The Red Stapler Chronicles

Today marks the four month anniversary of my blog (3 months on wordpress and 1 month here). When I really think about it, this blog has come a long way, and has an even longer way to go. Despite my share (and then some) of mistakes and setbacks, this blogging journey has certainly been a fun ride. Since many of my readers are new bloggers like myself, I thought it would be useful to share my successes and failures thus far as a blogger.

What has been working?

1. Submitting posts to carnivals has generated the majority of my backlinks and has significantly increased my Technorati ranking. Don’t be shy, submit your best posts to those blog carnivals.

2. Putting a Entrecard widget and joining Entredroppers has given me some great traffic. Although some would argue that Entrecard traffic is very low quality, some of my most loyal readers have come in via Entrecards.

3. Switching to Do-Follow and submitting my blog to various do-follow directories has had the obvious result of more comments and has delivered some quality traffic.

4. Submitting my posts to some of the smaller social bookmarking sites (like Blog Engage, PF Buzz, Blogsvine, and BloggingZoom.

5. Joining Blog Catalog has introduced me to a community full of bloggers who provide each other with advice, support, and even a little traffic. LinkReferral is another must join site that gets your blog reviewed and generates steady traffic.

As a result of these five things (and others), I have been averaging about 100 hits per day and am getting more referrals to my GPT programs than I have with any other marketing method I have ever used.

What has not been working?

1. My non GPT ads have generated no money. I kinda expected this and am still playing around with different ad networks and placements. Still, let’s face it, I will need exponentially more traffic to generate any real advertising revenue.

2. My Google punishments have been tough. For instance, I used to rank #1 with the phrase “stop complaining about gas prices.” Now I am nowhere to be found in the top 30 pages. Hopefully Google will accept my reconsideration request, but for now this is a true downer.

3. I really have not been generating subscriptions to my blog. People are returning, but not subscribing. I will have to change that to become a serious blogger.

4. Submitting my posts to the big boys of social bookmarking (Digg, Propeller, Reddit, etc.) has proven fruitless. I think I will concentrate on one of the major ones, get lots of friends there, and then try again.

So, what will the future bring for The Red Stapler Chronicles? My goals are pretty simple. I would like lower my Alexa ranking to under 400,000 (currently 688,000), lower my Technorati ranking to under 50,000 (currently 85,000), and restore my Google mojo. I am giving myself to September 1st to achieve my goals and I will certainly keep you up with my progress.