This being my third attempt at a blog I decided to take it more seriously. I've got my own domain name and started researching how to gain more traffic. The problem is I find myself buried in a pile of SEO information and it seems like it's going to take me forever to figure out what to do with it.
Does anyone care to share their stories of the first month of their blogs and whether or not they thought it'd never make it? How you did succeed in making it? And how you possibly organized all the information in SEO help topics into something useful?
I know my blog is still very young (less than a month) so I've got a lot of time to grow it and I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. Quote: Originally Posted by theeventof This being my third attempt at a blog I decided to take it more seriously. I've got my own domain name and started researching how to gain more traffic. The problem is I find myself buried in a pile of SEO information and it seems like it's going to take me forever to figure out what to do with it.
Does anyone care to share their stories of the first month of their blogs and whether or not they thought it'd never make it? How you did succeed in making it? And how you possibly organized all the information in SEO help topics into something useful?
I know my blog is still very young (less than a month) so I've got a lot of time to grow it and I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. In my point of view, SEO is not a tough thing to learn. to get a traffic you have to work a lot. content is most important to get traffic and keep posting new articles in your blog and do some seo works like bookmarking,article submission.
whats your blog's category... Go through this sticky thread: Effective SEO - The V7N Way and make a checklist (divided in sections so you can tackle one section at a time instead of looking at one great long list) of what you need to do.
Some things are repetitive for each post like:
-keyword research and selection
-post title
-meta data
-headings
-permalink (file name)
So make yourself a template to use for each post.
Leave the offsite stuff until you have your on page/on site SEO ship shape. No point trying to dry traffic to site site that hasn't got great content and isn't setup to be user friendly.
If you get a handle on the on page SEO right from the start then the traffic will start coming without you doing off site stuff yet because you are showing up in the search results. I hear ya! My head was spinning when I first dipped my toes in the SEO ocean. Here's my advice:
#1. Follow HTML Tutor's advice (she can't be beat!)
#2. Take just one step at a time. You can't do everything at once so start with one concept and when you've got a handle on that one add another. SEO is an endurance sport, not a sprint. back when i was starting i only note those important ones such as backlinking.. the rest i learn it thru reading the forums. such as alt tag and etc..
so it didn't hurt that much In my own experiences, SEO efforts might not come into effect in such a short period, especially on some competitive keywords. Social media would be a nice supplement for traffic purpose at the very beginning of a new site. Anyhow, targeting right keywords would be the essential step. I would like to recommend you to the article titled "search engine ranking factors" from seomoz.org for a complete understanding on almost all factors for ranking purpose.
Have a nice day, Quote: Originally Posted by turf alt tag and etc.. It's called the alt attribute, not tag! Quote: I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. This is what exactly SEO means. You should have patient to generate traffic. I suggest you to follow the strategy. seo requires patience and perseverance to be able to learn and apply what you have learned. I have just started working in SEO, but I think, that if you follow the general rules, like taking care of keywords, post titles, meta data and headings and also provide good quality content, than it should work out for you. Thanks everyone for the replies it's helped calmed me down a bit. It's always so hard when you just get started to hold back you always (at least I always) want to dive right into everything. I will try my best to narrow down my SEO research and implementation and try to get good at a few key parts before I had the rest of it over time. If you have blog for any topic or industry, you must have to post fresh content on regular basis. Submit your blog in blog directories. Just dont rush dude so you will not suffer the consequences of becoming too hot for the money. You need to move one step at a time. Quote: Originally Posted by theeventof Thanks everyone for the replies it's helped calmed me down a bit. It's always so hard when you just get started to hold back you always (at least I always) want to dive right into everything. I will try my best to narrow down my SEO research and implementation and try to get good at a few key parts before I had the rest of it over time. I'm just like that - I want to do it all NOW! That's why taking it one step at a time is so crucial. Once you get the hang of it it'll become second-nature. Hi theventof, I had a similar problem a while back, but my blogs are now getting some OKAY traffic. I recently read a post related to this by Guy that I think I'm going to take to heart by updating my blog regularly with content:
Quote: But, the traffic kept coming, and coming, and 6 months into things, the site was generating over 6,000 unique visitors a month with me doing, absolutely, nothing. The site was on auto drive, and this traffic is only increasing. By December, the site will be generating around 30,000 unique visitors a month, that’s if I don’t touch it or bother to boost it in the serps with some quality backlinks, articles etc etc. Further Reading: Guy Roman on I’m Google’s Love Child
He mentions how also he thinks SEO Professionals are fakes and also explains how he achieved stats with a site running on auto. Fascinating stuff and I think worth a read. Do something everyday, even if it as little as a Forum Post. And monitor your position in Serps, if you put in allot of SEO work, and you see no change, try adjusting your Content. Also, analyze your competition, check thier BL's, Content, Title ,and Metas.
Lastly, believe Content will drive your site, use as many Keywords and phrases as possible w/o getting spammy. @iver thanks for the reassurance that traffic will come. It seems like it's an exponential thing once you get a little traffic you really can start seeing it blossom. Which makes sense the more people that visit your site the more likely you are to get their friends or family returning to visit. So while the first six months to a year can be tediously spent building the base following a little hard work and its' worth it in the long run Yea... Learning SEO made my head hurt for MONTHS! Just keep going and you will get there! At start you have to work hard but after that you ll do easily.So try to learn hard and get some good result in less time. In SEO u have to keep patience and have ti make efforts continuously so u just research the SEO techniques first and start implementing. But it will take time so have faith in yourself..
Quote: Originally Posted by HTMLBasicTutor Go through this sticky thread: Effective SEO - The V7N Way Thats an excellent link thanks a lot for that mate.
Does anyone care to share their stories of the first month of their blogs and whether or not they thought it'd never make it? How you did succeed in making it? And how you possibly organized all the information in SEO help topics into something useful?
I know my blog is still very young (less than a month) so I've got a lot of time to grow it and I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. Quote: Originally Posted by theeventof This being my third attempt at a blog I decided to take it more seriously. I've got my own domain name and started researching how to gain more traffic. The problem is I find myself buried in a pile of SEO information and it seems like it's going to take me forever to figure out what to do with it.
Does anyone care to share their stories of the first month of their blogs and whether or not they thought it'd never make it? How you did succeed in making it? And how you possibly organized all the information in SEO help topics into something useful?
I know my blog is still very young (less than a month) so I've got a lot of time to grow it and I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. In my point of view, SEO is not a tough thing to learn. to get a traffic you have to work a lot. content is most important to get traffic and keep posting new articles in your blog and do some seo works like bookmarking,article submission.
whats your blog's category... Go through this sticky thread: Effective SEO - The V7N Way and make a checklist (divided in sections so you can tackle one section at a time instead of looking at one great long list) of what you need to do.
Some things are repetitive for each post like:
-keyword research and selection
-post title
-meta data
-headings
-permalink (file name)
So make yourself a template to use for each post.
Leave the offsite stuff until you have your on page/on site SEO ship shape. No point trying to dry traffic to site site that hasn't got great content and isn't setup to be user friendly.
If you get a handle on the on page SEO right from the start then the traffic will start coming without you doing off site stuff yet because you are showing up in the search results. I hear ya! My head was spinning when I first dipped my toes in the SEO ocean. Here's my advice:
#1. Follow HTML Tutor's advice (she can't be beat!)
#2. Take just one step at a time. You can't do everything at once so start with one concept and when you've got a handle on that one add another. SEO is an endurance sport, not a sprint. back when i was starting i only note those important ones such as backlinking.. the rest i learn it thru reading the forums. such as alt tag and etc..
so it didn't hurt that much In my own experiences, SEO efforts might not come into effect in such a short period, especially on some competitive keywords. Social media would be a nice supplement for traffic purpose at the very beginning of a new site. Anyhow, targeting right keywords would be the essential step. I would like to recommend you to the article titled "search engine ranking factors" from seomoz.org for a complete understanding on almost all factors for ranking purpose.
Have a nice day, Quote: Originally Posted by turf alt tag and etc.. It's called the alt attribute, not tag! Quote: I think slow and steady is the way to go about it. This is what exactly SEO means. You should have patient to generate traffic. I suggest you to follow the strategy. seo requires patience and perseverance to be able to learn and apply what you have learned. I have just started working in SEO, but I think, that if you follow the general rules, like taking care of keywords, post titles, meta data and headings and also provide good quality content, than it should work out for you. Thanks everyone for the replies it's helped calmed me down a bit. It's always so hard when you just get started to hold back you always (at least I always) want to dive right into everything. I will try my best to narrow down my SEO research and implementation and try to get good at a few key parts before I had the rest of it over time. If you have blog for any topic or industry, you must have to post fresh content on regular basis. Submit your blog in blog directories. Just dont rush dude so you will not suffer the consequences of becoming too hot for the money. You need to move one step at a time. Quote: Originally Posted by theeventof Thanks everyone for the replies it's helped calmed me down a bit. It's always so hard when you just get started to hold back you always (at least I always) want to dive right into everything. I will try my best to narrow down my SEO research and implementation and try to get good at a few key parts before I had the rest of it over time. I'm just like that - I want to do it all NOW! That's why taking it one step at a time is so crucial. Once you get the hang of it it'll become second-nature. Hi theventof, I had a similar problem a while back, but my blogs are now getting some OKAY traffic. I recently read a post related to this by Guy that I think I'm going to take to heart by updating my blog regularly with content:
Quote: But, the traffic kept coming, and coming, and 6 months into things, the site was generating over 6,000 unique visitors a month with me doing, absolutely, nothing. The site was on auto drive, and this traffic is only increasing. By December, the site will be generating around 30,000 unique visitors a month, that’s if I don’t touch it or bother to boost it in the serps with some quality backlinks, articles etc etc. Further Reading: Guy Roman on I’m Google’s Love Child
He mentions how also he thinks SEO Professionals are fakes and also explains how he achieved stats with a site running on auto. Fascinating stuff and I think worth a read. Do something everyday, even if it as little as a Forum Post. And monitor your position in Serps, if you put in allot of SEO work, and you see no change, try adjusting your Content. Also, analyze your competition, check thier BL's, Content, Title ,and Metas.
Lastly, believe Content will drive your site, use as many Keywords and phrases as possible w/o getting spammy. @iver thanks for the reassurance that traffic will come. It seems like it's an exponential thing once you get a little traffic you really can start seeing it blossom. Which makes sense the more people that visit your site the more likely you are to get their friends or family returning to visit. So while the first six months to a year can be tediously spent building the base following a little hard work and its' worth it in the long run Yea... Learning SEO made my head hurt for MONTHS! Just keep going and you will get there! At start you have to work hard but after that you ll do easily.So try to learn hard and get some good result in less time. In SEO u have to keep patience and have ti make efforts continuously so u just research the SEO techniques first and start implementing. But it will take time so have faith in yourself..
Quote: Originally Posted by HTMLBasicTutor Go through this sticky thread: Effective SEO - The V7N Way Thats an excellent link thanks a lot for that mate.