This is a short but very important post.

I’ve been studying the performance of the sites I operate or am involved with.  Its become very clear that two factor have a very significant impact on the amount of search engine traffic I get.

1. The number of pages on a site.
2. The frequency of posting.

Everything that I read, tells me that I need to write epic posts, but the data tells me otherwise.  I believe that epic posts will help improve the links that you get back, but epic posts take a long time to write.  On one of my sites, the posts are very thin, but multiple posts are going up every day.  That site has been steadily gaining organic search traffic.   I have another site that is similar, but only gets a post a day.  Its gaining organic search traffic faster than my other sites.  Not as fast as the one that gets multiple posts a day, but still faster than the ones that get a post a week.

The conclusion that I’ve reached is that you should make a point of getting out at least a small post a day.   Don’t worry about the word count, but try to make sure it has some actionable information.

And the actionable content here?

You guessed it.  Blog frequently, daily if possible, or more.

Lost a subscriber from your list?

Celebrate!!

You want to grow your email list. So you’re always happy when new people subscribe to your list.

But here’s a good reason to be happy when people unsubscribe from your  list as well.

You see, the objective is to get a happy engaged list.  The total number of people on your list isn’t that important.  What’s important is that the people on your list are interested in what you have to say.

There is a major retailer who got me on their list.  I’m not sure how I got there.  I think at some point I put my email on some transaction with them and they decided that since I have done business with them, I’m fair game their email broadcasts.  And under the spam laws, they’re correct.  I’m a former customer so its technically not spam.

Then their marketing staff must have read an article somewhere that says, “the more you mail your list, the more money you will make.”

The trouble is, I find the company completely uninspiring and their email is a major annoyance.  It would be less of an annoyance, if they sent it weekly. But they send it daily.   They send it often enough, that I decided “hey, I’m tired of this junk.  I need to unsubscribe.”

So when I click the unsubscribe button, they put up a message that says it may take up to seven days to take me off their list.

Really?  Seven days?  How hard is it to remove my name from their list.  Now I know that not only are they an uninspiring company with annoying and irrelevant email, their IT staff is a bunch of idiots.  Well, that or they just want an excuse to try to send me a few more emails before I’m gone.

Why would you do that?  I’ve just been good enough to let them know I’m not their target customer.  Now they want to leave a bad taste and make me think of them as a spammer as well.  Maybe I, and a few thousand other similarly situated people will hit the spam button n response to some of their emails.  That could create deliverability issues for the people who are on their list and want to receive the emails.  If they use an independent service, they might get banned.

When somebody unsubscribes from your list, you should celebrate!!  They helped you focus your list to people who really care about what you have to say.  They saved their time and yours.

If somebody wants off your list, make it easy for them.  If you don’t want people to leave your list, send them stuff of value far enough apart that they have time to digest it and make use of it.  But when they want off, for God’s sake, LET THEM GO.

Both you and they will be better off for it.

And that is a reason to celebrate your unsubscribes.

Every link you create to your site will bring you some traffic.  It may be a very small amount, but over time it will add up.  Also, every link – assuming it’s coming from a legitimate source – is going to boost your ratings in google just a little bit.

Relationship are also important.  They help you get guest posts, links and mentions from other bloggers.  If you can go to conferences or local meetups and meet other bloggers, great.  Do it.

However, here is a strategy that you can implement today to build relationships and links.  Simply comment on other blogs.  Not spammy junk comments, take the time to read and thoughtfully comment on other blogs.  The blog owners will really appreciate it because it help build their reputation.    If you work it a bit, you can also leverage it to build a relationship with other authors.  There are some tricks to doing it right.

Select your blogs carefully

It won’t do you any good just to start commenting everywhere.  Its going to take you quite a bit of time, so you need to select your blogs carefully.

Start by finding the top few blogs in your niche.  Create a spreadsheet to hold your links and other information about the blog.  Now start reading articles – you can jump straight down to the comments on each one.  Make sure the blog allows comments – many don’t.  Also, make sure that the blog provides an author link which includes a link back to their site.  If the site is using a separate commenting service, like Disqus, its not idea for this because it won’t give you a direct link.  Also, when you review the site, its best if its topic is similar or related to yours.

If the blog meets all the criteria, put a link to it in your spreadsheet.  Also, go look the site up on Alexa, and in the second column, put its Alexa rank.  The higher (lower numerically) its Alexa rank the better.  Ideally, you want sites that have a rank under 1,000,000, but higher numbers will still have some value for the inbound link they will give you.

Setup a gravitar account

Some sites may not give you a link back if you don’t have a Gravitar account so set one up.  Take the time to create a bio for yourself which includes a link back to your site.  Also, try to get a half decent picture.

Comment thoughtfully

Now that you have a list of sites.   Start reviewing their posts for a title / topic that interests you.  Then take the time to read it and make a thoughtful reply.  It needs to be something more than “Great job!! I look forward to reading more posts from you in the future.”  That will get deleted as spam.   Its ok to challenge what the wrote, expand on it, or describe your own experiences.  You must include enough detail that it clearly is written about their article.

Interact with the blog owner if you can

If the blog owner comments on your comment use it as an opportunity to build a relationship.  All the guys a the top know each other and that’s because they climbed together.  The relationships you create will help you with motivation and inspiration.  You can comment back, but you could also use it as an opportunity to send them an email or reach out to them through their contact form and suggest a skype call.

How much to comment

Generally, just one or two comments on a site is enough.  Google gives you more credit for links from different domains that for links from the same domain.   It may be worthwhile to build more links if a site has high traffic because readers may click through on your comment.  That’s highly unlikely on a small site, but a reasonable chance on a site that gets thousands of visitors a day.  Keep in mind that its easier to get the attention of a small site owner that a bigger site.  So try to connect with the ones that are growing while you can.  Keeping track of Alexa ranks over time may help with this so you can see who’s traffic is growing.

Summary

There’s my commenting strategy.  Start creating backlinks and developing relationships by commenting on good articles and blogs in your niche.  Maybe its a bit obvious, but often we forget to do the most obvious things.

Let me know what you think.  Does this work for you or do you have a different approach?