27th of October I launched the site and published my first post. Since then I have had over 88,000 hits hundreds of re-tweets and comments. That said I have made mistakes, but more importantly I have made more good decisions than bad;

  • Bad

-Ignoring Google. I am a big believer in using social media for highly targeted traffic, in fact I still believe it gives better results than the search engines, but by initially ignoring the search spiders I was limiting my residual traffic.

-Only using Twitter. Using only one social media account, arguable the best one, but still only using one social networking site limited my growth.

-Focusing on Alexa. This is kind of a good point initially, but I was obsessed with getting myAlexa ranking closer to the big players. Started out at 8,000,000 to today where I float around the top 100,000 mark for my 1 month average. This was a good tool in that it focused me to search out new traffic, but by spending too much time on Alexa’s site comparing other sites in my market place I wasted hours and hours of production time. Coupled with the fact Alexa isn’t that accurate when measuring a websites traffic.

-IQ. I can’t change the way I was (or wasn’t) educated as a child, but I wasn’t quick enough to admit I needed to address my grammar.

  • Good

-Using a simple SEO plugin I have got over my search engine arrogance. By making sure this site is spider friendly, it increases my chance of rising the page ranking. Something which builds my residual traffic.

-Social media doesn’t just include the social networks like Digg, StumbleUpon, FaceBook etc etc, it means commenting on other sites, forums searching out your audience and interacting with them. Provide real answers to problems whilst leaving cookie crumbles to your website.

-Knowing from the start that share buttons are vital to making progress. Without share buttons such as Digg, Re-Tweet etc it makes it less likely your readers will actually tell their friends about you. Think of them as your business cards, your readers need to have their pockets full of your business cards so they can distribute them on your behalf.

-Being honest. It’s such a simple trait that a lot of new starters forget to their peril. Readers respond to honesty and I have built this site around that principle. If you get something wrong, admit it and motivate your readers to do it the right way, which leads me onto;

-Motivational. I didn’t know it before I started this website, but I am apparently quite motivating. That most definitely comes from my military days as a Physical Training Instructor, but instead of shouting and screaming at soldiers to work harder, I draw on the fact that someone as stupid as me can compete with the big boys. I love hearing from my readers that a post of mine has kicked their ass into gear.

-By going back to school, I will be building a better website with quality content.

-Time. I gave myself a year to hit the traffic I am doing now, and set April 2010 as my target to monetize. By having realistic time lines to work too, it takes the pressure off, but when you hit them ahead of schedule it spurs you on to work even harder! Win Win.

-Leading by example is one thing I try to live my life by. Whether it be when I am teaching my child the difference between right and wrong or showing readers how to build quality traffic, you have to practise what you preach.

I suppose the biggest point to take from this is, you can hit the ground running and as long as you run generally in the right direction you can achieve anything.

lesson

What does everyone think?

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