Eazy Cheezy's Five Free Apps » rankings

Stumbled vs. Digg Continued and Traffic Ranking Updates

Brian — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 12:30:00 +0000

I thought I’d provide a few updates on both the Stumbled vs. Digg Traffic and the Alexa and Technorati Traffic Rankings. Here are the previous entries: Alexa Traffic Update and Traffic With Stumbled Upon & Digg. I am not shooting for any particular rankings, but am more interested in the process and how quickly one can increase his/her rankings.

Alexa Rankings
Oct 2nd – 7,061,154
Oct 3rd – 4,130,697
Oct 7th – 3,098,288
Oct 18th – 1,133,260
Nov 4th – 284,626

Technorati Ranking
Oct 18th – 4,666,062
Nov 4th – 308,212

Stumbled vs. Digg Continues (Note: only Stumbled, Digg & Direct Traffic Listed)
Day 9 (Oct 20, 2008)
Traffic drops from 2,528 visits to 1,939
Overall – 1,765 visitors, 1,939 visits, 3,449 page views

Stumbled – 1,269 visits (65%)
Direct – 473 visits (24%)
Digg – 1 visit (0%)

Day 12 (Oct 23, 2008)
Traffic jumps from 1,939 visits to 9,784
Overall – 9,265 visitors, 9,784 visits, 16,554 page views

Stumbled – 7,834 visits (80%)
Direct – 1,659 visits (17%)
Digg – 4 visits (0%)

Day 15 (Oct 26, 2008)
Traffic stays steady, with less visitors but more page views
Overall – 8,831 visitors, 9,518 visits, 16,585 page views

Stumbled – 7,146 visits (75%)
Direct – 1,946 visits (20%)
Digg – 15 visits (0%)

Day 18 (Oct 29, 2008)
Traffic begins to decline from 9,518 to 6,829 visits
Overall – 6,829 visitors, 7,332 visits, 12,858 page views

Stumbled – 5,587 visits (76%)
Direct – 1,337 visits (18%)
Digg – 10 visits (0%)

Day 21 (Nov 2, 2008)
Traffic increases from 6,829 to 7,840 visits
Overall – 7,201 visitors, 7,840 visits, 14,355 page views

Stumbled – 5,786 visits (74%)
Direct – 1,574 visits (20%)
Digg – 6 visits (0%)

SEO Overview and Resources

Brian — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 21:10:00 +0000

In conducting my previous traffic experiment, I learned that I only have approximately 1% of my overall traffic come from Search Engines. That is not a favorable percentage. Ideally, I would like to have a balance of traffic from Search Engines, Social Networking, Direct Traffic and other Referring Sites.

Part of the reason behind my low Search Engine % is due to the fact that I recently transferred my site to a domain. Since my URL changed, I had to re-submit to the various search engines and directories. This can take a month or longer for your site to be added.

To increase my traffic from Search Engines, I will need to apply the Search Engine Optimization (SEO) method. I will be utilizing the resources below, but will start by providing an overview.

What is SEO?
SEO is a method of improving your quality & quantity of traffic from search engines results. SEO considers how search engines work & what people search for. SEO can also target different kinds of searches, such as image search.

What does SEO Involve?
Editing your tags & HTML coding can help to increase the relevance to keywords & remove difficulties with the indexing that search engines do.

When should I Incorporate SEO?
It’s actually best to use SEO from when you first develop the site, since the structure of a site as how it relates to your content is also important.

Below is an outstanding list of some of the best SEO resources and articles. I’ll be using the below references in an attempt to improve

Resources
Search Engine Optimization for Blogs
SEO Training
101 SEO Tools
101 Link Building Tips to Market Your Website
102 Ways to Make Your Site a Backlink Superstar
Top Search Engine Marketing Tools
D-List 200+ sites that have their “no follow” link disabled – Backlink Building
How to Get Search Engine Traffic to Your Blog

Once I apply the SEO techniques, I’ll provide an updated posting. This is meant to be my starting point. Do you have any tips or resources to share? How about your traffic? What percentage of traffic do you get from Search Engines? As always, I’d love to hear from you.

Technorati – Overview, Tips and Tools

Brian — Mon, 20 Oct 2008 12:36:00 +0000

As I stated in my previous entries, Alexa Rankings are not the only system that is taken in consideration when determining the top sites. Many consider Google Rankings and the Technorati Rankings to be just as important.

Before I start to dig into Technorati, I must tell you that I am just getting my start with Technorati and am in no way an expert. Technorati is my latest curiousity. I’ve been using Technorati, but nothing more than really just having a presence on their site and an “Add this to your Favorites” badge on my site.

Technorati Lingo
Technorati – Technorati is kind of like Google for blogs. It’s a search engine that indexes, sorts and categorizes blogs. They currently have over 112 million blogs indexed.

Authority – Authority is a way that Technority measures your site by the number of incoming links. Authority is directly related to your ranking with Technorati. The more links of yours that appear in other blogs Technorati recognizes, the higher your authority and Technorati Ranking will be.

How does it Work?
Technorati looks for tags that the author of each blog places on their sites. The tags help to categorize the search results and the most current results will display first.

How to Get Started

Join Technorati.
Add your blog URL to your profile.
Spend some time adding Tags to your blog. Use spaces, rather than commas to seperate. You can also use tag generator tools, such as Ukion.
Add the “Add to Technorati Favorites” button to your site.

Tips
Add a Technorati Button - As I mentioned above, add the “Add Technorati to my Favorites” Badge on your site.

Use Technorati Tags in each of your blog posts. According to DetectorPRO, this will help Technorati in indexing your posts. To learn more about the Technorati Tags, continue reading.

Build Your Favorites - When you find blogs you like within Technorati, you can “Favorite Them.” If they have the button displayed on their particular blog, that’s an easy way to add them to your favorites.

If you are interested, we can do a Technorati Favorite Exchange. Click here to add Eazy Cheezy to your Favorites and I’ll add you as well.

Leave Comments – Don’t hesitate to comment on the blogs you like. Many times, if you show you are an interested reader and take the time to leave your comments, the blog author will visit your site as well and sometimes comment. The bigger blogs aren’t as likely to visit and leave comments, due to their high amount of traffic, but leave you link in your signature block and perhaps their other readers will.

Ping Your Blog After Each Post – I use PingMyBlog, but you can also either visit Technorati and manually ping or setup and configure an automatic Ping on your site.

Keep an eye on the “Blog Reactions” – You can see what sites are displaying your links and which keywords are being used. You can find this by clicking on your profile, then your site you added to Technorati. It will display your site, keywords, rankings & authority, latest posts, then you can scroll down to find the “Blog Reactions.”

Big Bang List – You can take part in a social activity by adding your link to DetectorPRO’s list Big Bang List. There are many other great tips at DetectorPRO’s Technorati Tips.

Widgets & Tools
Technorati Widgets
Manual or Auto Technorati Ping Setup

Other Great Resources
Technorati Blog
Technorati 2008 State of Blogosphere
User Tips

Have you used Technorati? If so, what are your thoughts? Do you have any other tips for using Technorati? As always, I’d love to hear your input.

Domain Transfer & Alexa Traffic Update

Brian — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 01:00:00 +0000

On Oct 8th, I decided to move Eazy Cheezy from Blogspot to a Domain. As I included in my How to Move Your Blog to a Domain article, it was a very simple and quick process. At the end of the entry, I specified that it could take up to 3 days to fully transfer to my new .Net domain. During the transfer, the only difference I noticed is that I was unable to manage my site from the front page. For any modifications, I had to go into the layout from my dashboard. It was a seemless transition and I still administer my site through Blogspot. The only difference is in the URL.

The main thing I had to do with the new URL was submit my URL to Search Engines and directories and let friends know about my URL change. During this time, I also decided to modify my design layout. Then I took on an experiment by running campaigns in Stumbled Upon and Digg. Much has transpired since my last Alexa Traffic entry. As I noted in my experiment, an overwhelming amount of traffic was pulled in by 20+ Sites to Watch Movies & TV Online.

Since I had to resubmit my URL, I have had “no data” displayed within my Alexa widget. Finally, yesterday Alexa has my rankings listed on their toolbar. So here are the results;

Alexa Rankings
Oct 2nd - 7,061,154
Oct 3rd - 4,130,697
Oct 7th – 3,098,288
Oct 18th – 1,133,260

Alexa isn’t the only major ranking system that counts. Many also consider the Technorati Rankings and Google Rankings when determining the top sites. My Technorati Rankings were at just 1,102,964, but since I had to submit my new URL to them, they dropped to 4,666,062 and I have no authority. I’ll venture more into Technorati in the near future and make an entry specific to Technorati.