Although BlogaPro has only been running since early June, its progress has been quite remarkable.  I would take all the recognition, but I didn’t do anything too amazing.  My secret?  Press releases.

After discussing my secret on how to get listed in Google, I decided to conduct an experiment.  My goal was to deduce the amount of impact that a press release would have on a new blog.  If you haven’t read my previous articles, I suggest that you give them a quick look before continuing…

I spent a couple of hours creating two seperate articles, both of which were published as press releases through third-party sites.  One article was released through PRWeb while the other was published via PRUnderground.

The two articles shared similar content, but their wording made them unique.

In order that the articles appeared both professional and authentic, the articles’ release were separated by an interval of about five days.

You probably haven’t considered the reason why I circulated two articles?  In the first publication, I failed to include a link to BlogaPro in the main content of the article.  Remember, that the power of releases comes from the fact that articles are replicated across multiple sites. As a result, I lost out on an opportunity to receive several top quality links to BlogaPro.

The second release was an attempt to rectify my previous mistake.

Visit Google and enter the term, “BlogaPro Announces its Official Release“.  You will notice that both articles have been replicated across at least 344 different pages.  Admittedly, a large portion of these articles fail to include a link to BlogaPro.   Due to the fact that at least 30 new links were received, the time and effort was undoubtedly worthwhile.

The short term achievements are undoubtedly obvious, but the long-term benefits are profound.  Consider that a couple days following the publication of the second article, the number of RSS subscribers to BlogaPro sky-rocketed.  The number of subscribers tripled.

Unfortunately, the same results have not been seen in the number of page views I have since received.  While there was an increase in traffic, the increase has been linear instead of exponential.  This can be attributed to not only the competitive nature of “make money blogging” sites but the sheer number.  It goes without saying that while the number of page views has not been as impressive, the position of BlogaPro in terms of SEO has seen leaps and bounds.

Remember sitting in English class and learning about all the ‘exceptions to the rule’? Sorry to burst your bubble, I’m here to teach you at least one more…

In the blogging world, there are “exceptions to the rule” too.

Carl Ocab, author of carlocab.com

Searching the web I came across a young, professional blogger named Carl Ocab, a blogger based in the Philippines.

What’s so special about Carl Ocab? Well, Carl started his blogging career at the early age of thirteen, an age when most kids are considering paper rounds and not professional blogging.

After only a couple of months of blogging, Carl was able to turn professional. His progress has been so positive that he is now rumored to earn at least a 5-figure annual salary through blogging alone, a salary which most bloggers can only dream of.

Carl’s blog has proved so successful that he was at one stage first in Google’s search engine for the term “Make Money Online”. His popularity has slightly dissipated; although, he is still holding strong.

Before continuing, you might want to learn more about Carl.

Moral of the Story

Many bloggers will profess that, “Content is King!” For the most part, I would be inclined to agree. Eric Enge of SEOmoz.com published an excellent article describing how good content can increase your blog’s popularity.

Unfortunately, this article and many alike fail to consider one important point: there are thousands and thousands of great authors amongst us.

Content alone will NOT drive visitors to your site.  In fact, I read numerous blogs driven by fantastic authors which fail to attract even 100 visitors on any given day, blogs that have been on the ‘net for over two years.

Where are these bloggers falling short?  Unfortunately, they’re all missing that special something or X-Factor.  That X-factor quality is that something that you can’t quite describe or determine, yet you know it when you see it (or in this case, read it).

What is the key to Carl’s success?

I assure you of one thing, his success does not lie in his content. In fact, if you closely inspect Ocab’s content, you soon realize that the quality is severely lacking. It is riddled with grammatical errors in the form of comma splices, incoherent sentences, and poor sentence transitions.

With that said, there are a number of quality/factors which play into his favor:

1. Age: Make no doubt about it, his physical immaturity plays into his favor.  Ocab’s age has been the main foothold to his success.  Just think about how many 13-year-old professional bloggers you can think of?  Let me make it easier.  How many 13-year-olds are you aware of that are pulling in a 5-figure salary?  I’m sure the majority of you couldn’t answer “yes” to either of those questions.  His accomplishment inspire his readers - he is somebody they can look up to.
2. Mental Immaturity: Ocab’s mental immaturity comes across in his posts. His content, unlike the same-old dribble seen on the Internet, is an easy read.  It’s refreshing but unique in its style.
3. Confidence: Ocab portrays himself as an authority over his niche. His writing style emits confidence as is evident in his posts.  Although the subject matter of his content is nothing new, his readers continue to return.
4. Making the most of your hand: Lastly, Carl plays his hand to its full potential - I mean his blog title is, “Make Money At Home With a 13-Year Old”.  He makes no mistake about the fact that he is only 13 years old; he’s well-aware that his age makes him something special.

Separate yourself from the pack

The leaves to me to push the point that you should not rely solely on publishing good content - Carl is a testament to this fact.  However, that does not suggest that content is not important.  Quite contrary.

I’m of the firm belief that bloggers should be themselves.  Carl’s blog is a manifestation that it is important to publicize and demonstrate those points/qualities that are unique.  Remember, blogging is all about being different, at least if you plan on being a highly successful professional blogger.

Leaving comments on other blogs is a great way of promoting your own site.  Did you know that you can use comments to promote your RSS feed?

The next time you leave a comment on a blog, substitute your website address with your RSS Feed address.

The ‘Feeding Frenzy’

At any given instant, there are hundreds of robots or “crawlers” navigating the web in attempts of finding fresh blogging content. Feed readers and directories like Onfolio, Bloglines, and Google Feedfetcher are constantly caching the latest blog content.

Due to the nature of RSS, crawlers tend to search for RSS feeds instead of HTML pages - it’s not called Really Simple Syndication for nothing!  HTML content is heavily bloated containing extra bells and whistles (unnecessary as far as feed readers are concerned).

RSS caching offers your site some great potential.  Not only will you see an increase in your RSS subscriber count, but you potentially set yourself up to receive free links to your blog.

Crawlers = RSS Subscribers

Believe it or not, crawlers are still counted as RSS subscribers.  The RSS standard does not offer the opportunity to differentiate between human and computer readers.  That works to our advantage…

Remember, some readers are more inclined to subscribe to those blogs which are displaying a subscriber count of more than 200 subscribers.  If you’re new to the blogosphere, you soon learn that reaching the 200 mark is easier said than done.

This is where the bots help you out. Bots exaggerate and/or bloat your subscriber count, but let us not forget, they also spread the word in addition to providing links, new readers, and a higher PageRank.

Word of Warning

If are protective over your work and like to have strict control over who caches your content, I suggest you disregard my advice.  With that said, if your blog becomes popular, spiders will find you sooner rather than later.

After a recent post on “setting your blog’s goals“, I received numerous emails from readers asking all the same question: “What are your blog’s goals?”

Since you all appear to be more concerned with my own goals instead of your own, I figured that I would share them with you.

If you have never run your own blog, assessing the potential outcome of your blog will prove difficult.  In all likelihood, its performance will grossly miss your predictions.  There is a lot to learn in the first six months of your blogging career - lessons you will not properly comprehend until you have blogged yourself.

Having previously undertaken the blogging experience with PlayerBites (see ‘About‘ page), I’m in a slightly better position to evaluate the probable outcome.

With that said, there are a number of things that I would like to do differently the second time around.  Even if I say so myself, my past blogging career consisted of some horrible mistakes.  As a result, gauging the site’s outcome has proved a little harder than some of you may realize.

Short-term Goals (6 months):

1. Acquire 200 RSS Subscribers
2. Receive 300 unique visitors on average per day
3. Attain a PageRank of at least 3/10

Long-term Goals (1 year):

1. Acquire 700+ RSS Subscribers
2. Receive around 900 unique visitors on average per day
3. Attain a PageRank of at least 5/10
4. Monetize the site will maintaining visitor growth.

Remember I talked about ’sticking to your guns’?  Well, I have taken the strategy to heart.  Although I have earned 50 active RSS subscribers (after a mere two weeks of the site’s promotion), I am not about to move the goal posts.

Since there is increased probability that the first of my three short-term goals will be met, I am provided with the opportunity to ensure that the other two requirements are met.

So you’ve published your first blog post, but you have noticed that you aren’t getting any visitors?  Think links!

In order to receive visitors to your new blog, you are going to require links, and lots of them.  For blogs which have only recently been established, this proves rather difficult.

Why is it difficult to acquire visitors?

1. New blogs are often bland and lack a sense of interactivity or community.  Have you ever noticed how a blog undergoes immense change within the first couple of months?  Understanding what does/doesn’t work on your blog is not a one-month process.
2. With the few visitors that you do receive, they will find it difficult to form an opinion on a blog that has only a few posts.  Let’s not forget that opinions are formed over time; although, first impressions do count.
3. That brings us smoothly into our third point - return visitors.  These sorts of visitors are the ones who will contribute the most to your blog either in terms of links, interactivity, or money.  If your blog is established, return visitors will comprise a large percentage of the visitors to your blog.
4. A lack of incoming links will undermine your blogs reach.  Referring sites and search engines are very pivotal in increasing the number of visitors to your site. Search engines will determine your site’s placement based on the number of links that point to your site. Around 62% of the visitors to BlogaPro are from search engines.

Don’t become disheartened

Blogging is a commitment. It’s easy to throw in the towel after a couple of weeks but don’t become disheartened.

Sites grow in popularity gradually.  My last blog wasn’t reaching 100 visitors on a daily basis until about 6 months after its inception when it suddenly sky rocketed in popularity.

If you publish content on a regular basis and shown enthusiasm for your niche, the number of visitors to your site will increase.

Stick in there…

In a previous article, I mentioned that the most effective way of quickly getting listed/cached by Google’s bot was to publish a press release through a third party.

Last night, I took the time to write an official press release.  The short article was published last night (at midnight pacific-time) through prweb.com.

I decided to release the article for two main reasons:

1. To use the press release as a vehicle to promote BlogaPro
2. As an experiment in determining the effect the press release would have not only on my traffic but on my search engine rankings.

In about two weeks from now, I’ll discuss the effects that the PR had on BlogaPro.

If you would like to get in on the experiment, I suggest joining BlueHost (if you don’t already have a hosting account).  A new hosting account with BlueHost will entitle you to a free press release on prweb.com (a $40+ value).

After having a quick look at Roger Johansson’s 456 Berea Street, I felt slightly despondent once my eyes gazed over towards the number of RSS subscribers to his site.  Wouldn’t it be nice having 26,000 RSS readers?  I presume that the number of subscribers has in fact decreased slightly because Roger has been on “parental leave and vacation” for nearly 2 months.

Well, Roger’s success got me wondering how I could increase the number of RSS subscribers to my blog.  Short of being dugg, there are not many ways of attaining over 5,000 visitors in a relatively short amount of time.

A large number of RSS subscribers is usually attributed to interesting content which has been published regularly over a lengthy period of time.

Boost your subscribers

But wait!  There are ways to jump-start your feed’s activity.  Have you ever thought about submitting your RSS feed to different RSS readers and directories?

Instead of feeling dispondent, I decided to do something about it.  I found a great guide on rss-specifications.com.  The guide contains numerous links to RSS directories, catalogs, and readers.  After spending some time searching the web and submitting my RSS feed, I sat back and watched what happened.

It paid off.  BlogaPro’s reach has almost doubled over night as is depicted in the graph above.  While much of the activity is attributed to bots, I did notice that three times as many human visitors clicked on items within my feed compared with previous days.

Any of you have any other tips to share on how you have increased the number of RSS subscribers to your site?

Last but not least

If you haven’t already, don’t forget to subscribe to my RSS feed.

There are two key tips you ought to follow if you anticipate being a successful blogger.

1. Separate yourself (along with your blog, of course) from the rest of the pack.
2. Publish quality content that is unique and well-written.

Addressing recommendation number one is often difficult - it’s not always that clear on just how far you should try and “separate” your blog.  Nonetheless, it’s always best to be yourself and let your blog reflect your personality.

Here is a suggestion.  Have you ever thought about including a short video in the “About” section of your blog?  There is only so much you can learn about a person sitting behind a blog.

Benefits of including video

Videos tend to more effective in conveying your personality.  Sure you might publish terrific blog posts, but there’s something engaging about a video that even a well-written blog post can’t rival. Videos provide the opportunity for your readers to bond/relate with the you on another level.

What are some other benefits of including video?

1. A good value often portrays a feeling of interactivity.
2. It’s eye catching not to mention stimulating.
3. You can use it with different forms of advertising.
4. You readers are more likely to return on another visit.

Don’t forget the text

While I have encouraged the use of video, I would not suggest removing any text that is already present. Why?

1. Text is easier to scan
2. It consumes less bandwidth.  Not everybody has access to DSL/Cable.
3. Text is more beneficial in terms of SEO.

You’re probably wondering what you should include in your video?  Well, I wouldn’t make it too long - one minute tops.  Introduce yourself, explain what your blog is about and leave it that.

If you’re looking to jump on the bandwagon, sign up with Viddler and get those videos rolling.  If you’re looking for inspiration, check out iJustine’s page.

Check out my own video

I recently published a video to supplement my autobiography.  All in all, the response has been rather positive.  In fact, visitors are now more willing to follow me through different social media in addition to subscribing to my RSS feed.

If any of you have included videos in your autobiography, please do share.  I am thinking about reworking the video since it lacks some quality; some inspiration is needed - I am a programmer not a video editor…