The Bowditch Group - The Social Engagement Specialists

The top 13 ways to Increase your Blog Traffic without spending a cent

Nick Bowditch — Fri, 03 Sep 2010 05:19:21 +0000

My small business clients often ask me what they can to simply tweak their blog and their blogging effort a little bit to get more page views. Most of them have a limited budget for these kind of measures also.

So I have put together my list of the top 13 free ways to increase your blog traffic.

All of these are pretty easy to implement if you aren’t doing them already and they should all not only increase your actual blog traffic but also help with the all-important search engine optimisation as well.

1. Write at the right time.

As bloggers, we tend to be inspired to write at different times of the day and week but when are most of your readers looking at your blog? If you have an international audience, what time is it locally when they are more likely to be looking at your blog? If you’ve just written a cracker of a blog post and its 2am where your main readership is, it might be worth hanging on for a few hours before you publish it.

2. Be smart with links.

Don’t be afraid to give away some links in your post to another blog or website – especially if the other site is a well-trafficked one. Also, think about including links within your blog post that links away to other posts within your blog. This can be great for SEO, but also improves the reader’s experience while also establishing you as an expert in whatever you write about. Sometimes writing a ‘series’ of blog posts about the same thing or splitting your posts into several different posts over a number of days can work really well for traffic too because you are adding a sense of anticipation.

3. Put your Facebook Page to work.

OK you all know how much I love a high-performing optimised Facebook Page. And this is the great way to see what power it really has. Every time you publish a new blog post, update your Facebook status with the direct link. Not only that but ask a question of the Facebook audience that they can only get the answer of from the post or encourage more comments and interactions in that way.

There are a heap of really nice Facebook plugins available for WordPress blogs now which will make the readers’ experience – especially if they are also Facebook users – so much better.

4. Fall in love with StumbleUpon.

I love StumbleUpon. I know it can be perceived as pretty nerdy but it’s also one of the 3 highest referrers of blog traffic for me. After I publish a blog post, I also ‘stumble’ it – and it can lead to a lot of new traffic you wouldn’t get otherwise. For instance, last month, StumbleUpon referred 4,267 people to my blog posts – not bad.

5. Get comfortable with video.

YouTube is the world’s second largest search engine. Using video is a great way to be found by random searchers and Google loves video! Not only that, but video can provide a different, and in some ways more engaging, element to your writing. A lot of people aren’t too keen on doing stuff in front of a camera but if you’re not one of them, you will definitely see increased traffic (as I have) if you include video elements.

6. Will it be your blog or a guest blog?

There are two parts to this. You can get another blogger to write a guest post for your blog. This can increase traffic hugely because you are suddenly utilising two different audiences instead of just your own. It can also be a disaster if the person you get to write for you is controversial, has a horrible writing style or is just really rubbish. Always check out their work on their own blog first.

The other thing is you can also write a guest post for someone else – a more authorative, higher-trafficked post with a bigger audience. This has the effect of raising your profile as a blogger but also increasing the traffic back to your own blog because you have been exposed to a bigger audience. Always include a couple of obvious links back to your own site.

Most blog owners – including me – won’t accept blogs that have been published somewhere else, I only use guest posts that are 100% original and haven’t been posted before – even on the guest bloggers own site.

So, before you publish an article, particularly if it’s a pretty good one, think about whether you would like to submit it to another blog for consideration. Blog owners (like me) are always on the lookout for quality content, so you could get lucky. If nobody else is interested in the post, then publish it on your own blog.

7. Promote your RSS Feed.

This is one of the most under-valued and under-used tools for bloggers. Really Simple Syndication (RSS) is a way that people can get updated with any changes on your blog (like a new post) without having to check back to your site all the time. I honestly think that if more people in the world understood what RSS was, they would all be using it!

So, on your blog posts, promote your RSS feed clearly and encourage your readers to subscribe to it. If they are using an RSS Reader, or something like Microsoft Outlook that works like one, it can be a great alternative for people to sign up to your site who may not want to receive emails but instead get your RSS update feed.

This, by the way, is something that I should be doing and I’m really not doing it. Not very well anyway. Not yet…

8. Present an alternate view.

OK, I don’t mean present a blatantly and obviously antagonistic view but maybe write about a topic in a way that nobody else has written about it. For instance, there might be thousands of blog posts about the top 13 ways to increase your blog traffic without spending a cent (I hope there isn’t) so you might write a post about the top 13 ways to increase your blog traffic by spending $50 or less.

With more than 100 million blogs circulating the world, you have to do something to stand out a bit.

9. Find the right length for your posts.

I was going to entitle this section “write short posts” but that isn’t always a recipe for increased blog traffic. Some of my most successful blog posts have been really short succinct ones but some of my long-winded rants have done really well too. My standard advice, based on two years of constant split testing, is that on average the blog posts that were between 300-800 words have done the best. As a point of reference, this post is just over 1,600 words.

The point is, you have to find what works for you and your readership.

10. Get the Twitterverse on board.

As you all know, I am a massive advocate of Twitter. While it is a great tool for building brand awareness, creating an online community around your business and raising your personal profile, it is also an amazing referral tool for new blog posts. After every new post is published, I always tweet the headline and the link out and then I might follow that up a couple of times on that day in a different form so that people in different time zones and countries might also be exposed to the new blog post.

Just remember to try to avoid any of these.

11. Make it easy to comment.

In the past, I have had it so that nobody could leave a post on my blogs without first signing up to them or at least having me moderate what they said before it went live.

After speaking with my SEO expert Glenn Murray and reading his amazingly simple and helpful ebook, SEO Secrets – The DIY Guide to Topping Google, I changed all of that and now when you make a comment on my blogs, it appears right away. I also wrote another post about the pros and cons of doing that and you can read it here.

Since I made it easier for people to comment on blogs, guess what? They do!

12. Comment on your comments.

It’s simple. If there are 10 comments on a blog post and you return every comment with a comment of your own (to thank them or challenge them or encourage them in some way to comment further) then there are 20 comments on that blog post. The end result is your blog looks more authorative, the user experience is enhanced with more comments to read at the end of the post, and your commenters are pleased to have been validated. Too easy.

13. Write good content.

Write for people, not search engines. Try to have good spelling and grammar (although I am not one to talk). Write content that is interesting, engaging and encourages comments from your readership. Listen to your readership – ask them what they would like you to write about. It’s not rocket surgery, if you write good content, you will get more readers.

Did you know … that I can help you with blogging content, guest posts and search engine optimisation features on your blog? Or even just show you how to get started? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your blog better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 8006 2498 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

And let me know if there is any other topic you would like me to write a blog post on that is relevant to your business or industry.

Do you have any other tips that can really make a blog work better for a small business owner? Do you disagree with any of my tips?

Please let us know in the comments below. When you leave a comment on this site, it appears straight away – no signing up, no waiting for the comment to be moderated – it will appear below straight after you have posted it.

Work Life Balance and other lies Small Business Owners tell themselves

Nick Bowditch — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 01:44:13 +0000

I have recently had a really good wake-up call.

In the last 6 weeks, my business has grown and grown – great right? But the truth of the matter is that I was nowhere near ready for the kind of growth I have had – not so great.

I am certainly not whinging about being busy and getting a whole lot of new clients and new business but the end result of all of this new work has been a dramatic decline in the quality of my (and my family’s) life.

I have gotten sick. I have been continually tired and have had to take the last week or so completely off work because my body is literally exhausted. Worse than that, the quality of my work has also suffered and I haven’t been in a position to get back to people and provide the kind of service that I pride myself on.

Today is my first full day back at work and it’s after 11am and I am still just getting through emails from the last week. It all seems really difficult at the moment and it’s not a feeling I ever had when I was working for someone else.

This all coincides with my wife and I preparing to welcome our second child into the world in about 3 weeks time…

Where is this balance I keep hearing about?

I talk to small business owners all the time about work/life balance. In fact, it is one of the reasons that I cite for going into business for myself. But in the last few weeks, there has been anything but balance in my life.

And I’m sure that’s something that a lot of small business owners can relate to.

The problem, of course, is that we all want to be successful. And for many of us (me included) the more clients you have, the more money you are making to support your family and the more your business grows, the more we equate that with success.

But I remember when I started this business, I had two parameters for success: not having to commute four hours a day anymore and being able to spend more time with my young family.

The only one of those that I have achieved lately is not commuting anymore and although I am fortunate enough to work from home, I am still not seeing that much of my family.

So today it’s all going to change.

From this week, I am going to change the way that I run my business. I already outsource a lot to my Virtual Assistants and from this week, I am going to be outsourcing even more.

The service that I provide for my retained clients is a good one – and it’s good value for money. I am not going to raise the monthly fee for them but I am going to limit myself to how many clients I have retained at any one time. That means I have another two spots until I close my books to any new retained clients. This will ensure that I am able to service these clients properly and continue to provide the attention they have become used to from me.

And I am going to work four days each week. My family is the most important thing to me and I am no use to them if I am exhausted, sick or worse – which is the direction I have been going in the last few weeks.

It is going to take some discipline from me because the truth is that I love doing this work and seeing this business grow. But the last few weeks have been the virtual uppercut I needed to get some perspective.

Do you have balance?

So what about you? Do you already have this balance? Or are you like me and caught between the growth of your business and the decline of what is really important in your life?

Have you perfected the four day week? I would love to hear from you.

SmallBizTV Episode 3: Friday 27th August 2010

Nick Bowditch — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:32:50 +0000

The third episode of SmallBizTV is proudly sponsored by PMZ Marketing and is about Search Engine Optimisation (with tips from Glenn Murray and his brilliant ebook, SEO Secrets – The DIY Guide to Topping Google, and increasing your sales conversions.

We are also looking for sponsors of upcoming episodes. The sponsorship package includes a 30 second video commercial at the start of the episode as well as branding and links back to your website. The potential reach of this sponsorship is more than 8,000 subscribers of our blog and makes for great value for a small business. If you are interested in sponsoring upcoming episodes, please email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

So here it is, the third episode of SmallBizTV:

Did you know … that there are up to 1 billion videos uploaded to YouTube every day? And the it would take almost 500 years to watch every single video hosted on the YouTube platform today? That’s a huge potential audience – do they know about your brand yet? If you would like me to help you with launching a YouTube channel and making it work for your business, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

Stay tuned for the next episode of SmallBizTV.

Have you read Glenn Murray’s ebook, SEO Secrets? Or do you have some other tips on Search Engine Optimisation or increasing your sales conversions?

7 Tips for a Website that hits the Jackpot!

Nick Bowditch — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 21:00:33 +0000

Guest post by James Hallam

This is the first of a series of guest blogs from James Hallam, a fellow Aussie blogger who also blogs about small and medium-sized business and how they can make the web work harder for them.

As a small business owner, getting your business on the web can be a challenge. There are a lot of questions to answer, from what you should pay, to how the website fits with your marketing strategy and what you can expect in terms of payoff. Where should you start?

In this post I want to give you 7 tips that will make getting your business online not only easier, but more cost effective and profitable in the long run.

1. Build your online strategy into your business plan.

A site without a clear purpose as part of a larger strategy is pointless. First things first. Do you have a business plan? Do you have a marketing plan? Does your marketing plan include an online component? If it doesn’t, go back and write it, BEFORE you commission a website. Paying a recognised expert in online marketing and social media to develop your strategy will be well worth your time and money.

2. Set clear goals and measure your progress.

You’ll need a target in terms of increased turnover, or reduced customer contact time or whatever the objective of your online strategy is. Having realistic and quantifiable expectations will help you tweak the site to get the results you need, without thrashing around making changes reactively. One of the great things about the web is the ability to instantaneously measure just about everything, including site traffic, leads, sales, demographics and so on. This gives you the ability to fine tune your online efforts to laser precision, just as long as you know what it is you’re aiming at.

3. Don’t get distracted by details.

It’s easy (particularly for the nerdier among us) to get caught up in bells and whistles of the internet and spend too much time concentrating on Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) and so on. Remember the mantra, Content is King. Spend most of your effort delivering value to your customer, not tweaking keywords. The most highly optimised site is pointless if the customer doesn’t get anything out of it. The problem is that it’s a bit like trying to furnish your house with a designer lounge suite before you’ve finished building it. It might be fun, but you’re wasting your time – you’ll only have to do it all over again once the house is finished. Get your content, your product and your service offering right before you spend too much time and money polishing the details.

4. Make sure your site is usable.

This includes the layout of menus, links, buttons, headlines, the use of white space, colours, how pages fit together, navigation between pages and so on. If you don’t have a strong foundation in web usability yourself, make sure you hire someone who does. Make a point of asking your web designer or developer about usability – if they don’t have an in depth knowledge of the subject, go elsewhere. A great looking site that’s hard to get around won’t be effective in meeting your goals. Read work by the likes of Jakob Nielsen to understand what web usability is all about.

5. Keep your site fresh.

A website needs to be updated frequently. Website visitors have notoriously short attention spans, and the dynamic and interactive nature of the web means that people expect novelty. Remember that a website is not a business card or brochure you print once and use forever. Visitors won’t come back if you keep serving the same old gruel.

6. Be prepared to pay for quality.

Doing it yourself can save you money, but it won’t save you time. And unless you know what you’re doing, you may not get the results you expect either. What you can do is work out what sort of site you need based on your business plan. Talk about your goals and your budget with your developer or online consultant to get a handle on what’s possible and what’s not. Like any other product, with a website, you get what you pay for.

7. Build your site for your customers, not for you.

What you like doesn’t really matter – do your research, understand who your customer is and why they might visit your site. We’ve all heard the adage “The customer is always right.” Apply it to your site.

If you’ve already got a site, jump into the comments section and weigh in with your own tips on how to get it right.

Did you know … that The Bowditch Group works with several graphic and web designers in Australia and can recommend the right person to you for any website upgrade or review you need? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your website better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

James will be contributing more blog posts in coming weeks. If there is a particular topic you would like him to cover, let us know.

Do you have any other tips that can really make a website work better for a small business owner? Do you disagree with any of James’ tips?

James Hallam writes a blog about making the web work for small and medium businesses. James is an internet entrepreneur who in former lives has been a Software Engineer, Sales Representative, Boat Builder, Manager and Business Analyst. James loves to help people “think about things in an unambiguous way” and has a knack for identifying business problems and drivers and converting them to solutions. You can also follow him on Twitter.

The Secret to Designing Facebook Ads that Actually Make Money – Part 3

Nick Bowditch — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 09:16:45 +0000

In the first post of this 3 part series, I talked about how to target your ads very specifically so as to get the absolute best value from them. This is made a lot easier by the inbuilt filtering of the Facebook Ads platform so that the ads only appear on the profiles of those who you have targeted rather than them appearing on every profile regardless of that user being in your target market or not.

Then in the second post of this series, I went through how to come up with a compelling headline, the right copy and the perfect image to entice your target market to click through to your landing page.

In this post, I will go through being persistent (but not stubborn), how to outsource your ads and who to outsource your ad campaigns to.

A lot of my small business clients who have dipped their toe in with Facebook Ads before they got me to look after that part of their social engagement strategy reported that they became disillusioned and disheartened really quickly because they ran an ad for a few days and it got no click-throughs and so they promptly stopped doing it.

Don’t forget … I am running a special offer this week on Facebook Ads giving you 20% off the normal campaign prices. It’s only for this week and if you want to take advantage of this great offer, you need to click here now.

Truth is, they are pretty hard to get right straight away and you can make a LOT of mistakes and blow a LOT of cash if you are not doing it the right way. Trust me, I have.

Be Persistent (but not stubborn)

I spoke briefly in the last post about the importance of doing split testing, that is, designing two very similar ads with just a few changes to either the headline, copy or image (or all three) and then determining which of the two is more successful.

It’s just as important in my opinion to be persistent with the ad campaign. There is a great temptation (especially if you have over-spent on your budget) to pull out as soon as it all heads south, but if you are a bit more conservative with your budgeting for the ad campaigns, it makes being persistent and staying the course a lot easier.

Outsource your ads

To cut down the chances of blowing heaps of cash and getting very little return, you might consider outsourcing your Facebook Ad Campaigns to a consultant like me.

This isn’t just shameless self-promotion – it also means there is some accountability for your budget, but more to the point, some expertise and experience in designing ads that actually make money and not just fritter away what can be an already tight budget.

There are a couple of things to consider when outsourcing your Facebook Ad campaign:

1. Experience
This is a tough one because the advertising platform hasn’t been around very long. Also, just finding someone who is good at other pay-per-click advertising like Google Advertising doesn’t necessarily guarantee a good result because the two platforms, while similar in some ways, are actually really different.

2. Expertise
Just because someone has lost a lot of money running Facebook Ads (experience) doesn’t mean you should entrust them with your small business budget. You should speak to them over the phone at least to determine how genuine and expertly they are with this stuff. Most people can smell a fake a mile off. I am more than happy to tell potential clients about all the money I have lost as well as the money I have made running Facebook Ads and I think that makes clients more comfortable with dealing with me.

3. Understanding of your business
This is really important. If a consultant is used to dealing with big business or even medium-sized businesses, and you are a small business with a relatively small budget, he is most likely not going to really understand your goals and what you can afford to spend on a campaign. You need to find someone with the relative experience and expertise for your kind of business. 90% of what I do in terms of Facebook Ad campaigns is with small business.

Did you know … that I run Facebook Ads and Linkedin Direct Ads campaigns for my small business clients? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help your business, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

If you are interested in running a Facebook Ad campaign or if you just have some questions about whether or not it might suit your business, I would be happy to help you out.

Have you had any experience with outsourcing your Facebook Ad campaigns? Or are you happy to take care of them yourself?

The Secret to Designing Facebook Ads that Actually Make Money – Part 2

Brand YOU – the power of Personal Branding

Nick Bowditch — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 03:07:15 +0000

“I figured that if I said it enough, I would convince the world that I really was the greatest.” Muhammad Ali

Have you ever wondered why the world seems to be fascinated by Paris Hilton? She isn’t doing breakthrough medical research into a cancer cure, she isn’t a renowned hostage negotiator – she’s actually just famous for … well… being famous.

She’s a brand.

A very powerful and enticing one apparently.

And the truth is, if Paris Hilton can be famous for doing nothing more than being famous, why shouldn’t you be able to build your own brand and be famous for whatever it is you do?

That’s where social media comes in. These days with everyone blogging and having multiple profiles on social networking sites, every one of us has the chance to stand out in one way or another. Every one of us has the chance to be spoken about and remembered for a particular thing.

Maybe for you that will be being remembered for your business.

I want you to ask yourself what is it about the way you do business that sets you apart from everyone else. Do you always ring people back straight away if you miss their call? Do you send thankyou cards out when someone refers you? Do you recommend others regularly on platforms like Twitter and Linkedin?

What is your point of difference?

Apart from all of the simple little things above which might set you apart, the answer most probably is you. You are the one calling people back, you are the one sending out the thankyou cards – you are the reason why people should you and your business.

One of the easiest ways to gauge the power of your own brand is by counting – not how many followers you have on social media platforms – but how many people actually interact with your posts and updates. If you are someone that regularly gets your tweets re-tweeted on Twitter and your links on Facebook followed through back to your website then you already have a very strong brand.

That’s not to say that if that isn’t happening for you yet, it never will. You have the opportunity to influence others on a daily basis, starting with people already in your natural network.

Your natural network consists of people in your family, your friends, people you went to school with, your neighbours, old workmates. All of these people are inherently influenced by you in some way just by virtue of that association they already share with you.

Your acquired network consists of everyone that you have accrued along the way since you started in business, or since you started using social media platforms. The great trick is being able to work your natural network so that they add new people to your acquired network for you.

To make that easier you must have a strong brand.

So how do you build that brand if you don’t have it?

It’s not as difficult as you might think. You need to do two things: build the awareness of ‘brand you’, and become the expert in your field.

Building the awareness of ‘brand you’ can be something as simple as always being known for what you do: “Yeah I know Nick, he’s the family travel guy”. One of the simplest, yet most argued ways to build that awareness instantly, I believe, is by including your own name in your trading name.

This has been hugely successful for me in my first business. By calling that business Nick Bowditch Travel some may argue that I was taking a big risk. It would have been easy to hide behind mistakes, poor public relations incidents and general complacency if I had called the business something like The Aussie Travel Company.

In Nick Bowditch Travel, though, the buck has to stop with me. It’s that kind of direct and personal service that I wanted to become known for. I wanted that to be my brand. And since I was operating in a very crowded market of big multi-national companies whose employees were largely ‘faceless’ and responsibility-free, it really worked for me.

There is, of course, a downside to that notoriety and there were a couple of times where I made big mistakes with peoples’ travel plans and the last thing I wanted to do was be associated with it. I found, however, that if I was honest and put my hand up when I made a big mistake like that, the personal branding was actually an asset rather than a hindrance.

People are generally pretty understanding. The one thing that everyone learns from an early age is that nobody is perfect and people make mistakes. If I had been working for a big travel company rather than my own business which contained my own name, it would have been easy to hide from the responsibility of those errors.

I always found that my brand was actually more empowered when I had to show the world that I was human and not perfect. All of this is brand-building.

Becoming the expert in your field is all about perception.

My brand’s tagline is “Australia’s Family Travel Expert” and has been since I began the business. What makes the national expert on family travel? Not what – who. Me.

I decided early on that specialising in a particular field was the only way that I was going to really be able to grow in a market that is so over-crowded and full of travel companies that try to be everything to everyone.

I would have enquiries each day that varied from retirement couples doing European river cruises worth $10,000 each to school-leavers wanting to do Europe on a Contiki tour to people just wanting that last-minute flight special. There is no way anyone can become an expert at any of those things unless you make it your core business.

I decided I had to specialise and thought that family travel would be the best choice for me since (a) there were very few travel agents or companies specialising in families already and (b) there would also be three or four tickets in each booking meaning three or four commissions rather than just a single fare and a single commission.

So I became Australia’s Family Travel Expert and my branding was born. Then all I had to do was build that brand and, you guessed it, social media was the answer.

All of my corporate branding (including my new logo) on my social networking profiles contained the byline in the user name, I tweeted and posted updates pertaining to families travelling and even made my permanent Facebook URL: http://www.facebook.com/australiasfamilytravelexpert.

Did you know … that I can develop a complete online marketing concept and ID for you and your small business? I also have a great designer in The Bowditch Group who can put together a complete corporate ID, logo, business card design and business cards for you as well. If you would like me to help you with your own personal branding overhaul, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

I had decided what it was that I was going to be known for, and my branding just had to catch up. Because I was my brand that actually made it a whole lot easier. The buck still stops with me in both the branding and the perception of my business. I am, after all, the brand.

Is personal branding important to you and your small business? Or have you chosen to go the other way and have a corporate branding that isn’t associated with you and your name in any way?

SmallBizTV – Episode 2: Friday 20th August 2010

Nick Bowditch — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 23:36:02 +0000

The second episode of SmallBizTV is proudly sponsored by Realtime Research and is about Facebook Ads, market research and focus groups and a Facebook Ad Campaign special offer!

So here it is, the second episode of SmallBizTV:

Did you know … that there are up to 1 billion videos uploaded to YouTube every day? And the it would take almost 500 years to watch every single video hosted on the YouTube platform today? That’s a huge potential audience – do they know about your brand yet? If you would like me to help you with launching a YouTube channel and making it work for your business, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

Stay tuned for the next episode of SmallBizTV.

Have you used Facebook Ads before? Have you had success or did you find it not a great return on your investment?

Launching tomorrow: Facebook Places and what it means for small business

Nick Bowditch — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 03:13:14 +0000

Tommorrow, Facebook will launch its new feature, Facebook Places.

Following the initial and encouraging success of other location-based social networking platforms like FourSquare, Gowalla and Yelp, Facebook have introduced a similar, but they say very different, element to their existing platform.

Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg said yesterday, “There are three main things that we are trying to do with Places, help people share where they are in a nice and social way; show who is around you; and finally help you to you see what is going on, and to help you discover new places and things to do.”

Sounds a lot like FourSquare to me!

Those smaller players who are already existing in that space – instead of trying to fight off the Facebook juggernaut, are instead trying to work out ways to work with them and Facebook are including them in development.

When asked if he was disappointed that Facebook had gone down this route, FourSquare’s Holger Luedorf said, “This basically validates that we’re onto something and that we’re adding value. We’re looking forward to working with the Facebook team.”

Well, what else could he say?

Did you know … that there are more than 1 million FourSquare users and it is growing incredibly quickly? No wonder Facebook are interested in the location-based networking now. I work with small businesses and in particular those with shopfronts – boutiques, restaurants, cafes, to boost their brand and increase their customer loyalty with FourSquare. If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with your foray into location-based marketing, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

I have always been excited by the entry of platforms like FourSquare into the market. I hope we haven’t seen the last of their growth now that Facebook have worked out how they can leverage it better.

Are Facebook being that person at work who steals all of your ideas and then takes credit? Or is the onus more on the little players like FourSquare to be responsible for their own growth and longevity?

What I’ve learnt from writing 100 blog posts

Nick Bowditch — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 02:18:08 +0000

This is my 100th blog post on The Bowditch Group’s blog.

(OK, actually it’s my 104th – I forgot about the milestone coming up and kinda missed it. But let’s just pretend it’s my 100th blog post.)

I have taken the opportunity this morning to look back through some of the old stuff and plan for the future as well. It’s really hard to objectively look at your own work and appraise it but even I can honestly say that some of the stuff I wrote early on is just crap.

Also, it’s interesting that a few opinion I fervently gave in the early days are no longer my opinions – due in large part to the other bloggers I have networked and interacted with since kicking all of this off. I have learnt so much from other people and I’m sure I will continue to as well. The blogging community is generally a very generous one and I am grateful for all of the help, advice and criticism I have received along the way.

Here is some of what I learnt when I reviewed the blog over its 6 month life thus far:

I have had 48,267 unique visitors, 194,411 page visits and 672,749 hits in that 6 months. StumbleUpon has been responsible for 16,565 visitors and from other external referrers, Twitter has been the biggest contributor (44%) followed closely by Facebook (31%).

My most-read blog post was 15 things you should be doing on Linkedin but probably aren’t which has to date had more than 10,176 views, followed closely by The top 9 ways to annoy the crap out of Twitter people which has had 10,062 views.

The thing I have been most proud of on the blog is our effort to raise awareness – and funds – for the charity, Backpacks 4 Aussie Kids. At the start of this month, I posted a story about them and declared that I wanted to raise enough pledges for 20 backpacks (at just $25 each) to be made up which are given to kids when they are taken into foster care because that’s usually done in a hurry and if they get anything at all, in a lot of cases, it’s a few things chucked in a garbage bag.

After posting the story, and within two hours of talking about it on my social media channels, we had those 20 backpacks pledged. I revised my target up to 100 backpacks by the end of August and I am proud to say right at this moment we have gotten over 30 donated. There is still time if you want to be involved or if you just want to read the story, click here.

The thing that I was sure was a winner and can’t believe it hasn’t done better? The Small Business Forum I set up also this month. It’s only early days with it of course, but it was definitely one of the times where I have thought I had a brilliant concept that everyone would love and it’s fizzled a bit.

My most valuable lesson? Including weekly recap posts. By posting each week the top 5 most-read blog posts of that week, it had a two-fold effect: it gave people a chance to only read the good parts of the blog if they wanted to, and it was great for traffic as those posts were among the most-viewed on the whole site.

Did you know … that there are more than 120 million blogs circulating the internet now? Can you imagine how many of them are rubbish but also how many of them might be directly competing with you for readers’ attention? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help you with making your blog better, more relevant, and found more by Google, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

I have learnt so much and gotten so much return on the effort of producing 100 blog posts in 6 months – despite a bit of my writing being pretty ordinary along the way. It does take discipline, creativity and a lot of time but the return on that investment has been massive for me and I would highly recommend it.

What have you learnt from reviewing your own blogging? Or have you read something of mine that you thought was pretty good or pretty awful? I have thick skin …

How to use Linkedin more effectively

Nick Bowditch — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 22:37:39 +0000

My most read post of all time was 15 things you should be doing on Linkedin but probably aren’t, having had more than 10,000 visits now.

But I can honestly say that I still don’t really use this great platform to its full potential.

Later today, I am going to a client’s office to help her optimise her Liinkedin profile and show her some tips and tricks to get more out of Linkedin, and that article will obviously be the basis of most of what I go through with her.

But I must have missed at least a few things that I either omitted or just plain didn’t know about. So I would like your help.

What have you found has helped you get more out of Linkedin? What could I, and my readers, be doing to improve the usability of it and get a greater return from it?

Did you know … that there are 1 million Aussies on Linkedin now? They are mostly professional people, the average is 41, 80% are tertiary educated and the average household income is $110,000. Does that sound like someone you would like to connect with on a business level? If you would like to find out how I might be able to help your business by developing a complete social media strategy, including Linkedin, call me TODAY on 02 4324 2594 or email me nick@thebowditchgroup.com.

And don’t forget to check out my most read post ever, 15 things you should be doing with Linkedin but probably arent.