Marc Guberti

How To Get 200,000 Blog Visitors Every Year

July 25, 2014 by Marc Guberti 8 Comments

blog traffic increase

Reaching this stage of the game means your blog is very popular and that you are a credible in your niche. However, few people are able to reach this milestone. I am writing about this topic because this blog currently gets an average of over 200,000 visitors every year. In other words, that’s 548 daily visitors. I am going to share with you the methods I used to get this far and ultimately make my blog become popular.

The first thing that helped me is valuable content. Valuable content encourages people to share your blog posts and revisit your blog. I recognize when certain blog posts on this blog are valuable while others are not valuable. Anything from 2012 is not nearly as good as the content that I write for this blog now. I was not providing a lot of value in 2012 because I was just focusing on survival and being able to write one blog post every day just for the sake of staying consistent. It is better to provide valuable content at the cost of losing your consistency because the more valuable content you have, the more content you can share on social networks.

Another reason I was able to reach this milestone was because I stuck with it. I won’t go into the details about my blog before it was popular. This picture does a fine job with that. Sticking with it allowed me to get better at writing valuable content and learn new methods of gaining traffic a long the way. Many people give up because they are not getting enough traffic. I almost gave up on this blog similar to how I gave up on others as well. However, I knew the growing your presence on the web niche was a niche that I wanted to be a part of. I decided to stick with it hoping my statistics would one day look like the statistics from that picture (and now, they do).

By far the biggest reason towards my blog’s success that was more powerful than anything else was social media, and Twitter in particular. Twitter has been the driving force for this blog’s growth and success. Twitter alone generates an average of over 100,000 visitors every year. In addition, when Twitter traffic picked up, my search engine traffic also picked up. That taught me a very important lesson: SEO traffic and social media traffic are correlated.

Those are the reasons why my blog now gets over 200,000 visitors every year. However, that has been rising at a phenomenal rate. My goal by the end of the year is to be able to get 500,000 visitors every year and have an Alexa rank under 100,000. Basically, I am trying to more than double the number of visitors I get within a few months, but it would not be the first time something like that happened.

The Five Worst Social Media Tips You Will Ever Hear

July 25, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

In the big, complex world of social media, there are now thousands of social media experts. Some social media experts are very popular while others are finding their way. With thousands of people sharing advice on the same topic, there will be perspectives and methods that contradict each other. As a result, some people hear poor advice and end up implementing the wrong methods, or they implement the right methods in the wrong way.

This results in frustration because people are not getting the results they expected to get. Instead of having to guess whether certain methods are good or bad, I am going to provide for you a list of five of the worst social media tips you will ever hear. By knowing the mistakes now, you won’t make them later.

Only be on one social network. If you are only on one social network, then you are not able to utilize the advantages of the other social networks. 80% of pins on Pinterest are repins which means you can take advantage of how easy it is to spread on Pinterest. You can use Twitter to take advantage of concise conversations that allow you to build stronger connections with your followers every day. Then there’s YouTube which allow you to take the advantage of being able to upload your own videos. Relying on one social network to grow your social media audience is no longer an option. You can have your best social network (for me, that would be Twitter), but do not just rely on one social network.
Be omnipresent on all of the social networks. I plead guilty to using this tip. Omnipresent means being active on every social network including Kik, Yelp, and all of the other ones. Instead, that should be rephrased to be omnipresent on all of the big players. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, YouTube, LinkedIn, and GooglePlus are some of the big players.
Don’t post too much. I used to reluctantly tweet every hour because I thought people would not like that I post too much. I thought I was going to get more unfollows and see my follower count spiral downward. However, after trying it out, I ended up gaining followers. On Twitter, I now tweet once every 20 minutes. Not only do I get more followers, but I also get more engagement.
Respond to everyone. No matter how valuable your content is or how remarkable your story is, you will get two kinds of people: the haters and the spammers. Some people will be jealous of your success and be quick to shoot you down. These people will say things like “Your blog post was the worst thing I have ever read!” In addition, spammers are very common on any social network. Here is the typical example of a spammer on Twitter, “CLICK here to learn how I gain 550 FOLLOWERS every day,” and most people who tweet that have well under 1,000 followers. There is no reason to respond to these people because you will not be able to build the type of conversation with these people that evolves into a strong connection and potential sales.
Do not follow many people. People do not know about you unless they hear about you. Clicking the follow button and following other people is a way for them to hear about you. If you want to be one of those people with 1 million followers who is only following a few of your best friends, the chances of that happening are unlikely. I’m not saying it’s impossible (some people have already done this), but you need to be famous in order to get that kind of attention without having to follow a lot of people. There was a point when I was following 12 people and had 1,667 followers. The problem with that was I did not get past 1,700 followers for about three months. Think about that. It took me 3 months to get 33 new followers. That’s horrible, and that primarily happens because I did not follow anyone within that span of time.

Now that you know the five worst social media tips, you know what you need to avoid. I did not make all five of these mistakes simultaneously, but I have made them all throughout my career. Identifying these mistakes allowed me to go on a better path and get better results for the time I put into social media. What are your thoughts on the list? Do you have any additional mistakes that you would like to mention? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

Why You Should Recycle Your Blog Posts

July 24, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Recycle Blog Posts

Recycling blog posts is a practice with no in between. Some people love it while others never want to recycle or think about recycling their blog posts. Just like numerous other people, I was skeptical about recycling blog posts. I did not want to write the same thing twice because I thought people would be disinterested in reading same blog post twice.

I had this view towards recycling blog posts until I learned that The New York Times recycles its content. Some stories on The New York Times get so much attention that the publisher publishes those same stories in future newspapers. Using the same story twice saves time (The New York Times already has one story written for the week) and allows The New York Times to get the same kind of attention they got when they published the story the first time.

Now, let’s go back to recycling blog posts. The practice looks much better knowing that The New York Times is one of the newspapers that recycles its content. As a blogger with many things to do, recycling content can save you time. As your blog gets older, there will be some blog posts that once got a lot of attention but are now long forgotten. You can bring these blog posts back to life by writing and publishing them again.

No matter how valuable any blog post is, most readers are going to gradually forget the tips and methods from the blog post. A blog post about 10 Twitter tips that was published two years ago will be long forgotten. If you are pressed for time to write a blog post, you can recycle that long forgotten blog post that provided people with value. When the recycled blog post gets published, it still provides value, but this time it gets more attention, and more people remember the value of that blog post (at least, for now).

Recycling blog posts allows you to save time while giving your readers valuable blog posts. It is still important to update your blog with new content, but recycling blog posts is a great method to remind people about valuable information they may have forgotten.

The Best Way To Think Of More Blog Posts To Write

July 24, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

Blog Post Idea Box

Chances are if you are like me, you get the occasional writer’s block bug. There are some days when I wish I could take a day off from blogging, but then there would be an indelible gap in my consistency. Each time I feel writer’s block coming by, I know I have to get out of the trance as soon as possible. I decided to look back at how homework gets done in school for inspiration.

Some of us were (or are) really good at consistently doing their homework the night before. It has received its fair share of criticism, but people continued (or still continue) doing homework the night before anyway. Doing something the night before the due date has been highly criticized. Doing the work the night before is not the right option. Planning the night before is the good (and better) option.

Now, I write all of the ideas for my blog posts when I am too tired to write new ones. For me, that would time would be at midnight when I am just too tired to write a valuable blog post. Getting the ideas at night gives me a head start for tomorrow (unless I stay up past midnight. Then the head start rolls in within a few hours).

Writing a blog post the night before it is due will result in rushed content that does not provide as much value to the reader. These kinds of blog posts get poorly constructed just so the blogger stays consistent and can say that he/she has been consistent for years. Gathering your ideas the night before so you can prepare for tomorrow will help in the quest to eliminate writer’s block.

5 Tips To Optimize Your Pinterest Boards

July 23, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

What allows Pinterest to differentiate itself from the other social networks is its boards. Boards allow you to categories the content you post on Pinterest far better than any other social network. Pinterest provides numerous options with their boards. Some of these options are implemented by numerous people who other options do not get implemented as much. Here are the five Pinterest tips that will allow you optimize your Pinterest boards.

Create a wide variety of boards. Some of your boards can be business related, others can contain pictures of nature, and others can be sports boards. If you think something is a good board idea, chances are it is. The more boards you have based on different topics, the more Pinterest users you will be able to attract to your boards.
Create a group board. Group boards allow you to systematize Pinterest. If you have hundreds of contributors for your group board, you can rest assured that people will update that group board for you. When you are logged in, you can add pins to your other boards because a group board with hundreds of contributors is bound to get thousands of pins added to it every week.
Have strong descriptions for each board. In some cases, people follow a board because it has a strong description. It may only take you a few minutes to come up with a strong description, but it will help you get more followers in the long run.
Choose the cover picture carefully. The more pins you have on your board, the more choices you have for the cover picture. A good rule of thumb for the cover picture is to choose a bright, stunning picture. The light colors (red, yellow, and orange) get the most attention. In fact, yellow is the first color that registers in our brains. If you choose a bright color, you also need to make sure that the picture is something stunning so people feel more enticed to click the follow button.
Pin valuable content in bulk. Boards with valuable content are more likely to be followed than the boards with not so valuable content. However, many people forget that Pinterest is similar to an online magazine. The more content there is to read, the more people stick around, and the more chances you have of providing the content that individuals in your audience want to see. You should make it a point to have as many boards as possible with over 100 pins. Once all of your boards have over 100 pins, get up to 500 pins per board, and keep on working your way up.

You cannot be successful on Pinterest unless you create boards, but if you optimize those boards, you may be able to decrease the amount of time it takes for you to reach certain follower milestones. What are your thoughts on this article? Do you have any additional tips on optimizing Pinterest boards? Please share your thoughts and advice below.

7 Steps To Increase The Amount Of Time Someone Watches Your YouTube Video

July 23, 2014 by Marc Guberti Leave a Comment

video retention rate

Many people are looking for ways to get more views on YouTube. These people believe that views play a big factor in going viral and allowing their content to spread. That used to be the case, but few people know that views are no longer the big factor towards going viral and allowing content to spread.

Now it’s the amount of time someone watches your YouTube video.

That means you can get 1 million views, but if people only watch 10 seconds of your video, then it is not engaging people in a way that YouTube would start to pay attention (and promote your video). Time retention, not views, is now the key to going viral on YouTube. In order to increase the amount of time people watch your videos, follow these seven steps.

Get more people to subscribe to your channel. Did you know that subscribers watch your videos longer than anyone else? I didn’t know either until I saw some videos on YouTube Creator Academy.
Have a professional introduction. Your introduction is the deciding point of your YouTube videos. The more professional your introduction is, the more people will enjoy your video.
Have an incredible channel trailer. Believe it or not, there are some people who will not know who you are. You need to have an incredible channel trailer that sums up who you are in an effective manner.
Make your videos shorter. Just to put it simply, would you rather watch a 1 hour video or a 1 minute video? The shorter your videos are, the more likely people will be to watch to the end.
Have two camera angles. That way, it is okay to mess up. You can continue your video with the second camera. The moment you realize your babbling in your YouTube video, you can stop recording from the first camera angle and then record from the second camera angle. If you sound like you are babbling, then people will not bother watching the entire video.
Your videos need to be good. People will not watch a bad video just because it has all of the other factors of getting more retention rate optimized. You need to constantly practice on improving your videos. They may be valuable now, but how can you make them more valuable.
Show people that you are popular. Most people still believe viewership has a big impact on how YouTube ranks videos. That means most people think that popularity is measured by the number of views a YouTube video has. If your YouTube videos have thousands of views, people will watch those videos from start to finish just because thousands of other people have watched those videos as well. Here are some ways to get more YouTube views.

Increasing the amount of time people watch your YouTube videos will allow you to rank higher on YouTube’s search engine where you will be able to access more viewers who can possibly subscribe to your channel. What are your thoughts on this article? Do you have any tips on getting more people to watch your videos longer? Please share your thoughts and advice below.