Experiment #1 - Create A Popular Post

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My initial thought is that I should find out what is super hot on the web right now and create a detailed post about it.



My theory is that if lots of people are using these search terms, maybe they'll come across my post.

I searched Google to see if I can find out what is hot in the Internet right now.  I came across a neat Google feature called Google trends that does just that.

It tells me that Glenn Beck is leaving Fox and that the Hotness level is "On Fire".  I recognize the name, but I don't really know who Glenn Beck is.  Even so, this sounds like something that I should capitalize on.


I'm going to get some facts, maybe some gossip, some links, definitely a picture and I'll add lots of labels to my post.

I've got to run now to write my "Glenn Beck" post, but I'll be back later to update this post to let you know how it worked out...


UPDATE:

Okay, it is now 1:48am.  I've learned a bit about Glenn Beck.  I wrote a post about Glenn Leaving Fox News based on information I read in a bunch of news articles.  I went to Wikipedia and gathered some interesting facts which I also included.  I figured that links to other sites may help so I included a bunch that I had found by doing a Google search.

View my Glenn Beck Post here

Then I decided to expand upon the experiment.  Firefox 4.0 was just released a couple of weeks ago and already about 60 million people have downloaded it.  That means a lot of people must be searching for Firefox.  And now with people searching for Fox news, I thought I'd try a post that combines the two.

View my Fox News / Firefox Post here

After creating the posts, I read recent Glenn Beck postings from news sites and left the following comment on those sites...

I don't think this will be the last we hear of Glenn Beck.

- Mike

www.mikesblogexperiment.com

The sites I left this comment on were:

• Chicago Breaking Sports
• Wall Street Journal SpeakEasy
• EW.COM
• Christian Science Monitor

You'll notice how I have the site name in my signature line.

I would have done more , but a lot of them need you to sign up.  This seemed like too much trouble for Experiment #1.

I just did a Google search and it looks like some of this has paid off.  This is the first time a search for mikesblogexperiment.com has returned a hit in Google!

FURTHER UPDATE

Well, it has been around 40hrs since my Glenn Beck Posts went up.  I got very few hits as a result and I can't find my posts ranking anywhere near the top 20 on Google.

I'm re-thinking this strategy.  By picking such a hot topic, I'm competing with thousands of other more established sources.  Perhaps Google knows that I'm a brand new blog with a minuscule amount of posts and they rank me accordingly.  I'll leave the posts up and we'll see what happens, but in the meantime it is time to move on with some more experiments...

Traffic - That's Important, Right?

I'm not "Monetized" yet, but I do realize that nobody is going to pay me anything if I don't have a viewing audience.

I plan to have two types of posts on this blog:

1. Posts like this one that describe how my experiment is going.  I hope I'll have some regular readers who are interested in following this experiment, and with luck that following will grow.

2. The other posts will be written with the hopes of having them rank high on the Search Engines and thereby draw in the masses.  I don't know if anyone else has described them as "bait", but that is what I'm thinking of.  Something that can help me "catch" some hits as I'm fishing in Lake Google.  I have some thoughts on how I'm going to start this which I'll share with you soon.

In the early days, it will be easy to tell the two types of posts apart.  But as they grow I'll need to think of a way to separate the "experiment" posts so they don't get lost amongst the "bait".

By the way, I do not fish.  The analogy just seems to fit.

My First Post

This is day one of what will be a three hundred and sixty five day experiment.

At this point I have just registered the blog, chosen the template and picked some side widgets.

I'm pretty happy that I was able to get the name.  Not only did I manage to secure mikesblogexperiment.blogspot.com, but I also was able to register www.mikesblogexperiment.com.

So What Is This Blog All About?

There are all sorts of tips, tricks, books, videos on how to increase traffic to your site and how to make money from your blog.  I'm going to try as many of them as I can and I'll write about my efforts here.

I'm going to sign up for all sorts of affiliate programs, I'm going to look for advertisers, I will soon "Monetize" my blog with Adsense and anything else Blogger has to offer me under the "Monetize" tab.


Of course, I realize that none of this will work if I don't have traffic, so I encourage you to follow me, tell your friends about my experiment, link to me.  If you're in the media, write a story about me, do a news item.  Well, you get the idea...


With the millions of people who are currently blogging, I think my Experiment will have a pretty wide audience.  I welcome the Designer/Decorators, the Crafters, the Techies, the Photo Enthusiasts.   Once I again, I guess you get the idea...

Seriously though, I'm sure that there a many of you that share this same interest. 

Well I know this will be re-written before anyone probably reads it.  And I do have to spend some time working on blog header and some of the style tweakings, profile writeup, etc.

If you do stumble upon here, that's really great.  Hope you will come back soon!



Mike

P.S. I know I've got to get some pictures into my posts or I'm going to put everyone to sleep.