn’t be where I am right now. Thank you for a very inspiring post! Thank you for mentioning me as an example. Made my day! :-)
No problem! You made a really strong push to get out there in the community, and I think that it’s really paid off! Since you only grabbed your domain recently, it’s quite neat that you’ve had this level of success in a short amount of time.
Kevin,
I couldn’t agree more! Commenting and interacting is where it is at. I think that is why most people check out blogs, otherwise I would just sit on cnn money or a similar site.
Haha… it’s the personal touch and a little bit of opinion that makes it all interesting.
Kevin, I agree with the advice – you have got to broaden out with links and comments. Not only is beneficial to you for traffic, I’ve found quoting and linking to other bloggers has improved the quality of my posts. They become less like posts and more like resources for small and focused topics.
Interesting, and we can strengthen the network as well with all of the internal connections between the different blogs.
Great article. I must optimize my site, but didn’t know how, so thanks for those links. As always, this community has been very supportive and have learned a lot in just a few months.
You are one of my must reads and I’m really excited that your blog is doing so well. Your fresh perspective on things is really great. Thanks for taking the time to do this little how to. It most certainly will go to good use.
I’m glad I discovered your site through Budgeting in the Fun Stuff. Goes to show how valuable the roundups can be, for example. You’ve already been a star Yakezie member in many ways, and the writing experiments have been really interesting; looking forward to seeing you join after the six months! :)
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Thank you, I do have that goal with some of my sites. I’ve been using some of these tips already but will continue, increase and try out new tips I didn’t start yet.
How many sites do you have now? ;)
I actually have 5 financial blogs:
The Financial Blogger
The Dividend Guy Blog
Do Not Wait!
Intelligent Speculator
Green Panda Treehouse
I’m planning on buying another one soon. I’ll be writing a long post about how to manage multiple blogs for next week (on The Financial Blogger)
cheers,
Mike.
Great tips! You definitely have built a great community at your site! I agree with what others said about your insightful writing and your ability to create conversations! Keep up the great work.
This is one area where you’ve also been hitting a lot of home runs. Congrats on the great progress especially in the Alexa ranking!
Kevin, Spot on set of tips to build a great blog.
Personally, I’ve been avoiding the CAPTCHA because I hate to torture my readers, but if I understand your notes correctly, the only people that need to use the CAPTCHA are those that are flagged…..I did not know that! If that’s the case, then I really have no reason not to install it. I’m going to go play around with it right now! Feel like leaving a comment to see how it works? I only need 5 minutes from now to plug it in. :).
BTW- I’m still hovering at 285k, but I know dropping below 200k is just a matter of time.
Yep, 200,000 shouldn’t be too far away!
The great thing about Conditional Captcha is that it will only show if you’ve already been flagged as spam. It won’t affect regular readers, but it will help out those like me who invariably seem to always get tossed into the spam bucket. ;)
Thanks for mentioning bloggrader.com. I keep forgetting about it. It’s an awesome tool to tell you what you’ve done incorrectly or what you can improve very quickly. Now if I can only get Comment Luv to work correctly.
Maybe you have to unban yourself: I had to do this after my site was down for a few hours. Try going here: http://comluv.com/member/unban-url/ Login, and then you can unban yourself.
Commenting and linking are two extremely important pieces of the pie because it gets you to be a part of a community, gets you engaged and gets others to visit your site and improve your rank. Great job.
For sure, and it makes the network stronger as a whole since everyone is building connections with each other.
I recommend your pingbacks/trackbacks with follow enabled. This of course means you have to filter out the spam. I also change the way comments and trackbacks are displayed on my site. Trackbacks are broken out to a separate area and only display the title. So for anyone who does a link to one of my articles (and not a spammer of course) you will get a trackback on my site.
Is this what you do? I have no idea how I could separate the trackbacks like this since my theme is not very customizable. What I have read about “nofollow” vs. “follow” is that if you put nofollow, the link juice is simply lost. Of course, with algo details a secret, nobody can know for sure. Would be interesting to have a thread about this in the forums (or continue it in the “dofollow vs. nofollow” thread).
Creating your own theme or customizing your theme IMHO is critical for SEO. Even the paid themes have some things I personally don’t like from layout and SEO. It is also possible to have too many outbound links (with follow enabled of course). This can also decrease the “link juice”. As a rule it’s about quality not quantity. This is why I only allow pingbacks from other PF sites and not from spammers or web 2.0 sites (ie topsy.com). I’m also doing some research and testing of what works or not with SEO in the real world by doing the tests on my site(s).
Thanks for the great tips Kevin. My site has slowed down recently so I’m going to install the Super Cache right now. Hopefully, it’ll improve speed. The Yakezie community is so encouraging, I don’t know what I would have done without the support. I just crack 200k last week!!! A huge THANK YOU to everybody here.
I also recommend you find a “big brother” site and try to build relationship there. I check Early Retirement Extreme first everyday, joined the forum, and try to leave comments. Many ERE readers are interested in my site as well.
Interesting thoughts about the “big brother” or mentor. That could be a great way to get jump-started and be part of a community from day one. That’s a pretty good idea, actually, if you can find a good “mentor” in your area or niche. The Yakezie is a good example of this, too, since many members here are more experienced, and thus have many great tips that they can pass down. Being part of the group also means you get to share in the larger community.
These are some terrific tips, thanks for including those links for site optimization. I personally don’t like the whole CAPTCHA thing, but that’s probably because I’m a moron and have difficulty retyping the correct code or 3rd and 5th character.
For me, the community has really inspired me. Without them (or you!) I’m sure I’d be hearing just the crickets on my site. ;)
I think I’ve typed a CAPTCHA code 5 times before, and then was so traumatized that I never went back! lol
Conditional CAPTCHA only shows up if you’re flagged as a spammer! There’s no harm to your regular readers, but if someone (like me) gets flagged, we still have a chance to comment! :)
Great post and lots of good tips. I’ve been blogging for 4 months now and have been in the challenge for 3 months. Started the challenge at 5 million mark and I’m down to 232,000 and getting better. Blogging is hard and can take a toll on you. It’s tough to juggle almost everything but if you like what you’re doing, this is like your way of venting. Without the challenge, it is pretty tough to attain the 200,000. I, too, sometimes get discouraged but having this community really helps. I followed the advice on visiting and commenting on other blogs and also promoting their articles on my site.
I think one definitely has to look at it as a passion and a hobby, and not as a “job”. The moment it becomes an obligation, it automatically becomes less fun (at least, that’s how I personally see it). I already work 40 hours during the day, so why would I want more work on top of that. It should be fun! :)
Congrats on your Alexa, you are almost there!
Hi Kevin, thanks for your tips, and I really like how you highlighted other bloggers in your post. You’re doing a great job yourself, so keep up the good work!
Thanks for the feedback, Sam! You’re the seed that got this all started, and I hope that with this labour specialization (us members helping to fill in the content, you working on deals to bring the Yakezie forward) we can all benefit! If one believes in the free market and in voluntary association, I think that the Yakezie is a great example of the successes of both.
Really good tips, Kevin. Your blog is living proof that those tips can work, as are the others you highlighted. I can attest to that, as a regular reader of each one you mentioned.
Definitely! Your growth has been pretty phenomenal as well, and it’s due to following the same principles. :)
Great post. I like the way your broke everything down in an easy and fun to read format. It especially hit home for me as I relatively new to the challenge. Nice mention of fellow members. I am currently freeing members from my SPAM jail and used Blog and Website Grader right after. Great tips, will keep this in mind as I continue along. Thanks again!
Conditional Captcha, my friend! That’s all you need. :)
I’m allergic to having to type anything after commenting! But, that’s just me! Achooo.
Well, it’s “Conditional”. Better typing something after commenting than having your comment disappear into the jaws of Akismet hell!
What’s the definition of Conditional in this context?
The reason why many of my user’s comments aren’t in Akismet hell is because I am on the ball in constantly checking the spam folder and releasing. That’s all a webmaster has to do.
Basically the plugin is invisible most of the time. You will never see a captcha unless you are flagged by Akismet and already destined to go into the spam. The Conditional Captcha gives you a chance to redeem yourself so that you don’t have to send the owner an email, or pray that he checks his spam folder often… ;)
You can configure the plugin to send passed captchas to moderation (so you only deal with a few comments instead of 1000 per day), approve automatically, or leave them in spam. It’s quite a useful plugin to seperate the wheat from the chaff.
Cool post dude :). No, really, as usual Kevin, did a great job honing in on some important topics. Unfortunately for those of us less techie bloggers (or maybe it’s just me), the stuff about optimizing the loading speed went waaaay over my head! But is does sound like a good idea to make your page run faster.
With the new WP Super cache, it’s much easier. If you ever find your website running slow, just let me know and I’ll help you out. :)
Wow those website/blog graders were really helpful. I kind of lost sight of my mission for a while and I actually just watched as my Alexa rating slid in the not so fun direction. You can bet I won’t let that happen anymore. I’ve worked way to hard for that to happen. I’m def making more of an effort to be more involved here too!! What can I say we are are a pretty fun bunch :)
Those tools helped me out quite a bit, too. Looking forward to seeing you around more often! :)
good tips, and from experience i can say they help. i joined Yakezie just a couple months back and my rank today is at 276k. my USA rank is under 100k and the last 30 days is under 200k. it’s been a much faster ride than i thought – however traffic has not increased proportionately. interesting dynamics here.
That’s pretty fast progress! I’m not sure how the Alexa works but maybe it sees the traffic in a different light…
Kevin brings it home. Just follow the rule of Yakezie and you will be all good. My Alexa fell so quickly I couldn’t believe it. I am sub 200K, but aiming for 100K. This week I have been focusing on seo and backlink work for some major keywords I am targeting. My networking and yakezie’ing has dipped a bit. I will be back on Hootsuite tweeting with the people, sharing some link love, and commenting soon!
Thanks for the push!
From just commenting + promoting you can see your Alexa improve very quickly. At some point it will plateau, but I think if you can sneak in under 200k and then 100k you’re already doing pretty good.
[…] have a post up on the Yakezie that talks about improving your Alexa ranking, and having fun while doing […]
Awesome advice Kevin. Glad I caught this in my reader!
Woops, commented too fast. You’ve been doing a great job of reaching out; looking forward to seeing more growth from you. :)
Some excellent tips Kevin! One more tip I’d like to share – some of my posts are heavy on screenshots especially reviews and howtos and this was really bogging down the response time. I decided to optimize the pngs and jpegs and this greatly really reduces the size of these files and improves performance. Something to think about if your post is heavy on images.
That’s actually a great point. I’ve started to pay more attention to this as well, and combined with the cache preloading it does make a big difference.
Great tips! I wouldn’t know how to write without my putting my own voice in it.
The important thing is to promote others selflessly. If you do this, we will visit your blog and participate in the conversation. Yes, the money and traffic driven by the Yakezie is great, but the best parts are giving to the community (scholarship), others and building relationships.
Definitely, if you put some effort into it, you will definitely get something back for it, too.
Np! :)
Great post Kevin. I love blogs where the author writes in his or her own voice. I didn’t realize how important this was when I started blogging.
It’s also the less stressful way of blogging, when you realize that you don’t have to necessarily fit within a certain mold or pattern, but can find your own style and path.
Awesome post. It is refreshing to come across good advice that doesn’t involve taking short cuts or trying to cheat the system.
I guess the more time and effort you put into blogging the more you get back…
Definitely. Those things like “Tiger Submitter” probably don’t work out too well. ;)
I found commenting on other sites very effective. Though its time consuming, at least I have connected myself to others. :-)
It is time consuming, but you can always manage it, so maybe you’ll spend 1/3rd of your time writing new posts, 1/3rd reading other posts and leaving comments, and 1/3rd working on various other aspects such as participating in the forums, tweaking the theme, etc… and hey, if you ever make a lot of money off of blogging, you can always hire someone to do your commenting for you, as I’ve seen some do ;)
P.S. I am stuck in your spam and your contact form doesn’t seem to be working. :(
Great tips, I refer to this article from time to time. I had no idea so many things were involved with having a successful blog. It’s been a wonderful and learning process. Keep up the great work!
You’ve been an inspiration yourself!
Great article, I am trying to get under 50,000 !!! Oh Yea
..rank atthis point was > 8,000,000
Those pixel things still work? Man, the first guy to do that really made it out big…
Great tips! I followed each tip as I read the article and the website grader and blog grader helped lots. I didn’t even have META tags! I just joined the challenge today, I’m pretty excited to get started. Current rank is 11, 590, 360.
Great tip on Conditional Captcha. I’m working to get below 100,000. Just dropped 1000 points to 152,602 yiha!
I just checked and you’re under 100,000. Congrats! :)
Just reading my old comment :) It’s funny how things change. I dropped from over 11 million down to under 70k thanks to the Yakezie community.
Yep, you’ve made stellar progress since the original comment! :)