I can hear some people laughing.

They are the ones who get 100+K page views to their blog everyday. I don’t. I was a rinky dink blogger who wrote about non-main stream topics, Japan, the PanAsian region and the Business of Education, lessons learned and such.

I hit a huge milestone…for me, that is.

My three blogs combined for 124,130 page views in one day. RisingSunOfNihon received 99,154 of those views.

I thought to share here how that came to be and how others might do the same.

Let me preface the steps by saying it wasn’t easy and it didn’t happen quickly.

How to:

1. Write about something people want to know….the post that got hit was Miss Universe Japan – Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo.

Riyo had just won the Miss Universe title and apparently netizens wanted to know something about her.

However, I had written about the girl several times … more than two months BEFORE she won.

If you wait till a topic is hot to write about it…you are likely to be too late. Three of my posts about Mori Riyo were ranked in the top four spots on a Google search of her name.

Miss Universe Japan – Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo – Learns Lessons …

Miss Universe – Riyo Mori

2. Add pictures with titles that are relevant to the topic. I included Riyo Mori pix.

3. After writing a post, socially network the thing. Think Stumbleupon, Netscape, newsvine, your blogroll, and so on. I do this faithfully. I don’t like it…but when my posts get dugg, farked, zwimpled, college humored, or whatever, it gives them a higher rank and makes them more easily found in future searches.

4. Provide relevant links to the topic that readers might be interested in. This takes time – a LOT (a couple of minutes) for an impatient fellow like myself.

An example:

How to Get 1,000,000 Unique Visitors – 7 + 1 Steps that Worked for Me

5. Be patient. It does not happen over night. RisingSunOfNihon was just shy of one year old when the spike occurred.

I am reminded of a good friend of mine who lives in upstate New York. He shot a 17 point buck one winter and instantly became a sought after speaker on the hunter’s circuit. The secret, how, what, and so on.

“Well, I saw the trail that the buck or deer had left. I knew he or she would be back. So, I climbed up in the tree and sat there. I got cold but I waited. I was hungry, but I waited. I had to relieve myself, but I waited. I got really cold, hungry and agitated…but I waited. Then the buck came back and I shot it.”  End of story.

6. Be lucky. I think I discovered what it is that people want to read about. The answer is – nobody knows. The most unlikely topic can become hot at the most unpredictable times.

Another story – a group of professional photographers were admiring a photo of a frog – its color, its shades, its balance and whatever else camera bugs admire. One asked another, “I wonder who and how this picture was taken. It’s marvelous.”

A little 8-year old girl walked up to them, “Well, I saw him sitting on the leaf, so real quietly I sneaked up on him and went ‘click!’”

I am like the little girl who was in the right place at the right time with my toy camera going ‘click’.

Thomas Jefferson once said, “I find that the harder I work, the luckier I am.”

When those 100k views came I had already written nearly 5,000 posts, 1,000,000 words in the past 1+ year.

A more relevant question to how did I get 100,000 page views in one day might be “What took me so long?”

I wish you success in your blog as well. When bloggers get read, we all win.

Please tell me when you reach a milestone – 10/day…100/day…1000/day. I care.

Do you have a success story with your blog? Wanna share?

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written by wcbelew     Blog