I… am… so… STOKED!  I feel like a kid who’s just found out they’re going to Disney Land, lol.

I’ve been going pretty hard last week creating content, promoting, and driving traffic.  It’s been quite an adventure.  This is going to be my first stats post ever in a series of weekly stats post that I’ll be releasing.

I’ll be sharing everything I did last week to drive traffic to my site and all the results that I’ve gotten for the week.  This is exciting stuff!

I’ve always loved reading stats posts like this and now I feel like I’m doing some kind of special initiation to join the “cool kids”….err… the “cool bloggers” I should say

Let me bring you up to speed

Before we get into the good stuff, I wanna make sure I bring you up to speed.

In case you didn’t know, I’ve just relaunched this blog about two weeks ago and it’s undergone a complete (and much needed) makeover.  So these stats are starting from ground zero, completely building up new traffic channels and all.

I’ve been involved with internet marketing for 7 years and recently I found myself at a point in my business where I felt my business and blog needed a serious face lift.

You’re actually catching my rebuilding and re-branding at the front end of it all.  You’ll get to see me actually go through the process of rebuilding up my blog traffic and restructuring my entire business model, how cool it that??

I’m so excited about doing this and I hope you’ll stick around for the ride.  You’re in for quite a treat!

 Let’s dive in!

Alright, so I made my first post on this blog on September 24, 2012.  To date I’ve published 5 posts (corrected from the 6 posts I originally quoted).  Here’s a snapshot look at the results I’ve gotten collectively from those 5 posts.

• 1,325 New Unique Visitors
• 159 Facebook Likes
• 41 Facebook Shares
• 70 Retweets
• 12 Google+’s
• 89 BizSugar Votes
• 10 Comments
• 24 New subscribers
• 3 New Relationships with Influencers
• 9 Natural Blog Backlinks

I’d say that’s not bad for my first few weeks

If you didn’t know, I’m a self proclaimed SEO Rebel.  You can click here to get the full story about how I feel about SEO.

I’ve done absolutely no SEO at all to drive traffic to my site (you’ll see the proof below).  I’m dead set on building up my blog traffic using only social media and other alternative forms of driving traffic.  It’s a lot quicker and lot more fun… kinda like speeding down a back road on a Ducati 1098s :)

Traffic sources

Since relaunching my blog, I’ve been focusing on driving traffic through 4 main sources.

• Blog commenting
• Content aggregators
• Social media (Facebook/Twitter) and
• Forums

Taste the sweetness of BizSugar

My biggest traffic geyser so far is definitely (my new found love) BizSugar.com :)

This site is rockin’ for getting increased social media interaction on your posts, especially blog comments.

I submitted 4 blog posts to BisSugar and here’s the results:

Check out the number of votes, tweets, likes, and comments my posts got, killer right?  I think so.  (By the way, those comments are only the comments my post got on BizSugar’s site, outside of the 10 additional comments I got on my blog site).

I had 3 blog posts that became hot literally overnight and hit the popular front page.  Seeing this site do it’s “thang” was so awesome.  I was sold!

BizSugar is an absolute God sent and I love this site, not to mention the awesome community. I couldn’t do this post with shouting out all of my awesome BizSugar friends who voted for all of my posts, I couldnt’ve done it with out ya!

Special shout out to KundalinkISP, Sannwood, and Entrepreneurosaurus who made the 3 posts that the hit front page hot.  I appreciate you!

Blog commenting

My second traffic geyser has been blog commenting.  I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, blog commenting has become literally one of my favorite past times, lol.

This is one of the very best free ways to drive traffic to your blog and get more interaction and comments on your own blog posts.  Blog commenting has been responsible for sending me roughly 50 extra visitors to my site and 2 blog comments, not too shabby.

The bulk of my blog commenting traffic came from BuzzBlogger.com and ProBlogger.net, two high traffic sites in the blogosphere.  Not to mention the “crack like” information they give away.

I left a couple of well thought out, high quality comments on these two blogs (and a few others) and the traffic naturally came.  Easy right?

If you want to use blog commenting as a way to drive traffic to your site, here’s a few tips to keep in mind:

• Try to be within the first 5 to 10 comments on a freshly published post (I was #13 on Buzzblogger and #2 on ProBlogger)
• Always leave well thought out, quality comments.  One liners aren’t going to send you much traffic, if any.
• Focus on commenting on about 3 to 5 high traffic blogs within your niche

Social Media

My third traffic geyser was good ol’ social media.  Social media is by far one of the fastest ways to get a few hundred visitors to your site, if you’re doing it properly.

Facebook was my top social media referrer.  Twitter came in second.

What’s so cool to me about this is that I didn’t get sucked into the Facebook death trap and spend hours aimiously click, click, clicking away on the “like” button or following other unproductive Facebook cracker trails.

All I did was Facebook optimize my comment section and follow a simple routine that always yielded me at least 30 FB likes or more.

I’m currently using an awesome wordpress comment plugin called Cackle.  This is a great plugin for increasing your FB exposure, interaction, engagement on your blog/FB page, and it provides awesome social proof.

Cackle allows your visitors to leave comments on your blog posts using several different social sites including Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ just to name a few.

But the really cool thing I love about Cackle is the built in viral factor. Whenever you leave a comment, it’ll actually post it to your FB wall or Twitter status.

Check out how Cackle automatically posted to my wall when I replied to the awesome comment blogging phenom Ileane Smith left on one of my post.

Ms. Ileane’s Comment:

My response posted to my FB wall with a link pointing back to my blog post!

Check out the social interaction on my page:

I’m in love with this plugin.  Even though it isn’t dofollow, it’ll definitely increase your FB Edgerank, social interaction, and bring in more traffic.

Twitter

According to my traffic stats, Twitter didn’t send me much traffic.  However, it did play a monumental part in helping me gain more exposure and building my social proof.

I’ve been using an ingenious new service for Twitter called JustRetweet.  You’ve probably already heard of this service and if you’re not using it yet… umm… why not???  If you’re craving to get more retweets on your post, this is the service to use.

JustRetweet played a big part in the 70 retweets my posts got.  It’s even responsible for helping me begin a pretty awesome relationship with one of Twitter’s heavy hitter bloggers Terrance Charles.

He actually retweeted this post I featured him in twice, exposing it to his over 46,000 followers, how awesome is that??

His following:

Retweet 1:

Retweet 2:

Awesomeness!  I was hyped to see Terrance’s 2 RT’s, and even more excited about connecting with him.  Thanks a lot Terrance!

Scoop.it

Let me tell you, this is one awesome website.  This is a content curating site that is a potential traffic beast.  I’ve been using this site to get further exposure and it’s proven to be a decent traffic source for me.  It’s sent me about 40 extra visitors (you can see my traffic stats in the images below).

I submitted my blog posts to influential content curators that get a lot of views and have large audiences.  The curator can either accept or deny your submission.  If accepted, your blog post will show up on their Scoop.it page where tons of eyes will oggle it, possibly rescoop it and send tons of traffic.

I submitted this blog post where I featured Ms. Ileane to her Basic Blog Tips Scoop.it page:

I was stoked when she accepted it!  And even more excited when she dropped by and actually left a comment.

My follow up post got scooped my Ms. Ileane as well:

This is a great site to get hundreds of extra views on your content to send traffic to your website.

TIP:  You can use Scoop.it as a quick and fun way to start building relationships with other bloggers in your niche as well.  Try doing a top 7 or top 10 post including a few of your favorite bloggers.  Find them on Scoop.it and submit it to them.  Your submission is virtually guaranteed to be approved, especially if they’re included in the post.  Boom, you’ve made a valuable connection, gotten instant exposure and you can begin building a long term business relationship.

Warrior Forum

Ok, we’re getting down to the wire, lol.  Are ya’ still with me?  Great!

Warrior Forum is just badass (ahem…. excuse my french).  This is the internet marketing Disney Land for all things IM.  And it’s a magic traffic wand when used correctly.

I spent a total of about 3 to 4 hours doing forum marketing (answering questions, starting discussion threads, etc).  I’m still learning the ropes of WF so I didn’t do as much as I would’ve like too.  Also my attention was more focused on other traffic methods, but with the time I did put in, WF sent some ok traffic (you can check my stats chart below).

I’ve seen the traffic potential of WF in action and it’s really quite awe inspiring.  So this week I plan on doing a lot more forum marketing.  I’m in process of tweaking my marketing schedule to include more of it.  Next week I should have much more WF praises to sing.

Traffic Stats

Now that you’ve seen all of the “behind the scenes”  work that I’ve put into driving traffic, you get to see my real behind the scenes traffic stats. I wanted to be as transparent as possible with you in this post (and will to continue to be in future posts) so here they are:

Here’s my traffic stats for the part of the month September and October so far:

Here’s my traffic stats for only the month of October so far:

Here’s a list of the sites that’s sending me traffic so far this month:

You can see that BizSugar, Buzzblogger, Facebook, Problogger, Scoop.it and Warrior Forum were my top referrers.

Here’s the keywords that’s sent me traffic so far this month (again, I’ve done absolutely no SEO)

Pretty cool stuff, huh?  I think so

Subscribers

With all of the traffic generation I’ve done, it all comes to a big throbbing head… to build my subscriber list.

Since relaunching my blog, I’ve added a total of 24 new subscribers to my list.

That’s about a 1.8% conversion of traffic into subscribers (about 3 leads per day).

Eh… ok.  It’s not the best conversions but is a good starting point.  Plus I am only focusing on free traffic generation methods for right now.

I’m aiming to really rev up my traffic this week by doing some tweaking to my marketing plan so I’m thinking I’ll be able to amp that subscriber count up quite a bit.

Relationships and Community

Natural blog backlinks

As I’ve said before, I’ve done absolutely no SEO to any of my posts.  I’ve just been focusing on creating truly valuable content and spreading it through the traffic points I shared above.  As a result I’ve gotten true natural backlinks, which is pretty cool.  No mind numbing article spinning or CPU draining article submission software required, lol.

One of my blog commenters even asked if he could repost one of my post on his press release site:

You can see that repost here:

http://www.original-press-releases.com/2012/10/7-quick-steps-to-establish-time-saving.html

There were also several other press release sites/blogs who linked back to my content as well, including SmallBizTrendz.com.

http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/10/facebook-discovers-a-new-business-model.html

http://smallbiztrends.com/2012/10/gangnam-style-video-finds-viral-success.html

http://balancingnumbers.com/gangnam-style-video-finds-viral-success/

http://www.hlcinc.com/blog/?p=2820

http://printeck.eu/gangnam-style-video-finds-viral-success/

http://balancingnumbers.com/facebook-discovers-a-new-business-model/

http://printeck.eu/facebook-discovers-a-new-business-model/

http://www.hlcinc.com/blog/?p=2830

Blog comments

I’ve been on a true traffic generation escapade and it felt so awesome to have my visitors take notice  I’ve gotten 10 blog comments so far and I think that’s pretty alright for starters.

Most of my blog comments came from members of the BizSugar.com community.  I also got visitors from my blog comments, who then read my content and left me comments.  Funny how that works huh?

Here’s a quick shout out to all my commenters:

• Shawn Hessinger
• Ileane Smith
• Simon Gabay
• Annetta Powell
• Mike Lopez
• Brad Kinney
• Vanessa Blais
• Ramiro Rodriguez
• Arwin Adriano
• Sylviane Nuccio

Thank you all for contributing your input and making your presence known on my blog!  You’re appreciated!

If getting blog comments is something that you struggle with, I suggest you start reaching out engaging with your fellow bloggers.  Go out and leave comments on other blogs in your niche (you can start by leaving a comment on this post ).  Get involved with the BizSugar community and start interacting there.

TIP:  Right after you publish your next blog post, do a search on Google for other recent posts on the same topic or a similar topic.  Make sure that it’s a dofollow blog that has Commentluv or a similar plugin that will show your latest blog post.  Leave a quality comment on that post.  When visitors read your comment and  click through to your site, they’ll see additional relevant information in your blog post and will be more inclined to comment on your post as well and/or subscribe to your list.  This is a killer way to drive more quality targeted traffic.

Getting your visitors to start commenting is one of the anchors to building a strong community and tribe around your blog.  ”Boomerang traffic” is what you’re aiming for, you want to always keep them coming back for more.

Relationships

Building relationships with influential bloggers is a priceless asset.  It’s the equivalent of virtual gold and is the one thing that will continue to pay for it’s self 1000x’s over.

During my traffic generation travels this week I’ve started to develop awesome relationships with 3 influential bloggers:

• Ileane Smith
• Terrance Charles and
• Thu Nguyen

They are some established and up and coming bloggers that I’m honored to be connected with.

Through my interaction on BizSugar (where I met Thu), Twitter (where I connected with Terrance), and Scoop.it (where I connected with Ms. Ileane) I’ve made some radical connections that could lead to many opportunities such as guest posting, JV’s, and ad swaps just to name a few.

These budding relationships have already started helping me gain more exposure, starting with the 2 RT’s from Terrance and the Scoop.it exposure from Ms. Ileane.

If you take away nothing else from this traffic report, please remember this… Relationships are everything.  I know Ms. Ileane would agree.

Onward and Upward

So that completes my first traffic stats report. Yayyyyy! lol

It’s been a great ride so far and my journey to blogging and traffic mastery is just beginning.  If you made it this far, thanks for sticking it out.  I appreciate ya!

Hopefully you got some great info to chew on, digest, process and to apply to your business.

Be sure to “like”, share, and retweet this post if you found it helpful.

So, tell me… What are you’re traffic goals for this week?  Are there any new traffic points you’ve discovered that are working well for you?  Did you discover something in this post that you feel will be able to help you increase your traffic?  Let me know in the comments below.

See ya’ around the net!

Ti

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