5 strategies I used to drive traffic to my blog/website on software development

• Are you planning to write a Software development book via a POD publisher and don't know how to promote it?
• Are you having trouble driving traffic to your blog on software development even though you have great content?
• Are you planning to become a freelance developer and going to create a blog to promote your skills and experience to find work continuously. 

The focus is on converting

visitors --> audience/customer --> better "Google Author Ranking" --> better SEO ranking


Here are some free and paid strategies to drive traffic to promote your skills, services, products, and books.

Strategy #1: From my personal experience and hearing from the so called the digital marketing experts, the best strategy for getting massive traffic has nothing to do with Google or search engine optimization. The single best strategy is all about building relationships with your visitors. You build relationships with your visitors by finding other high traffic sites in your niche that has spent years building their audience. You need to visit these niche sites to promote your site/blog. Don't spam. Work within those sites' rules. The key focus must be to add value to those sites by helping their visitors and audiences. If you are a Java developer, sites like "javacodegeeks.com" is a good example to publish articles.

Example #1:

Frequenting industry specific forums and sites like dzone.com, javaranch.com, infoq.com, etc to publish quality articles on software development and helping others solve their problems and dilemmas. If your readers find your articles and suggestions to be useful, they will show interest in learning more about you and your work by clicking on the links you provide to your website/blog in your signature.

Example 2#:

These high traffic sites do promote their products, services and books. Become a customer of those products and do a thorough product review and post it on your website/blog.  Notify the product owner of the review and they may link to it or tweet about it.


Strategy #2: You need to convert your visitors into audience. The best way to achieve this is to write unique content that adds value to your visitors. Know what your readers want. When I wrote my blog on "Java Job Interview Questions and Answers", it was a quite unique topic. There were thousands of sites on Java tutorials, but not many on Java job interview preparation. I made it even more unique by providing lots of diagrams, examples, and code snippets in my answers compared to other sites, which just provided only 2 line answers. Still my blog provides a more comprehensive questions and answers for Java developers. You can also provide free eBooks, and get your visitors to subscribe to your network via email, Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, RSS feeds, etc. This will enable you to expand your network and build relationships.


Strategy #3: Using Google adwords. This is not free and you need to pay for each click. This strategy is handy if you already have a product or book that you sell via your website or blog. You can afford to drive some traffic by placing advertisements via google search.


Example #1: Initially, I placed adwords advertisements to promote my book entitled "Java/J2EE Job Interview Companion" to drive traffic to my site. I reasearched on the google adwords tool to pick key words that are a) relevant to my book, b) has reasonable search volume and c) has less competition (means low cost per click). So, picked the key words "Java Interview" and Java Interview Questions. It did work for me and sold around 25,000+ copies. I don't use adwords anymore as my blog has a decent traffic to promote my work.


Strategy 4#: Know your visitors and audience and provide relevant contents. I have basic and advanced Java related blog posts, and the posts that get higher traffic are "posts on "Basic Java" stuff and not advanced stuff. This shows that my audiences are basically beginner to intermediate level. So, I tend to write more posts targeting beginner to intermediate  level. It is also imperative to sign up for Google analytics to see where your traffic is coming from.  For example, countries, operating systems, mobile versus browsers, organic search versus other sites, etc. It is also imperative to analyze the "bounce rate" on google analytics. This indicates the rate at which people bounce out of your site. Aim to keep this rate to under 80%. Also, try to increase the "Avg. Visit Duration". 


-->
Strategy #5: Organize your content so that people can easiliy navigate to your site. Your content must be short and sweet without any fluff. Your first half of the content must attract your reader to read further. Have links to your top 10 most popular blog posts easily visible to your visitors. Provide search functionality and tag cloud so that your visitors can search by category. For example, if you are a Java developer, have tags like "Spring security", "Spring configuration",  "Hibernate", "Core Java", "Jasper Reports", etc.


The above five strategies will increase your conversion rate from

visitors --> audience/customer --> better "Google Author Ranking" --> better SEO ranking


The bottom-line is building relationships with your fellow professionals. This will become very handy if you are planning to sell your products/books/services or working hard towards becoming a freelance Software (Java ) developer. Why not do both?
 

Technical Blogging Tips -- 1 million page views and lessons learned in technical blogging

Firstly, thanks to all my followers and readers for your support in reaching this milestone of 1 million page views.

Here are a few technical blogging tips based on my experience.

1. You need to be patient and keep at it

It took me around 9 months to go from 100 to 4000 daily page views. It was a gradual and slow process, and  I promoted my site via publishing articles at www.javalobby.com and helping out fellow professionals via industry specific forums like www.javaranch.com. Paid attention to Google key words that are not highly competitive and ensured that my contents had the key words to come up on google search for key words like "Java interview questions". The Google analytics revealed the following growth.

2. Sign-up to Google, and get the right tools 

  
-- track your progress and gather metrics (e.g. Google analytics) 
-- Sign up for Google adsense  to earn a small passive income.
-- Feedburner to enable your readers to subscribe to your bog feeds.
-- Google+ to network with your followers.



3. Pay attention to "repeated visitors" and "bounce rate" in Google analytics

Google analytics is a great tool to monitor how well your blog is doing. Two of the key metrics that I constantly look at are

The number of returning or repeated visitors. The slow and steady increase in this number indicates that you are getting some loyal readers who like reading your blog posts.

Jan 2012: 2,825 
Feb 2012: 4,007 
March 2012: 7,131 
April 2012: 10, 321
May 2012: 14,304 
June 2012: 19,122
July 2012: 22, 327 
Aug 2012: 24, 390 
Sep 2012: 25, 994

The "bounce rate" needs to be kept around  70% or less

You can't please everyone who comes to your site. Make sure that the landing page is interesting and informative enough to keep the bounce rate below 70%. If the bounce rate is high, then the problems may include irrelevant information, poor design or that your campaign is targeting unqualified visitors, too many advertisements putting people off, the content is not unique enough and freely available in many other sites, etc. You need to come up with an idea that will differentiate both your site and your content from others in the same niche. Not easy, but possible. For example, there are so many matured sites on "Java Tutorials" and very hard to compete on. The small number of tutorials provided in this blog are mainly to provide some familiarity with the sought-after technologies and frameworks.The real differentiating factor for this site is proving quality Java job interview questions with concise and easy to grasp answers.


4. Use the social media like "Facebook" and "Google+" to network and stay in touch with your readers.

It is vital to network and stay in touch with your readers and fellow professionals to open more doors. Help others and ask for feedback as to how you can improve the quality of your blog posts. Learn the problems faced by your followers and provide solution. Nothing beats the "word by mouth" marketing.


5. Sign up for "google adsense" and "infolinks" advertisements to earn a small pocket money

Don't place any advertisements until you get around 5000+ repeated visitors. Once you get enough repeated visitors you can sign up for "google adsense" and "infolinks" advertisements to be placed. Don't over do it as too many advertisements can annoy your readers. Generally, vertical and horizontal banners perform better. Set up custom adsense channels to see which advertisements are doing better. Don't expect too much from these advertisements, but can be a good passive pocket money in the order of $6.0 to $20.0 per 4000 page views.

6. The main reason for blogging is to open more doors in other areas


As an independent contractor, my blog helps me capture my experience and stay relevant.

Q. Why capture myexperience?
A.

• Firstly, it will serve as handy notes for my future references.
• Secondly, I can refresh or jog my memory prior to job interviews to provide a more convincing answers to open-ended questions like -- tell me about yourself? what are your strengths? give me an example where you applied your problem solving skills? what are your recent accomplishments?
• Finally, my blog contents can potentially become an inspiration to self-publish my own book. Publishing my own book has never been easier with the advent of POD (Print On Demand) publishers like createspace.com, lulu.com, etc. 

It also gives me an opportunity to network. Some of my past and current employers have read my blog posts, and it has certainly helped me win new contracts. Also, it has improved my researching and written skills. In future, if you have a reasonable size followers, you could promote other products and services. You can increase your understanding of the fundamentals from relevant questions and intelligent doubts raised by your readers.


7. People don't have whole day to read your blog posts

So, it needs to be short and sweet. The headings need to be catchy and informative. For example, I have come across some catchy titles like "How I taught my dog polymorphism", "I quit my job today, and so should you", etc.  It needs to be laid out well enough to navigate between topics. Add diagrams and code snippets where applicable.  Consult the "google  key words tool" to optimize your blog titles for SEO.

8. You need to consistently post blog entries, and can't afford to be complacent.

The times that I had been a bit slack in posting new blog posts, my google search rank had dropped. Currently, I have about 135 blog entries. Post about 2 to 4 per week. Don't post multiple entries the same day. One entry per day. The way the SEO works for the blog posts, it not only looks at the backlinks and the key word concentration, but also the reader involvement in terms of the number of comments posted, site popularity with repeated visits, etc.

Why must you write a technical blog?

Do you have to be an expert in a technical area to write a technical blog? The answer is no. You write a technical blog for a number of reasons. Firstly, for your own benefit To capture your experience and learning so that it will be useful to you in your future endeavors. I use my blogs and books to jog my memory prior to my job interviews. I also use my blog as a reference guide in my regular job. These 650 job interview questions are something I collected over 12 years from my own and others' experience. When you create a blog post, you could keep it private for your own use, until you are ready to share it publicly. Information gathering takes time, so better start now. Writing blog posts isn’t easy. Most posts require lots of thinking, researching, trying out the code, scratching your head when they don’t work right, etc. So, it not only widens your technical skills, but also improves your writing and communication skills. By blogging, you will learn what related topics that you need to learn and identify where your understanding is shallow. It is very handy when you are feeling stagnated to motivate you to self learn. In addition to being the valuable part of your learning process, it helps you network, show off your skills and earn a very small passive income. Employers are increasingly inquisitive about your online presence and good blogs can open more doors in terms of better job opportunities and other collaborative endeavors. Blogging shows that you are passionate about your chosen field. An attribute which most employers value. Venting your frustrations diplomatically and professionally through blogs as to what not to do or how not to do things as opposed to writing inappropriate comments like "this code is rubbish" in code base or sending emails like "ashamed to work with this code". I have seen very technically talented professionals being sacked or overlooked for potential promotions due to inappropriately venting their frustrations. Your blogs could also invite different perspectives and solutions to your frustration or problem from the fellow professionals and followers. For example, you could take the view that if you are paid $50K to do a job then you could think that you are paid 25K to add value and the remaining 25K to put up with things you have no control over and get things done to the best you can.

Your own learning process is a great justification in itself for writing a blog, but good writing and communication skills require you to target the intended audience. This helps you network with the fellow professionals and learn from their experience, comments and feedback. Blogging has helped me handle criticisms well. When you write technical blogs, people who are more nerdy than you are going to read it. Technology is a very vast area, and you cannot be good at everything. Here are a few tips as to what you can blog about

• Write about the problems you faced about any one of the 16 key areas, technology, or framework for which you have not found good solution on the internet.
• A step by step guide to getting a task done for which you have not found any simple and clear guide with examples on the internet.
• If you are interested in writing about what you had learned last week or what you wished had learned a year ago, then think a little differently and explain it with a liitle bit of imagination to make it unique from 100 other articles or blogs that can be found on the internet. I learned JavaScript by blogging. Read around 20+ online articles and then blogged it in my own style.  I am still an amateur when it comes to JavaScript as I don't use it regularly at work, but when I want to brush up my I knowledge, I know where to look. 
• Blog readers have too many other stuff to read, so your blog entries need to be precise and concise.
• Take part in industry specific forums to help others. Others' problems and needs may give you your next topic to blog on.
• Anything else that you find interesting and would like to share with others in your own style.

So, don't wait and get started. Write something you are passionate about. Write it because you feel it should be written as opposed to worrying about it will be read or criticized. So, blogging is not for the experts, but for everyone who is passionate about something. 


Think --> research --> Write --> Learn --> get feedback --> handle criticism --> grow --> succeed


Finally, to take what you need

If you had given what others need in the last step to retain followers and get enough hits, you will get what you need in terms of recognition to open more doors and earn additional income by promoting your own and others' books (both eBooks and printed), products, and services via your blogs and websites. There are so many tips out there on getting enough hits to your blog, the best 2 tips I can give you from my experience is that

• Tip #1: Write quality blog posts that are unique and informative.
• Tip #2: Keep posting. Many bloggers just give up after not getting enough traffic. Again, think about the "give what others need before you take what you need" philosophy.

Secondly, to give what your target audience need




Things to watch out

• Blogging can be quite addictive, and it is imperative to get your priorities right.
• It can be time consuming. So, it requires lots of patience. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step" -- by Lao tzu
• Do it professionally. Support and network with the other bloggers.
  

How to get started

• Pick a blogger tool by researching online. The wordpress.com and blogger.com are worthy contenders. 
• Register your blog with javablogs.com so that your blogs can be discovered by others.
• Start writing quality blogs.
• Promote your blogs via forums by providing the link to your blog as your signature, publishing articles via java.dzone.com, which lets you have your web address , and adding social media widgets to your blog for people to network with you.
• You can add your blog url to your resume and relevant email correspondences.
• Use the Google keyword tool to target your blog keywords.
• Use Google  analytics to analyze your blog traffic. 
• Once you are in it, you will find lots of other SEO tips on Google.

 Here are other similar posts that might interest you

• Building additional income streams as a software engineer
• How to earn more as a software engineer?
• Are you feeling stagnated?
• Apply the philosophy of give before you take for success in software engineering