The ProBlogger and ZenHabits Effect A Look At Guest Post Traffic
November 27th, 2007
There have been quite a few posts around the blogoshpere recently about how guest posting on other blogs can increase your site traffic. Last week I ran a post that discussed a little experiment that I conducted in order to discern if commenting on posts increased visitors to my site. This week in the name of information dissemination, I am reporting on another strategy for increasing visitors to your site, and that is guest posting.
I have decided to term the phenomena of my newly derived, guest posting traffic, the “ProBlogger and ZenHabits Effect.” The posts that I had published on Darren and Leo’s sites drew quite a bit of traffic to MyTropicalEscape. However, the opportunity to guest post on both of those sites (twice) really helped this no-name blogger get some posts out to more readers than I ever could have reached at my own blog.
Strangely enough, my foray into guest posting had absolutely nothing to do with me trying to gain more site traffic or readers. Although it has been a very nice byproduct, I just thought that it would be really cool to attempt to create an article that was crafted well enough to be published on a top-level blog (and sites that I really like to read).
This article will examine five guest posts that I have had published on other blogs in the past two and a half months. Specifically, for this experiment I will look at how much traffic was referred to my site, how many comments each post received (to determine reader interest in what I wrote), and on average, how long the referred visitors spent at my blog.
Just the facts PLEASE…Guest Post traffic from October 3 to November 27
Guest post one was on October third over at Zenhabits:
Escaping the Cubicle and Getting Off the Corporate Treadmill
The post, which was about removing yourself from the corporate workforce and pursuing dreams, resonated fairly well with Leo’s readers. I was quite pleased with the comments, especially considering it was my first shot at guest posting anywhere.
* Number of new visitors to my site from the post = 187
* Average time on site = 4:53
* Number of comments the post generated = 30
Guest post number two was on October thirty first and it was at ZenHabits again:
Removing Negative Thought Tips to Overcome and Step Outside of Your Comfort Zone
As the title suggests, this post was about negative thought and fear, and how I have let it stop me from pursuing an online humanitarian project that I would like to undertake. Leo linked to a smaller (Caribbean tourist) site that I run called Culebra Blog.
*Number of new visitors to my site from the post = 61
*Average time on the site = 46 seconds (not many people coming to Culebra…)
*Number of comments the post generated = 41
Guest post number three was on November eleventh at ProBlogger:
Self Branding - Moving Beyond the Niche to Generate Income as a Blogger
This article looks at how we, as bloggers, can improve our reader loyalty and income generation via the proper usage of self-branding. Darren was kind enough to link to my two blogs so the traffic was split.
Number of new visitors to my site from the post = 38+22 = 60
Average time on the site(s) = 1:47 + 1:58 = 1:53
Number of comments the post generated = 35
Guest post number four was on November fourteenth over on NorthxEast:
Seven Practical Tips On How To Be A Good Guest Poster
When the new owner of NorthxEast invited me to post on his site I was quite excited because they have an excellent track record of well-written guest articles. Unfortunately, I think this is the one guest submission that, for whatever reason, did not really have an impact with the readers.
Number of new visitors to my site = 10
Average time on my site = 28 seconds
Number of comments the post generated = 8
Guest post number five was published on November eighteenth at ProBlogger:
Leveraging the Power of Blogs in an Overcrowded Market
When drafting this ProBlogger post I thought that I would try to be a little controversial and open the post by stating, “there are too many blogs on the internet” and “will blogging’s popularity lead to its demise?” The post drew some good responses in the comment section and my primary intent was to have a dialogue with the readers based on the vast amount of blog sites that are currently on the internet.
Number of new visitors to my site = 71 (to MyTropicalEscape but Culebra Blog was also linked)
Average time on my site = 3:48
Number of comments the post generated = 48
After looking at the numbers, the choice for drawaing more traffic is quite easy when comparing commenting on blogs or guest posting. For me, guest posting wins hands down. I truly would like to thank the owners of the above mentioned blogs for allowing me to post on their sites. I HOPE to do more guest posting in the future.
Please keep your RSS Feed Reader pointed here for next week when I will examine the traffic I was able to get from one of my recent posts that did quite well on Stumble Upon.
Bookmark at:StumbleUpon | Digg | Del.icio.us | Reddit
10 Responses to “The ProBlogger and ZenHabits Effect A Look At Guest Post Traffic”
Trackbacks/Pingbacks
- mytropicalescape.com » Blog Archive
- mytropicalescape.com » Blog Archive no Some of This Weeks Great Posts and My Last List EVER
November 27th, 2007 at 12:25 pm
Mark:
I believe that guest post can send your some good traffic, but I am wondering if they will come back or not.
With those guest posts you did, did your RSS subscriber number increase? In other words, do people subscribe your blog after their first visit? Do your return visitors number increase?
I am also wondering how much traffic you were getting from search engine such as Google? I can see that you are using the same keywords and description for all your post. Personally, I think that will not help you to get a higher position in the search engine.
Each post should have their own keywords and description based on the topic you are talking about. For long term, it will be you really static traffic.
I use the following wordpress plugin to manually customize unique keywords and description for each post. I have been doing that for a while, it does help me getting the number one position on Google search engine result page.
Add-Meta-Tags WordPress Plugin
Good luck! Hope to see your guest post soon!
November 27th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
@Terence Chang ~ thanks for the great suggestions as always!!
I am just playing with some key words lately as I work to settle into my expanded niche from just “living overseas…”
ps. Mehdi from http://stronglifts.com said his guest posting brought him over 7k visitors…so I fell a wee bit short.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
interesting analysis.
I think the success at guest posting to drive traffic can depend on 2-3 factors:
1. Relevancy - I find that the guest posters who drive most traffic to their blogs from mine have blogs that are relevant to the topic that they’ve written about. I did wonder with your posts whether there would be a perception of relevancy to my readers. ie a blog called ‘my tropical escape’ and ‘Culebra Blog’ doesn’t scream relevancy to readers of a blog about blogging (even though this blog does cover that topic).
The other type of relevancy is having relevancy to the topic you’re writing about. For example a guest poster who wrote on ProBlogger about tax and bloggers who has a tax blog did quite well.
2. Viral Nature of Guest Post - another observation is that the guest posts that seem to do best for the posters are the ones that have a spark about them and that do well on the blog. For example posts that go well on Digg, stumbleupon etc - these drive a lot of traffic both to the blog you’re posting onto but also by default your own.
3. Repeat Quality Posting - probably the guest poster who has done best on ProBlogger is someone who took over the blog for a full week and a half and who wrote brilliant content consistently for the full week. The posts generated high amounts of conversation/comments and really struck a chord. I think the accumulation of them over the week went a long way to making an impression upon my readers.
4. Case Studies - lastly, guest posters who use their blog as an illustration or who point back to things that they’ve written on their own blog within posts tend to do better. ie on ProBlogger when people talk about their own experience of blogging and link back to a post that they wrote that illustrates a point they are making people tend to click that.
Having said all this - talking to different guest posters on my own blogs I know that for some they get a heap of traffic and others get very little. Some of it relates to the above, others is hard to explain. I guess some people connect with the audiences of some blogs and others don’t.
November 27th, 2007 at 2:48 pm
Darren already said some of what I would have said (and more) … including the effect of social media like Digg … Mehdi’s post for me that drove him 7K visitors was huge on Digg. Actually, I think he did two for me that hit the front page of Digg.
But for me, the best reason for guest posting isn’t the direct effect of increased traffic to your site. That’s a nice effect, but the best reason for guest posting is *branding*.
If you do a great guest post on another site, some of the readers will visit your blog, but most won’t. But they might remember your name or your blog’s name later. And if they see your blog’s name on a number of sites … they begin to remember that brand and associate it with the message you’re sending in each of your guest posts.
Branding is an important strategy for long-term success. Much more important than getting a few hundred new visitors.
November 27th, 2007 at 3:12 pm
@Darren - hey, aren’t you supposed to be on vacation?
@Leo - I absolutely agree that Branding is way more important! I am fairly laidback when it comes to blogging and driving traffic to my site preferring quality over quantity :)
To both, I thank you for the opportunity to post on your sites!
November 27th, 2007 at 5:51 pm
Other than the fact of branding, see, Mark you’ve got 2 blogging celebrities visiting your blog time to time. That, to me is more important than pure blatant traffic. Networking.
Your success’s tempting me to give guest posting a shot!
Cheers,
Ellesse
December 26th, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Thanks for the analysis, Mark. I’ve been thinking about trying to do some guest blogging once I’ve gotten my own blog a bit more established. (Maybe in the next month or so.) Your post helps give me an idea of the sort of thing that can be expected.
Thanks again!
December 26th, 2007 at 2:22 pm
Hi Joshua - Thanks for stopping by! I have managed to learn even more since I originally posted this article…If you have the chance to guest post, make sure you include as many links back to your site as possible! Also, I am not sure if it comes through in the article but the benefits of being able to post on both Zen Habits and ProBlogger were well worth the efforts.