1 – What is your blog name and URL?

The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns www.samanthaburns.com

2 – How much traffic do you get on an average month?

18,000 to 19,000 visitors per month and more depending on whether I have an ad running on another blog site. Right now, I’m letting them trickle in as they please and am not being aggressive in my traffic hunting.

3 – How old (or young) is your blog?

My blog will be running for a full year by the end of July.

4 – What gave you the idea to decide to start this blog?

I got the idea from my boss and friend, MR.BIG, who knew I was bored living in a new, anonymous metropolis with no family or friends. He set my system up and makes regular improvements on it when needed. He also knew that I needed to make some spending cash since he can’t afford to pay me an outstanding amount as a nanny. Cheap b*st*rd (lol, kidding).

5 – How long did it take you to get to a satisfying level of traffic?

I’m certainly not satisfied with my blog traffic yet. Don’t know if I ever will be, either. I don’t write to get out my thoughts, or to chat and make friends, I blog purely to entertain others. Making friends along the way has been the bonus in this business.

6 – Can you offer any advice to other bloggers on how they can increase traffic to their blog?

Yes. Oh, you want a full response ;-D Okay, well, first off, visit other blogs and make regular non-ignorant comments. Shmooze with other bloggers in the comment sections; and I don’t mean just the top 100 bloggers, I mean any blog that you have relatively similar interests and beliefs. Making friends online will get you places, making enemies will not.

It’s all about the ego. Plus, if you are seeking traffic, it’s important to be different from the rest. Cut and paste blogs suck, in many people’s opinions, so work your talent, divulge your personal flair, and don’t be afraid to express your wit and sense of humour. Blogging is completely biased when it comes to relaying the news, so exploit that in your own unique way.

Now, when it comes to the technical side of gaining traffic, one of the fastest, easiest way is to pay the bucks and put some ads up on other blog sites. But, if you’re like me, you don’t have a lot of cash to work with, so the best way to get traffic is to try new things, and perhaps come up with something creative. Oh yes, and link love is always a bonus.

Link to articles other bloggers have written and add your own two cents about the topic; plus, it’s preferable to trackback them in the process so that they are very aware that you did, in fact, link them. Trackbacks also help to get some of their traffic trickling in to your blog. Check out my OTA for more info on trackbacking, or to join and gain even more traffic.

Well, I’m sure I could go on forever, but I’ll stop here. Of course, I’m going to end this by promoting my own blog, www.samanthaburns.com, which is ripe with attitude, wit, and intense humour, not to mention the occasional display of non-graphic ca mel toe. Good luck to everyone and I hope this helps some.

I just started an experimental blog on a recent trip I took to Puerto Aventuras, Mexico. I figure why not try to get back some of my travel expenses…and see what happens. Perhaps by blogging on such a narrow topic it will bring in the right visitors – visitors who are most likely traveling to that area in the future. Or…if not in the near future, perhaps by this winter, I’ll be have excellent rankings in Google. Anyway, it’s an experiment.

If you would like to read the blog, it is at YucatanBlog.com.

Anyone else out there have a “micro niche” blog?

What is your blog name and URL?

Derek Hail – stealing celebrity dignity and fame – www.derekhail.com

How much traffic do you get on an average month?

Last month I got 113,000 unique visitors

How old (or young) is your blog?

3 months

What gave you the idea decide to start this blog?

I use to read celebrity gossip on other blogs, and I decided I could write much better, so I did it.

How long did it take you to get to a satisfying level of traffic?

I am never satisifed with my level of traffic. When I first started, I received 100 hits

a day, my goal was to reach 500 a day. After receiving 500… i wanted 1000. After a 1000…I wanted 5,000. I received 5,000 I wanted to break 10,000. I broke 10,000 and I wanted 50,000. It is never ending.

I currently receive aroudn 6,000 hits per day

Can you offer any advice to other bloggers on how they can

increase traffic to their blog?

The advice I can offer bloggers so far right now can be found on Darren’s Problogger…which is where he featured me as a lesson from a celebrity blogger.

Anything else you would like to add?

I would sit and do a long winded interview, but the bottom line is, nobody really

cares about my goals as a blogger. They care about how they can satisfy their goals.

With regards to how to make a blog successful, all I can say is experiment and work hard.

It isn’t a get rich quick scheme. I receive 7,000 hits per day and I don’te ven make that much money, because celebrity blogs don’t pay well without large amounts of traffic.

The cheap web hosting is done from the work from home locations. The web site hosting and business hosting make up the web pages and sites available for the end user. Every search engine has a dedicated server or more in accordance with the search engine ranking. Search engines are further supported by seo rankings which further optimizes search results for the end user.

It looks like problogger.net has started another group writing project, this time it is on Blog Goals. I’m happy to say that I do have several blogging goals and will share them with you along with any helpful tips as well.

My main goal that I wish to reach is to make $50/day by July 1st, 2006. That leaves me only 25 days to figure out a fairly permanent way to get traffic to my blogs – without the overhead of advertising. In a day or two I’m going to spend all day trying to get links to one of my blogs – and do everything I can think of to get legitimate traffic. The main question still remains… how to get people to keep coming back?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I have written an affirmation that I read once in the morning and at night before I go to bed. The point is to visualize my objective and allow my subconcious to come up with solutions. For me, the main objective is to make money blogging. I don’t quite understand people out there that blog just for fun – unless perhaps they already have a cush job and are already making a decent living.

My main goal is to make money, and my secondary goal is to do it by blogging on topics that I enjoy. I am focusing on my daily affirmation and to me, it doesn’t really matter HOW I get there. As long as I do get there, I will be happy.

And now…why don’t I just share the affirmation that I read day and night with you. Wow..this will probably make me look like some kind of kook… oh well!

I WILL BE EARNING $50/DAY BY JULY 1, 2006

I will be making at least $1,500 per month, or $50 per day by July 1st, 2006. In return for this money, I will provide high quality content on the Internet and earn this money with Google Adsense, Blogads and other advertising and affiliate programs.

I will find and create quality content that will attract a massive amount of Internet traffic and turn that traffic into valuable clicks. I will primarily focus on markets that can deliver high click through rates and pay high amounts per click.

I will optimize my existing web sites to achieve maximum clicks for the current traffic I am receiving.

I will market my blogs and web sites on a continuous basis always looking for a way to promote them and keep their momentum going. I will study other blogs that are already achieving the traffic I need and figure out how they got there. I will figure out how to get traffic and keep the traffic.

I will study blogging and other forms of internet marketing to maximize my knowledge in this area to give myself the best possible chance of success by learning tips and techniques from others who have already made it.

I will write detailed goals for all of my blogs and web sites, work on them daily and do everything else I possibly can to achieve this goal of $50/day or $1,500 a month by July 1st, 2006.

Finally, I will do all of this with passion – I will find and pick topics that I am passionate about to maximize my enthusiasm, motivation and make the journey fun and exciting at the same time.

Wow…I’ve been quite the slacker lately. Oh well. I’ve got two other blogs I’ve been focusing on, and since the monetization of this blog has been low I’ve been slacking. I have discovered something interesting that I’m going to test in the next couple of days. Something called Open Trackbacks.

One such blog that does this regularly is The Crazy Rants of Samantha Burns (she’s pretty cool, methinks). At first glance this could be on the same level as using a blog traffic exchange, but…I’m willing to give it a try.

If all goes well, my little link above should put a link on her blog. I wonder if it will work. More details on this later after I do a mega open trackback experiment.

Well, Avery M. has taken me up on my offer and has bloggrolled me for $5.00. They asked me to donate to the Red Cross, so I have gone ahead and done so. That was very nice of them, don’t you think?

Here is the winner’s blog: Shii’s Rocky Middle Path

Stay tuned..I may make this a regular Friday Feature. Perhaps I should call it the Friday $5.00?

Linked with thanks to: Point Five

Darren at problogger has asked for volunteers to participate in group writing project titled Habits of Highly Effective Bloggers. So, here’s my a snapshot of my daily blogging routine.

First off, even though I’ve been working online since around 1995, I am very much a latecomer to blogging. I guess there has been so much hype surrounding it that I ignored it. The other factor that kept me away and still makes me nervous to this day is that something doesn’t seem quite right about the massive amount of blogs that are out there, and the large number of new blogs that are started every day.

I will say that my primary reason for blogging is to hopefully make a living from it. I’m trying to combine this with my passions/interests so the journey will be a fun one. Even though my gut keeps reminding me of the dot com bomb, I think it is worth the risk spending a large chunk of my time and efforts with blogging. Hopefully my gut will be wrong and I’ll make a large fortune. Anyway, now with my habits.

Because I’m a night owl, I usually wake up around 11am or noon. After waking, I turn on my computer and fix myself breakfast. The first thing I do is check my email, then check my latest stats to see if there is traffic coming in from any new sources. I love using Sitemeter for my stats – it is very simple, free and effective enough. I check the stats on all of my blogs and if I’m lucky will notice a huge burst in traffic. I had this luck with one of my blogs as I was mentioned in a very popular German vidcast of some sort that brought a few thousand extra visitors in one day.

Next I check to see how my ad revenue is doing and if any fine tuning may be necessary for my blog. I’m way obsessed in this area, but am trying to check less often.

I will then read an affirmation I typed out. I read this statement in the morning and right before I go to bed. It is kind of an experiment. If you have ever read the book Think and Grow Rich, you will probably know what I’m talking about. Anyway, I read the affirmation which is a financial goal of what I want to make with blogging, the time limit in which I should obtain it and what I should give in return (lots of quality blogging) for the moola.

Next I will moderate any comments if necessary, answer email and start planning my blogging day out. I keep an ongoing list of blogging goals and update them daily. I have a handful of blogs I have started, but only 2-3 are getting the most attention right now. I’m starting to think it might be best to focus on one blog until it gets to an optimum level of performance. Who knows…I’m learning as I go. Anyway, I go through my goal list and update if necessary and try to make a list of what I think I can get done today. Then, I simply do it.

I will likely stay up till 4 or 5 in the morning before I’m satisfied I’ve put in a good effort for the day. The goal list helps keep me on track and with it hopefully I’ve done some marketing, research, writing, brainstorming, maintenance and perhaps have had a bite to eat sometime in there.

I’m trying to read more blogs and see what everyone else is up to. I obsess over some blogs…like this one and this one. Why can such crazy blogs build such a huge following? Who knows? Whatever works, works, right?

Anyway, for now that’s about it with my blogging habits. The best advice I’ve ever heard on the subject of writing and writer’s block is “writers write”. So, perhaps the best advice on blogging could be… “bloggers blog”.

A web site design is one of the most important features cheap web hosting as it serves as an attraction ground for the end user. So the website design must be well looked for in its making in accordance with the target audience. Most of the ppc advertising done uses a website design. The businessmen using their wireless internet click on the affiliate resources as while searching for related products. This clicking pays the website host a pay per click.

If you would like a quick and easy way to submit your latest entry in your blog, social bookmarking sites are a good place to start. Many of these sites will show your site on their home page as soon as you submit it. It’s up to everyone else that uses each of these sites whether your site stays there or gets buried.

Don’t bother submitting your latest blog article if you plan on spamming. You’ll do nothing but irritate everyone and they will quickly flame you and nuke your story. They may even show up on your doorstep. Well…let’s hope not. Anyway, you know the drill – provide high quality content and if it’s good enough you may find yourself getting bombarded with traffic. What’s good enough? Well, perhaps check the section of each of these sites to see what is popular.

You will need to register for each of these sites before you can submit anything. And without further ado….here is a list of 55 social bookmarking sites I have compiled. If I missed any, feel free to leave a comment and let me know.

1. 30daytags
2. BlinkBits
3. BlogHop
4. BlogLot
5. BlogMarks
6. BlogMemes
7. BlogPulse
8. BmAccess
9. browsr
10. Fark
11. CiteULike
12. clipclip
13. clipmarks
14. Complore
15. Connectedy
16. Connotea
17. de.lirio.us
18. del.icio.us
19. digg
20. diigo
21. fantacular
22. Feedmarker
23. Feed Me Links
24. Furl
25. Gibeo
26. GoKoDo
27. Google Notebook
28. IceRocket
29. Kaboodle
30. linkaGoGo
31. linkfilter.net
32. linkroll
33. Listible
34. Lookmarks
35. ma.gnolia
36. Netvouz
37. Newsvine
38. openBM
39. RawSugar
40. reddit
41. Rojo
42. Rollyo
43. Scuttle
44. Shadows
45. Simpy
46. Sitetagger
47. Smarking
48. Spurl
49. StumbleUpon
50. taghop
51. TailRank
52. Ticklr
53. unalog
54. Yahoo My Web 2.0
55. yoonoo

Update…I’ve found some others so I’ll add them here as I find them:Shoutwire

popurls.com

NowPublic

I’ve been so busy with other stuff lately that I haven’t been checking some of my feeds and other blogs I usually visit. When I went to see what Chris Pirillo was up to I noticed he has switched to WordPress. I’ve only messed around with Blogger and Typepad but have a pretty good feeling WordPress is the way to go these days. Per his suggestion, I’m going to try installing the “World’s Best WordPress” plugin and see what all the fuss is about. It will be very interesting to watch how he continues to pimp his blog.

The web hosting services are increasing as the number of pay per click ppc options are multiplying. The cheap web hosting is an option for dealers who can’t afford the costs behind search engine marketing. Thus website hosting through channels is selected though it does not promise effective search engine marketing. With the coming of wireless internet search engines are being accessed all over the world in businesses and jobs increasing the workload of search engines.

Well this has been a bit of a crazy day – in a good way. Besides buying a winning $50 scratch ticket, I was mentioned on a German news site which brought in a nice chunk of traffic to one of my blogs…probably 4,000 or so extra visitors. I love days like that… I wish it would happen every day.

I am finding the deeper I get into blogging the more humbled I am becoming. It’s pretty tough finding a good idea that can attract visitors, keep them coming back, earn you money and be exciting at the same time. It’s not impossible, just tougher than first anticipated. I think one of my biggest hangups is after going through the first dot.com bomb I’m always expecting another internet implosion and this creates a certain anxiety. Do I really want to invest all of my efforts into something that could cave in with little or no warning? Well, I guess that’s part of the risk I have to take.

Another hangup I have is the massive amount of blogs that are already out there. It does seem quite saturated – but the good thing is there are a lot of blogs that come and go. This blog could be one of them! Hopefully not though. There is only so much time though and only so many blogs one person can run. My gut feeling tells me to stick with one blog and do that one well and start another one only when that one has built up a lot of momentum. But, I’ve got several good blog ideas and am having problems figuring out which ones to focus on. Yes…I’m probably spreading myself too thin.

I think most of all I need some type of structure. A schedule of some sort. Anyone out there have any suggestions for how to run multiple blogs? How many do you run… and how do you do it?