How to get people to your BLOG.

Wow, what a cool week.

I crossed over 1,000,000 downloads in iPhone apps and also just found out today I broke the top 10,000 sites in US according to Alexa (top 30,000 in the world).

I posted my first blog post on December 11, 2009 and honestly got VERY LITTLE traffic until January this year.

I just checked stats and for the last two months I’m averaging 1,559 hits per day (that’s for August and September 2011).  I figured some of you might want to know what I did so you can use the same game plan.

So let’s get to it…

The truth is, it wasn’t a very complex plan.  I just had three things in mind:

1. Post about stuff that’s different from everyone else.

2. Rank high for my name on Google.

3. Actively bring people back to the blog.

All three have been instrumental to bringing in lots of traffic, but if I had to choose, I would say “actively bringing people back to the blog” is the most important.

Let’s check each of these bad boys out:

Posting Different Stuff:  Separating Yourself From The Pack

Like I said, all THREE of these points are instrumental.  This one is very important… if I wasn’t talking about different and interesting stuff here that people wouldn’t read it. 

As you guys know, I released my first iPhone App in January and was making money instantly.  Little did I know at the time, but this was something that TONS of people were interested in and absolutely no one was talking about.  Here I was thinking I was the only iPhone App “wannabe developer” out there…

So I started talking about that stuff here and people got REALLY into it. I’ve looked around as well and haven’t found any other blogs that explain how to make money with apps, so it was a good way for me to separate from the pack and give out information you literally couldn’t find anywhere else.

I promise you if I was talking about only Google Adwords and SEO like thousands of other blogs out there, it wouldn’t be seeing steady growth as it is now… it would have simply been lost in a sea of mediocrity!

That said, I don’t JUST post iPhone stuff as that would get boring as well.  I try to make sure I sprinkle in silly posts like the Trashy Headlines and the Frank & Trey Show… and also add in branding posts like the Kicking Ass & Taking Names seminar footage.

So keep it fun and talk about stuff that is unique and interesting.

Ranking high for your name (or brand) on Google

We all know this one is important, but it was interesting to see the stats really laid out in front of me.

For the longest time, I was ranked #2 or #3 in Google for “Trey Smith” and was getting about 50 hits a day from JUST that one term.  Then I got an email from a super cool girl named Mel.  She wanted a copy of the iPhone System and asked me if I wanted any SEO done as a trade.

Being that I was born in Macon, GA from a LONG line of crazy entrepreneurs (seriously, my grandfather once traded 3 cows for a car), I coudln’t pass up the opportunity.

I told her if she could get me to #1 for Trey Smith then we would have a deal.  It was something I was having a hard time doing myself with my outsourced team.

Well, again, Mel is awesome… within a week she had me at number 1.  I found out that the #1 position gets about TWICE as many clicks as #2 (for my name at least).  Now Mel is working on ranking  just “trey” by itself which is tough because the super bad ass lead guitarist and vocalist for Phish, Trey Anastasio, owns Trey.com!

I suck at SEO, but she has a WSO here that explains the process she does.  Btw, I don’t get compensation or anything, just letting you guys know what worked for me.

Actively Bringing People To Your Blog

By far the biggest for me.  I do this in multiple ways.

Of course the easiest is to email my list about a blog post, which I will actually be doing tomorrow and totaling the numbers for the Maze+ iPhone game launch.  That always gets great results and must cause some sort of viral action.

I’ll check my clicks in Aweber and iContact when I email my list to the blog and it’s ALWAYS double or triple the numbers that show up.  I haven’t really figured that one out, but hey… it works!

But don’t stop at just emailing.  I also put links to my blog at the end of big promotions I do.  For instance, when I close down an iPhone System promotion I have a link to my facebook and blog on the “Sold Out” page.

This drives a TON of traffic and gives people some cool free information as well!

Anytime I don’t have a good “thank you page” setup I route them back to the blog.  If I do a survey and don’t have something setup, I’ll make a page on my blog that just says “Thanks for taking my survey”.  A large portion of people will click around and check out some articles while they’re here.

Think outside the box on this stuff… If you have a free offer you give away people who sign up for your list, you can make it into a blog post.  There are a ton of possibilities.

Ok, well hopefully that helps some of you out and THANK YOU for taking a part in this blog!

Talk soon,

Trey Smith

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