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It’s been one month since I started I Help You Blog. I thought I’d share the results of 30 days of blogging in this post.
In the last 30 days, the following things happened:
- I researched and registered the domain name ihelpyoublog.com. I thought it would be easy to remember and was on topic with what I wanted to blog about. I can’t believe it wasn’t taken!
- I started a new Bloglines account and subscribed to a number of blogs. I started with Problogger.net and Performancing.com and from there I discovered JohnChow.com and ChrisG.com (Chris Garett’s blog).
- Chris Garett put out an ebook called “Killer Flagship Content” which was only available to his RSS subscribers. I subscribed, read the book intently and applied it’s simple but timely strategies to create the Complete Blogging Resource List For The Pro-Blogger. That took a whole day to do.
- I was so excited by my new post, I emailed Chris and told him how excited I was to have read his book and created this list. Chris was very kind to link to my brand new blog.
- As a result of Chris’s link, my resource post was visited by many bloggers who linked to that post.
- Some of those bloggers were kind enough to bookmark that post on del.icio.us and I ended up getting more exposure that way. I also got a flood of visitors from StumbleUpon.
- I read a posting on Problogger.net about the proposed sale of Technosailor.com and was very interested. So, I subscribed to the blogger’s, Aaron Brazell’s, RSS.
- Sometime later it was mentioned that the Technosailor sale had fallen through and I was disappointed for Aaron. During that time, I noticed some remarks made about why the sale had failed, mainly focusing on Technosailor’s revenue.
- Having a background in corporate finance and business, I knew that revenue alone was an incomplete and dangerous barometer of a blog’s worth if used alone.
- As a result, I decided to write a post about all the factors I’d consider if I was buying a website in How Much Are Blogs Worth And Indicia Of Value In Blogs For Sale.
- Surprisingly, the post was noticed by Darren who kindly mentioned the post in his own Speedlinking post. That brought a flood of visitors (around 700). Many of those visitors were kind enough to bookmark me on del.icio.us.
- That post was well received and several other websites linked to it as well, including Aaron.
- I continued to post articles and tried to make sure that they were quality articles because now I was getting substantial visitor traffic.
- I bought a ReviewMe review for I Help You Blog from John Chow who gave me an awesome review and gave me some constructive criticism. That brought a flood of visitors as well (around 700 over two days). A large number of those visitors subscribed to my blog (around 85).
- As a result of that John Chow review, many people gave me their comments on my posts and participated in the discussions. I was thrilled! It was the best $125 I spent!
- My posting continues to be around one per day and my comments have gotten up to over 135 for 30ish posts.
- I got rid of the “read more” link from my posts so that now everyone can read the entire post on the home page of I Help You Blog.
- I’m trying to post at least once per day (though I see that this post will just slip into the next day after midnight).
- My subscriber count has gone from 0 to over 110.
- I’ve “met” some great people through comments on my blog and through My Blog Log. They’ve kept me motivated to keep posting quality content.
- I learned that people will link to great content, bigtime bloggers are nice, ReviewMe reviews really work, some people like my writing.
So, that’s about it! I’d really like to thank Chris, Darren, Aaron, John and all the people who have been so kind to leave me comments here on my blog as well as through My Blog Log!
It’s been a LOT of fun blogging and sharing ideas with all of you. I hope you will all continue to read my blog. Soon, I’m probably going to go for a redesign of this blog to make it more personal. Keep checking back! 
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Tony 03.09.07 at 12:44 am
Not bad at all for the first month.
Just wait until the next Google PageRank update comes around, and pulls you out of this “new blog” box.
Philip Liu 03.09.07 at 12:45 am
Thanks Tony! Can’t wait.
Chris Garrett 03.09.07 at 4:30 am
Keep up the good work - and remember, blogging means commenting on OTHER blogs too …
Remon Talks 03.09.07 at 5:21 am
Good job! If you don’t mind to share, what are the average traffic stats?
Philip Liu 03.09.07 at 7:59 am
Chris, thanks for visiting! I’ll take kindly to your advice.
Remon, I average anywhere between 75 visitors to over 300 a day. A few articles have been very popular and those get visited a lot. I’m focused more on subscribers at this point than visitors and I’ve managed to get over 100 the last time I checked.
collis 03.09.07 at 4:53 pm
Congratulations Philip, its a great blog you are running so I dare say it is inevitable that success should follow…
Steve 03.17.07 at 4:15 pm
Philip,
I came over to your blog from John Chow and have been subscribing ever since.
You are a shining example of how to write and promote a good quality blog.
Keep up the good work!
Jeffrey Keefer 03.21.07 at 12:55 am
Philip, this is a great list. I am very interested in reflective practice and personal narrative, and I think your thinking here is just great to see.
Can I challenge you to develop this a bit more? I know I am interested in what you have to say. What have you learned over this time, both positive and negative? What benefits have you gained (beyond the traffic, is there satisfaction / community / revenue, etc.)? What is your end or goal in this endeavor? While numbers have increased, what has your experience been like in this process (energizing? tiring? opening to new possibilities?).
Finally, I blogged a bit about the NYC ProBlogger Meetup next week -http://www.problogger.net/archives/2007/03/21/problogger-meetup-new-york-the-details/ - are you aware of this?
Philip Liu 03.21.07 at 5:49 am
Hi Jeffrey,
I plan on doing an update post around April 8, which will be the two month mark for this blog. But I’d love to give you my thoughts up to this point.
I didn’t start this blog for money though at some point maybe I’ll try and monetize it. I was interested in seeing if I could develop material that was useful to some people for their blogging and I wanted to “voice” my opinion on a blog where I could post my thoughts.
I’ve owned blogs and blogged for a couple of years now and have been fairly successful. So, I thought I had at least the minimal qualifications to blog about blogging! This blog has certainly been very satisfying in the sense that I’ve up to this point exceeded my expectations in being heard. But a big thanks goes out to readers like you!
Readers have been very kind and responded exceptionally well to the articles that I’ve written and therefore I am energized in writing more. At the same time, it’s very hard to come up with great content all the time. I try to be unique as much as possible but a lot of times, the topic has been covered off elsewhere. So, my approach has been to change up the delivery of the message and make it more interesting.
I’m not sure I have an end goal. I started this blog for fun mostly so we’ll have to see where it takes me.
I haven’t answered all your questions but I’ll address them in the April 8ish posting.
Thanks for the note on the meetup for next week. I will try and go (it’s all dictated by the demands of my day job unfortunately, which oftentimes means I have to work very late).