These are my top 10 achievements for the year of 2010 when it comes to blogging. None of this would be possible with you. Consider using this list as a starter blogging toolkit when you open your own entertainment blog, if ever.
What happened:
1. We grew from 2,000 daily visitors to 5,000. Three days each month we even hit 10,000. On average, each visitor stays 2 minutes per visit. It was only 30 seconds in 2009. Hooray!
2. Some of my posts got featured on well-known websites, including Huffingtonpost, Buzfeed and StumbleUpon, not to mention a popular Finnish radiostation (no joke) and a Wikipedia article (seriously), which is a great indicator for overall success of the blog.
3. The blog made to the front page of Google UK on search word “chatroulette“, with “chatroulette” being Google’s second most searched keyword for 2011 following “ipad”. A lot of new audience discovered the blog. There is a good chance you came this way.
Why and how it happened:
4. I discovered and bought Thesis theme for WordPress. I use it on this blog. It’s a light-weight, easy to use, SEO-equipped and customizable theme. It allowed me to give this blog a better look and feel. You may remember how ugly it looked in 2009.
5. buZzhunt moved from slow shared hosting providers one.com (very slow) and later mediatemple.net (a bit faster) to a super-fast dedicated server at Hetzner in Germany. The server costs me 50 EUR per month. It returns 100% server uptime and quick page loading. Some of you have noticed this. Much recommended hosting provider. It took me two months of research work, recommendations and comparisons to choose them.
6. I integrated Retweet and Facebook Like buttons on the blog, which brought 2,000 Twitter followers and 6,500 Facebook fans to the blog. They are the most loyal audience I have. You are probably one of them.
7. I started using Google Reader to handpick best rated content from blogs. This improved the quality of my posts on buZzhunt. Part of the credit goes to Copyblogger – website full of valuable blogging tips – and your comments, endorsements and your other reactions which were truly inspirational. I joined the content exchange network 2leep which connected buZzhunt and you to other entertainment blogs (yes, those image boxes below each post).
8. I discovered TinEye. Allows you to search your images reposted elsewhere. Tells you how popular the image is. It’s also a useful tool to discover blogs similar to yours.
9. I discovered and created a feed on Tumblr. Surprisingly, it’s full of amazing user-generated content. By browsing similar content to yours, you find people to follows. Sometimes, I’d grab an awesome picture from there and post it here. You should check it.
10. Got myself an iMac. Awesome 27 inch screen. A quiet and powerful machine. Takes a lot of my time because it’s awesome to use. I stopped sleeping.
What will happen in 2011
1. I plan to enable easy user submissions like on BoingBoing. You will be able to submit and vote up the submissions of others. Most voted content will make it to the front page of the blog.
2. I plan to further improve the quality of content by posting fresh, rare and catchy images.
3. We will see. You tell me.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Heya thanks for the info,nice one man!
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