Need help taking blog to next level

Discussion in 'Blogging' started by vanillaice, Feb 24, 2011.

  1. #1
    Hey there,

    I'm going to start off with a little background / stats for my blog. My blog is about tv shows, so it's seasonal in a sense that traffic picks up whenever a show is on, especially while it is airing.

    For the month of Feb so far, I've had about 20% bookmarkers, 30% direct SE hits, and roughly 50% SE referral hits, which are likely mostly image search results.

    My girlfriend and I write the blog, and it's not spammy at all. Most of my recap posts are over 1k words, so the content is there, but I can't promise proper grammar! :p

    I have a few issues I've been struggling with though:

    Back Links

    This is obviously a huge issue in earning PR / trust with google, which helps serps. I have searched out a ton of similar blogs, tried to contact them for regular A-B swaps, and have been only able to swap with 4 people. Nobody seems to reply. I've also done work in adult, and it's almost too easy to trade links, especially with sites like linkspun, but I'm at a loss with how to obtain more backlinks from relevant sites without re-contacting those same people.

    I've also read on technorati that blogroll swaps don't do anything for authority, so how would I go about getting better back links? I often see blogs like dlisted for example doing a random post with links to relevant blog posts on other sites, but it seems nobody does that for what I blog about. How do I go about getting some type of network with people to swap those type of links on occasion?

    Monetizing The Blog

    This is another area I'm at a complete loss with. I've tried adsense, but due to the content, ads were not really relevant at all, so clicks were at an absolute minimum. I've tried infolinks, and the 5-15 clicks a day for about $.25-$1.00 were not worth the spammy look of green links every other word.

    I have a donation box I just put up, but don't have enough time to see how that will work. So far, 0 donations.

    My last option is simply selling DVD's through Amazon, and I get a sale or two on air dates, but the selection is pretty old for the shows I'm blogging about, and getting $1.26 for a $33 item sold kind of sucks.

    Selling stuff may be the way to go, but I honestly can't think of anything but DVD's to sell for a television show blog. Any suggestions with that? I am a member of CJ.com, so I have access to anything there, but clueless :(

    ---

    If I think of more questions, I'm sure I'll ask, but those are the two biggest hurdles I'm facing right now. Making $1/week for the amount of work I put it gets a little demoralizing after awhile.

    Thanks for any help or suggestions
     
    vanillaice, Feb 24, 2011 IP
  2. karmaseo

    karmaseo Well-Known Member

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    #2
    Just continue your work. Put away donation button. Try some linkwheels & article directory.
     
    karmaseo, Feb 25, 2011 IP
  3. vanillaice

    vanillaice Peon

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    #3
    Donation button not cool?
     
    vanillaice, Feb 25, 2011 IP
  4. KimiGermany

    KimiGermany Peon

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    #4
    In my experience, donation button does not bring much lol, none donates! :(
     
    KimiGermany, Feb 25, 2011 IP
  5. vanillaice

    vanillaice Peon

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    #5
    I signed up to a few programs last night on CJ.com, waiting to get approved hopefully. Maybe those will be good alternatives and actually pull me a sale or two a week which will be a huge boost.

    Sirtiman mentioned article directories, is there a good list of places to submit to somewhere?
     
    vanillaice, Feb 25, 2011 IP