A loyal subscriber of this blog, Lee Hall of Cheap Lee Dot Com – a blog that teaches you to retire early – wrote me an interesting email this morning.
Here’s the uncensored version of it,
“I put out 2 posts a week on my blog – 700 to 1000 words..Is that enough posts to build traffic?
I was thinking about concentrating more time on building backlinks instead. If I only post once a week, build my comments on more sites, could I still build a larger traffic base?
Posts versus backlinks, where should I spend my time?”
I thought this might be an interesting topic for discussions for today agenda. Lee, I hope you don’t mind if I were to use your question here in the hope that you are able to listen to different versions of opinions.
What’s My Take On This?
Before I pass the baton to my readers, let me first express my opinions on how you should spend the best part of your quality time. A lot has been said about the virtue of posting frequency for SEO purposes. Beyond any doubt, I wouldn’t disagree with it.
Yes, posting frequency is important and it’s even more relevant if your blog is fresh. In the beginning, I made it a point to write a new post every day for the next 45 days. The reason behind it is that I needed to build credibility in the eyes of Search Engines; Google in particular. I wasn’t too concerned about traffic or subscribers base. In technical term, I was sort of ‘training the search engine robots‘ to come to my site every day and pick up what I published. Once it get accustomed to it, trust me, it will pick up and index your site usually within hours thereafter.
However as you progress further, the need to post a new article every single day is going to be much of a burden to any ordinary blogger. Unless, blogging is your full-time occupation, writing an article every single day can be hell of a task.
Quality vs Quantity
I have said before it’s better to write one killer article than to force your way with 10 sub-standard and poorly-written articles. A killer article is one that is well-researched and adds value to your readers and evokes great discussion through comments.
When you write one killer content coupled with good content promotion strategies, everyone will read it, talk about it and make a reference to you in one of their article. That’s the power of good content for link building or what others call, the art of linkbaiting.
What I’m trying to say is that once you have passed Google test, posting frequency is no longer taking center stage. That said, my personal opinion to you is that you could write one good article in a week and concentrate your promotion and link building for the rest of the week. It all boils down to Quality over Quantity and it doesn’t have to be a 1000-word article.
Link Building via Blog Commenting
Blog commenting is one of the most effective and less expensive of blog promotion. Not only you can engage in the discussion and add value to the conversation, you are basically marketing your blog to the owner of the site and the rest of the commenters.
On one hand, if the blog is dofollow, you will be getting the link juice and that matters a lot in your link building effort. On the other hand, it will be a triple bonus if you are active in the community and book yourself a valuable real estate on the Top Commentator list. That’s a more valuable backlink for you.
Traffic ≠ Loyal Readers
It’s true that blog commenting alone coupled with others promotion strategies will help to bring traffic to your site. The real question is how many of them will stay on and leave a comment? How many of them will click away at the first visit, thus higher bounce rate? and ultimately how many of them can be turned into your loyal subscribers? How high is the conversion rate?
What’s the point of having 1000 traffic in a day when none is subscribing or clicking your Adsense, so to speak? In my opinion, it’s better to have 100 traffic in a day with higher CTR and more subscribers than 1000 traffic of blog hoppers or oops, Entrecard droppers.
And this goes back to the point of quality content vs quantity. When the quality of your blog is superb, the odds of turning your traffic into loyal readers is certainly much higher.
Conclusion
Depending at which stage of your blog, the right strategies has to be adopted. For beginners, you should worry less about traffic and monetization and pay more attention to optimizing your blog for Search Engine. Traffic and backlinks will come naturally thereafter when you understand the principle behind quality vs quantity and if you blog for money, the end result will be none other than higher earnings through proper monetization.
On a personal note, there is more to life than blogging alone. Blogging should be a journey of self-realization and it’s for personal enjoyment and satisfaction. When the passion runs out of your system, it’s time to look elsewhere.
What’s Your Thoughts?
I’m now inviting you to share with us your thoughts on the above issue. What other blogging tips you can share with Lee? Feel free to share your experience for the benefit of others. After all, this blog is all about sharing and learning.
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@ Yan & Lee: You know I can get a bit long winded, so I’ll try and make this short and sweet :-)
I think that much of the answer lies within ourselves and our goals. I’m writing an article right now about “discovering your bottom line” which I’ve found over the past number of weeks to to not only be a hard thing to do, but even harder to stick with.
Finding your bottom line goal will determine which approach you should take. It’s that simple. In the spirit of trying to shed a little light… lets talk about a blog I know all about… my own.
At this point, The Piss Biscuit is getting about 325 unique visitors a day, with an average of 23.78 comments per post. I’ve clocked in a little over 57,000 page views last month, and as of today – have almost 30,000 page views.
The Piss Biscuit is a personal blog documenting my journey, my businesses, my job, my skills, my talents, and the occasional hint or trick in a topic I know plenty about. I spout my opinion for good, bad, and indifferent. I get videos made about me from A-Listers, I’ve been interviewed, I’ve been asked to delve into business partnerships, I’ve been cursed out, screamed at, been called a stupid newbie… Hell, I’ve even recently just put PB up for sale as an experiment!
What is my point? The point is this… against all odds… against the advice of almost every person I know… I’m doing great!!! I write when I’m inspired to write. I comment when I’m inspired to comment. I don’t… and never did… just write an article for the hell of it. At least not on this blog and it’s paid off. (In my eyes).
I’ve been told by some of my readers when I get the bloggers blues… that I’m lucky to have built a community. I don’t usually have people come around, leave one spammy comment and move on. I have people that follow me everyday, and I love it. Be organic. Be real. Be you. Write when you want, as often as you want… just remember to value your readers.
Looking at my stats… I CAN say, that my traffic counts, comments, and almost every aspect of my stats suffer when I stay incognito for a week. What I’ve come to realize is that without planning… my readers expect something from me. Honest, straight forward, sometimes controversial articles… more important… great discussion.
When I’m gone for a week… I don’t write. I don’t comment. Both create conversation and discussion… the EXACT thing that my readers want.
Start of by figuring out what your “Bottom Line Goals” are for your blog. Next, figure out why your readers are your readers. Hell, if you can’t figure it out… just ask them. After those two simple steps, you’ll know exactly what it takes to bring in more of them. It’s more natural than you may think. Hope that this help some… and though it ended up long winded… that is what I’m known for. :-)
Piss Biscuit’s last blog post..Blogger Unleashed is Out of Business!
If writing seems like too much of a chore or part of the daily grind it probably won’t turn out very exciting and scintillating. That’s why I agree that a few killer posts will beat 100 mediocre posts any day.
Backlinks are important. Your rankings on various keywords can slip in the SERPS if you don’t keep at it. This has happened to me recently while I was focusing on other things. I regret not working on backlinks more steadily.
Tim’s last blog post..The Ultimate Redneck Bar and Grill Beer Gift Basket
I will have to say while starting out posting daily will help you get the credibility with some of the search engines, this however is not a good reason in itself to over post, especially if the content is not on par with your niche. I would suggest spending equal time both on content creation focusing on quality and honesty at this point, and then spend an equal amount of time on promotion whether it be social, viral, blog commenting campaigns or even paid traffic.
First you need quality consistent content, and then you need to bring the eyes to read it. If you think to hard about the subject material this turns into a chicken or the egg argument, the best thing is just to divide it up and stick to quality.
Big Ben Patton’s last blog post..PepperJam Network – Blog Monetization Unleashed
When I first started a blog I was quite post hungry. Now I may make a few posts and week and build some back links when im not posting.
Everything has basically slowed down to keep it from becoming a hassle or building unnatural looking links.
Brian’s last blog post..Easily Increase Your Adsense CTR
Hi Yan,
I realised that you don’t write as much as before so good to know your reason behind and I think it makes sense. We really need to make the most of time don’t we and planned more strategically. For me I do both blog commenting and link building but like to keep them separate. Anyway a blog comment although gets you a backlink in a do follow blog is not as highly valued as a backlink from a link within the text of the post. That’s why people do so much link baiting, blog reviews, contests etc. They are more valuable and I think placed more importance by Search Engines.
Peter
p/s hope this comment goes through…I’ve not been able to get some comments successfully posted at your blog somehow…sigh!
Some recommend 50-50, half the time writing and half promoting. But I tend to neglect the promotion aspect.
jeflin’s last blog post..Overhead Supply Can Trap Your Money
@Piss Biscuit – Long it is but that’s PB-style. You have made an excellent point of the ‘bottom line’ where each of us differ from one another.
For me, I’m not into blogging for money. Monetization on this blog is just an experiment of what works and what’s not. Therefore, my approach may be different from those who blog for money.
Now I’m happy chasing the numbers; SERP for my keywords, unique visits, backlinks, Alexa & Technorati rankings and stuffs like that.
Thanks for sharing your input and thought, PB. You must be doing pretty well with 30K page views. Good luck, bro.
@Tim – Yes, I certainly agree with you. One good article is worth more than a few mediocre ones. Well, Rome was built in a day so does link building.
I’m glad you drop by and hope you enjoy your stay here.
@Big Ben Patton – Hey, hey, hey…What a pleasant surprise! Yes, the key is quality, consistency and honesty (thanks for even mentioning it).
You can’t take away the element of both quality and honesty right from the very first post and consistency is a different issue all together once you move on to the next phase.
Another great tip from Big Ben.
@Brian – Hey, Brian. Thanks for being in our community for the last couple of days. Though you are on blogspot, I hope you have found some useful tips here and thanks for sharing your input as well. I’ll see you around, buddy.
Oh ya, you did mention about natural linking and yes, that’s the order of the day.
@jeflin – Excellent points, Jeflin. Have you enjoyed your stay here? Do drop by more often and share your knowledge with us.
@Peter – Oh gosh, you did notice it and yes, I have slowed down a lot since as I’m focusing more on better quality content and link building. In terms of traffic and comments, it’s growing exponentially.
You do have a point that the link on dofollow blogs is less valuable than natural linking. I don’t deny it. That’s why the key is writing quality content for better link baiting, something I’m still working hard on.
Thanks for your input, buddy. I’ll see you around.
I have a new blog…. I’m still learning about true blogging other than livejournal and such but its like there are different opinions. I definitely agree with the quality vs. quantity but is backlinks a quicker way to getting better seo? Does commenting on others blog help your seo, because I didn’t think it did. I don’t know, its like I want to focus on building good content and gaining some readers but I want to learn and be doing certain things to help out my site also. I don’t know…lol, can you tell I’m confused?
It’s just that I want to know if I’m on the right track, another one of your posts had all types of links to basically show how your blog is doing and I loved that but is there more to it. From some of those information sites, it looked as though my site was doing ok but is that enough, do I need more seo, do I have enough, is it even working, I don’t know……*sigh*
I slap myself many time when i do not frequently update my blog with new posts . But i find it very difficult to write a post everyday as i am in a job which eats 12 precious hours of my day and that too for the entire six days in a week. But still i had earned a good name and few good friends in blogsphere. I am getting there. I prefer Posts in “Posts vs backlinks” war. :-)
Shanker Bakshi’s last blog post..Meet The Shanker Bakshi Junior
@Shanker Bakshi – Yeah, time management is one department I’m pretty weak at but I’m still trying to tie up one or two loose ends at the moment.
Of course, you are getting there. You have me as your new friend, haven’t you?
Yan,
I was very flattered (and grateful) that you addressed my question in a blog post, and find the info. helpful. I am glad you and your readers are here to answer my questions, to which I think I have made good progress in the time I have had my Cheaplee.com blog going. Thanks again…
All the best… Lee
@Lee Hall – I relook at your site again today and I conclude that you are actually doing great over there.
Yes, this post is written with you in mind and as a matter of fact, your question is sort of inspire me to write another great article which I believe will benefit my readers eventually.
I’m glad you like it and please feel free to ask me anything. If it’s within my capacity, I’ll be honor to help.
You have a good day ahead, Lee. I’ll see you around.
As far as link building verse blog commenting goes, I think you need to do both. Link building is work. Blog commenting can be fun. You read an interesting article(like this one), leave a post(like this one) and gain a link. When I am relaxing I read blogs and comment for links, when I have some time to get hardcore about link building I do link building.
I’ve gotten to the point where I primarily seek out search traffic, at least for 90% of my posts at OpTempo. For my niche blogs this is more like 100%. Search traffic is what consistently makes money, no matter what the posting schedule is, while referral traffic is notoriously fickle and difficult to monetize.
Frank C’s last blog post..Doll Stands – Buying Guide
Hope this doesn’t result in a double post. Server error trying to submit my comment.
Thanks for this, Yan. Yours is one of the first posts I’ve read which has quantified “when.” Everything else I read seems to just debate “which” is more important (posting or linkbuilding). Intuitively, I’m inclined to agree with you and will focus my efforts primarily on building quality content before gradually shifting focus over to backlink efforts and a lest demanding posting schedule.
That said, I definitely think it’s worth the time to stop and comment if you happen to stumble across an excellent post such as this one.
Thanks for this it was a really interesting post and has convinced me that I need to put more time into adding extra content to my blogs.
sue’s last blog post..Writing and Organization
@bucko – Thanks for your input. You seem to know how to plan your strategies well. Did I say blog commenting is fun too.
@Frank C – I have to agree with on this, Frank. I have been getting lots of organic traffic from Google in recently as some, if not most, of my articles are well indexed for relevant keywords.
I read recently about how to show ads to search engine traffic only and it made me realize that these target group is the ones more likely to see your ads. Is that what you are to point out, Frank?
@Self Employed – Contrary to popular practice, I subscribe to the idea than no one cares about your site when it’s new and with less article. So no matter how much you promote yourself, it will just be a futile effort.
Using an analogy, would you visit an empty restaurant or one which is packed with eaters? It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it?
I’m glad you like the article and I hope I’ll see around here more.
@sue – Absolutely! No question about it! Thanks for visiting, Sue and I hope you enjoy your stay here at thoushallblog.com.
Yan,
Showing Adsense only to search visitors, primarily the big 4: Google, Yahoo, Live, Ask, is important if you get a mix of search and social referral traffic. It insures a higher CTR which usually translates into higher earnings.
For EPN and other affiliate programs as well as most other pay-per-click networks it doesn’t matter since they don’t apply the tough quality scoring that Google does for Adsense.
i think its depend on you and your blog. If you want, you can have both. Just do it and see the result. No need to compare it. :)
I think the moral of the story is that nobody really knows with any certainty whether search engines place more stock in fresh content or quantity of backlinks. So here’s my line of thinking: good content can (and will) get you backlinks by serving as link bait, but plentiful backlinks will never help increase the quality of your content. Cutting back a little on posts to help boost your backlinks may not be a bad idea, but never lose sight of the fact that, ultimately, good content is what will drive the future success of your blog.
Hello Yan:
You and me seem to be meeting and keeping up with each other in all places except the obvious one which is this wonderful site of yours! I have visited here so often and yet this is my FIRST comment. Two items I would like to mention here. This is a great post; but then again, every post of yours seems to be of high quality. Secondly, I love your work so much that I have published a review of your site in the internet category of my article directory at articlewonders.com and hope that you will like it. Thank you.
@Frank C – Thanks, Frank for sharing your knowledge on the subject. It looks like I need to pay a little bit more attention to search engine traffic.
@bantingboy – You have your point too.
@Jay @ Advance – I certainly agree with what you say. It all boils down to great contents that add value to your readers and are worthy of link baiting.
@Raj Krishnaswamy – Yeah, our path crossed a couple of times in several blogs. Your name keeps popping up wherever I go. I guess this is what they call ‘fate’ if you do believe it.
I’m honored that you made an effort to write such a great review of my little playground and I really, really appreciate it. I wish I could write as good as yours and I’ll reciprocate the same.
Anyway, since this is the first time you comment here, I’ll like to invite you to be one of our guest bloggers to showcase your knowledge on the subject of blogging. Let me know if you think such an arrangement is viable.
Yan
Nice article, Thanks for your share information
I personally think that both are a bit important. After I make a post on my blog I then build backlinks to it by participating in CommentLuv enabled blogs discussions.
Of course I always only comment if I have an opinion on the post. Nothings more annoying then spam :)
EmmaB’s last blog post..The Blogging Experiment inspired by Entrecard
I gotta agree with the post then build on that post method. I personally take weekends off posting (and probably a few more days with the schedule I have coming up, haha) and so on those days I might comment, or forum post, or just talk to people and mention the blog in passing. It’s a balance thing.
Corey Freeman’s last blog post..Epiphanies and Such
@Corey Freeman – Hey, glad to have you around here sharing your thoughts with us. I hope that when you are off posting, you will take the time to visit us again.
Thanks for dropping by, Corey.
I’m relatively new to blogging but in doing my research I’ve determined that commenting on many blogs is extremely helpful in promoting your site. Technorati’s top 100 blogs is a great place to start. A lot of the blogs listed there like huffingtonpost.com and Boing Boing give you the opportunity to register to their site (membership), provide you with your own page and some even allow you to submit posts. 45n5.com also has a list of the top 100 money making blogs and another 200 or so of up and coming blogs. (that’s were I found this site).
Another SEO tool is indexed pages. The more pages the better. So, post often…just make sure the content is good. This will draw the Google bot gods and readers to your site.
Most people want to claim….well I’m not interested in popularity on pagerank…I only want to provide quality info for people to read.
This isn’t “Field of Dreams” folks. Just because you build it…they may not come. So kill two birds with one stone….get popular so your quality info can “get” out there.
thanks,
roschelle
Roschelle’s last blog post..Can You Feel It
@Roschelle –
Welcome! Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us here. I couldn’t agree more with what you have just said. At the end of it, quality contents rule the day. It’s what drives people to your site.
Thanks for checking out my site and I do hope to see more of your thoughts and opinions here. Till then
Yan
When I had one blog I made sure that I posted daily on that blog, but now that I have seven I find that seven posts a day is more than one man can handle. I still try however to post at least two or three rotating them between my blogs.
I also try to pick what I feel to be the right keywords in both the title and the post to make sure I get targeted by the search engines for those words.
Sire’s last blog post..A Blogger’s View On Google Chrome
@Sire – You kid me not, Sire. I’m not too sure if I were to survive managing more than 2 blogs. You know, being a pretty unorganized creature of habit, I think I won’t.
Here’s something for you to ponder – interlink all your blogs with each other’s RSS feed and in no time, you will see a jump in PR on the next update. I hope it makes sense to you.
@Yan Shall Blog – Nope, sorry you will have to spell that one out for me. I do interlinks posts between blogs, I didn’t know you could do it with RSS feeds?
Sire’s last blog post..A Blogger’s View On Google Chrome
@Sire – There is a plugin where you could display the RSS of one blog into another. If I remember it correctly, it’s called Advanced RSS… Google it also for some other plugins that does the same..
That way, you are interlinking both all blogs via RSS and don’t do reciprocal linking. What I’m trying to say is that A should link to C that links to B which links to A. It’s more natural and Google loves it.
@Yan Shall Blog – Thanks Yan, I know exactly what you mean and I will get right on it. Once again, thanks for the tip.
Sire’s last blog post..Developing Good Blogging Habits Is Essential
@Sire – You are always welcome, Sire. Let me know if you need anything else but I’m sure you could figure it all by yourself. Good luck!
Hmmm, lets see what I learned; I already knew what you wrote about. BUT I learned by example that I don’t have near enough internal links. You had eight internal links to your site in this post.
You taught me something I be you didn’t expect with this post. Thanks, Ned
Ned Carey´s lastest post..Lessons from Warren Buffett on Real Estate
re internal links. How much weight do they carry with google ranking? I seem to have heaps of them in my site, but really struggling on the backlinks.
Tried to register on a few blog sites mentioned here and elsewhere…but they get part way through registration and can’t accept all my info. I use Ubuntu, so maybe the problem.
Anyway, any comment on internal links value?
btw my site avoidglasses.com is promoting eye exercises. If anyone has a site with things in common – happy to link trade!
cb
both of them are important. Posting daily make our post rich, baclink maintain our position at SERP
I think both are really important. It should be balanced. Back links helps to rank your site but you should also take into consideration the content of your site. It should be fresh and original. Potential customers likely prefer good contents.