It is time for celebration
Today, 28th of November 2011 it is 1 year since I launched this blog and oh boy have I learned a lot about being a blogger? I sure have. When I started it was just because I thought it could be fun to have something to be mine on the Internet. Some place where I could share the things I find interesting and where I could share the tips and tricks that I have found useful in the years that I have been working with IT. I pretty fast found out that I wanted to use WordPress as my CMS for this Blog and that I wanted my own domain name, but that was pretty much it. From the start it was the plan that it only should be a hobby project and it still is, but I had no idea that it would be so addictive and that I would be going to spend so much time on my Blog as I have.
What have I learned after 1 year as a blogger?
Well one of the first thing I wanted was to get my blog noticed out on the big Internet and that was not as easy as I thought. I started out by searching on Google for things like SEO tips, Meta tags and traffic. I have been working with websites before and already knew about terms like Title, Meta description and Meta keywords. I was also familiar with Google Analytics and Google Webmaster tools and that was some of the first think I implemented on my new blog. I also created a sitemap xml and updated it every time I uploaded a new blog post. That was only until I found a plug-in that could do that automatically 🙂
On my journey in the big blogger world. I came across a lot of great people that really know was it all is about. I learned a lot of those people and found out that other bloggers are often very helpful and are very kind to share their tactics and experiences. Two things they all told me were:
- Thomas, you need to make your blog personally otherwise people can’t relate to it
- Thomas, you should use Social Media to promote your blog
At first I didn’t really wanted to listen to that. I was not going to put out my picture everywhere on the Internet and I could really not see why I should chat and share links and tips with a lot of strangers on Social Media like Twitter. Well I did have an old twitter account, but I had only a couple of people following me and most of my tweets where in Danish. All I wanted was people to come and visit my new blog and leave me some comments. Long story short, today I am on Twitter, Google+, Stumble Upon, Klout, Foursquare, YouTube, Flickr, Blog Engage, BlogInteract and more. Recently I have also created a little blog on Tumblr as part as my link building Strategy. Today I think that I use almost the same time on Social Networks as I do on my blog.
I have about 400 people following me on Twitter and about 550 people are having me in their Google+ circles. Back in April I started implementing AdSense on my blog and after a very, very slow start I have started to improve here as well. It is still a very small amount of money I am earning here and there is still a long way to get my first payment from Google, but in fact this month November has been by far my best month with Google AdSense after I made some small changes in the start of the month.
PageRank
I am not sure exactly when it happened, but sometime this summer my blog got is first Page Ranking by Google. I was very pleased to see that not only had I got my first ranking by Google, my blog was ranked PR3 😀 When I take a look at my Google Analytics it must have been sometime in June it happened, because that was when my traffic almost doubled from one day to another. From nothing to a PR3 blog in about 7 months is something I am pretty proud of. I guess my link building strategy has worked pretty well 🙂
My achievements in my first year as a blogger
- My blog has become a PR3 blog
- My Alexa raking is just below 150.000
- I have had close to 28.000 visitors
- This post is post number 81
That was all from me. I would love if you would share some of your early experiences as a blogger in a comment below. I wouldn’t mind either if you click on some of the share buttons below to tell other people about this post 😉
Hey there Thomas congratulations on your blogs birthday 😉
Thank you Slappy. I can’t believe that it is already a year ago I started this blog.
Time certainly flies by when you are having fun 😉
Hi Thomas, happy blogversary, here’s to many more years of your blog running 😉
Thanks Karen and thank you a lot for all the support you have given me. I am so glad that I have met you my friend 🙂
Always glad to help out whenever and if I can 😉
Hey Thomas congrats on the 1 year celebration! I’m happy that your also a part of our blog engage community and we get to share this celebration here with you today! You know we will be here supporting and watching you grow into your second and even third year of blogging,. We look forward to it in fact and wish you the best of luck.
Hi Brian
Thank you very much for the support. I am looking forward to the future of my blog as well and hope it will continue to grow.
Hi! Congrats once again for completing 1 year in blogosphere. Best wishes for the coming next years to your and TechWork, keep enjoying blogging 🙂
Thanks Rahul
I am happy to say that I am still very motivated to keep my blog running and hope it will keep on growing for the years to come.
Happy Birthday Thomas, glad you made it to the year mark. Most bloggers will bail around the six month mark. So happy you hung in there and actually took some advice. It’s a great feeling isn’t it? Your blog has come a long way.
You are doing a wonderful job over here. Keep it up!
~Adrienne
Thank you Adrienne
Yep I am still hanging in here on my blog and still feel motivated to learn and improve things. I have learned so much the last year and no that there still is a lot of ways I still can improve to make this blog grow in the future. Thank you for the visit Adrienne.
Hi Thomas,
well Done! and congatuliation on the birthday of your blog 🙂 keep up the good work..
Hi Easther
Great to see you here on little blog. Always nice to see some new faces. Thank you.
Hi Thomas,
Congratulations. I reached my first year in July and it is certainly a mile-marker. Just to still be blogging after a year is wonderful! Enjoy you success! Sally
Thank you Sally.
I am happy to say that I am still motivated to keep improving my blog after 1 years. Thanks for dropping by Sally
I’m a little late but Happy Birthday and may your blog be here bigger and better in around 10 or 20 years :))
Seeing your stats for the year, i’d say you have high chances to get far with this one.
Thank you Beth.
Hey Thomas,
Congrats on your accomplishments!
I must agree with you on those 2 realizations, especially with the bog being very personal.
You can’t buy (of course you can but it will be missing your personal tone) blog posts and hire people to leave comments.
Leaving comment should not be just “means to an end” but a real contribution. It’s something that it cannot be faked otherwise it will miss its purpose.
Looking forward to your updates!
Cheers
Oh yeah!
Happy Birthday! 🙂
Hi Akos
Thank you for your comment. I guess making it personally is what makes the big difference to a regular website. It is much more fun to read a post if you feel you learn something about the writer as well.
I hope to see you back here soon 🙂
Congratulations, I think 28,000 visitors in your first year is a great achievement.
Hi Matt
My traffic has really increased a lot in the last couple of months. I have already had 4000 visitors in November so far 🙂
Thank you for the comment.
That’s great, I started my blog in March and I have had 10,000 visits so far. A few weeks ago I managed to get Google PR3 which is cool.
Do you think your success has been down to you commenting on other blogs?
My blog was ranked PR3 back in June. That made a big difference when it comes to traffic for my blog. Commenting on other blog is for sure something that I have done a lot and if the blog has the CommentLuv plugin installed you will get some nice back links. I have also done a couple of guest posts on other blogs.
Best of luck to you Matt, hope to see you back soon.
Congratulations on your accomplishments, and making it to the one year mark.
Thank you. Can’t believe it has always been a year since I started.
Congratulations on your achievements Thomas. I’m very impressed that your site is PR 3 despite of the Google Panda update. Great job!
Thank you Bob. I am very happy about my Google PageRanking. I had not expected to get there so fast 🙂
Congratulations Thomas. You have achieved much in this short time. Would love to read some of your link building techniques in another detailed post.
Hi Saqib
Thank you for the kind words. Maybe I should write a blog about my link building strategy. I could call it something like: “How I got from nothing to PR3 in 7 months” or something like that. Would that be something you would like to read about?
Yes, definitely I would like to write about this. Would be waiting for your post.
Congratulations! I hope your blog keeps improving and maybe become a PR5 soon:)
Thanks Olan
I don’t think PR5 will happen for me sometime soon, but I will keep on with my link building strategy to improve a little each month.
I hope you share tips on link building some time…:)
Hi Olan
I think I will write a post about it sometime soon. You are the second in here that ask for it. That is a really good reason to write a post about that topic.
Congratulations Thomas! Your blog is a great useful part of the internet and I’ve really enjoyed reading your posts.
great job congratulations, more years to come to your blog.. Keep it Up Thomas.. 🙂 Its really nice to read a quality blog post.
Thanks 🙂
Nice growth you blog have had. I hope to reach such milestones for my blog by next year too.
Thank you Obinna. Keep up the hard work and I am sure you will succeed. For a start I am now following you on Twitter 🙂
Congratulation for making this far!!! keep up the good work and continue on helping a newbie like me… more power!!! i’ll wait for ur updates… 🙂
Thank you very much Alizon. Hope to see you back here soon.
Hi there Thomas! Congratulations for getting your blog top on Google! I can’t say i don’t envy you because i do, very much. but anyways, its very impressive how you accomplished it in just one year while others try and spend tremendously and still not able to get what you achieved. Happy Birthday to your blog!
Did you do your own strategy or you had consultants?
Hi Tee
Thank you very much. I have done it all by myself and that just make it even better I think. However I have read a lot of blog posts by great bloggers to learn how to improve all the time. That have made the big difference I think.
Congratulations buddy! you earned it! i envy you! i am a noob( to the lowest level in this stuff) so i hope i do good in this. i hope you could share some tutorials on how to start blogging. Thanks again!
Thank you Herb. I think I will write some post about blogging tips in the feature to share what I have learned so far.
i havent found social media too much effective for increasing the traffic, it is a good part but we shouldn’t rely on only this source, search engine is the best way to get traffic and earning source for adsence. i need to get more and more secrete from you because it sector is a continuous process for learning and developing.
The thing with Social Media is that it is difficult to monitor exactly what impact it has on the traffic. No doubt that Search Engines, when it comes to traffic generation, is by far my number one too, but I think social media is great for branding my blog.
Hey Thomas, congratulations. PR3 seems to be elluding me on some of my blogs. Have Google quit doing updates? Only kidding; well, at least they haven’t dropped. I see you wrote an article on how you did it, so I’ll drop by there too.
Thanks Frank. I am very happy about it.
Congrats Man, It’s really nice feeling to complete that and still continuing the path, I am still half year away from it but I can say it would be good feeling.
Hi Sanjeev
Thank you very much and good luck on your blogger journey.
Well done Thomas,
My wishes for big success at 2012, keep rocking 🙂
Thank you Hesham
I wish you the best in 2012 too 🙂
Hi Thomas!
Congratulations on your blog’s 1st birthday and great job on getting a PR3. 🙂 It’s not easy to succeed in this business but with hard work and perseverance, I think everyone can make it.
Hi Wes
Not easy at all, but with hard work I believe that all people have a big potential 🙂
Your website is so much nice i would like to see all the posts but i have dont enough time to do it. Over all i loved your all the articles.
Website promotion
Thomas, I checked out this post because you listed it among your 7 Links Challenge. Terrific and you have every right to be proud of your amazing progress in your first year.
Thank you. I am pretty proud, but I am still motivated to improve in the new year 🙂
A belated happy blogiversary! I just celebrated mine last week and I have to agree with you in the things you learned. I would also suggest to reach out to other bloggers as most of them are wonderful and supportive (like you!).
Best wishes for many more blogiversaries!
Thanks Carolyn
Connecting with other bloggers on social media is one of the thing I love the most about being a blogger. So much to learn and so much to share 🙂
Yes, Thomas, you are very good at reaching out to other bloggers! I hope other new bloggers who read this post learn from your excellent examples. 🙂
I am glad to find this post.It is really very informative. Keep posting such fabulous post in future too.
Yes, Pankaj , you are very good at reaching out to other bloggers! I hope other new bloggers who read this post learn from your excellent examples.