50000 hits and 10 things I have learned along the way

So.. not this blog.. but my real blog, my main one.. today.. about an hour ago hit 50,000 visitors..
So. What have I learned about making a website?
1. Find sites that are super sucessful in your same market, and make friends with them. If your doing something right, they will be there to throw you some visitors, in my case I ended up making 3-4 friends who all run different really sucessful websites and they all like helping me out I guess. This is seriously the biggest tip I can give you, if you really want to be established as a website that is.
Sure, theres always going to be haters that will talk bad about you or your website, thats when you think “THIS IS THE INTERNET IT’S SERIOUS BIZNAZ!”.. no it’s not. The internet just so happens to have a way of connecting a lot of people and it should be fun to see if people care what you say. I mean look at this blog, NOTHIN.. ZIP.. NADDA.. the hits aren’t there, shit google hasn’t even went through this blog in almost 2 months, not indexed, nothing.. But then you look at my other website, google sends spiders like everyday!

2. 50,000 visitors have taught me marketing. I knew little to nothing about how to market a website, well okay I lied. I have had MANY websites in my day, all very small scale and local, if you want to do something big you gotta at least make it seem world wide so people will say okay I can relate to this or this is a big deal to me. There is SOO many FREE ways to make a website work. Videos-Google, Youtube, Vimeo. Photos- Photobucket, image shack. BLOG-BLOGGER, WordPress.
Okay, so look at that, You can type content for free, make videos with your blog/website name on it, post photos with your website in the photo.. ALL FREE! Sure a domain name costs a whole $9 on Go Daddy for you to buy.. but if you pick a good one that could be key for people to remember it. $9 is all I have paid for my actual working site, through adsense I have made that back already. So sure, there is easy ways to get tons of hits, get tons of stats, whatever, “just pay $29.99 and you will be at the top of search engies” .. I have no idea if that actually works, I just don’t care to waste my money finding out. 50,000 visitors may take you 7 months to get, maybe it will take you 2 months, shit it’s possible in less than a week I am sure. BUT THINK ABOUT IT, use forums, use all the free things that the internet provides and you can promote just as well as the fools who pay tons of money.

3. When I first started out I was reading up on all the blogs, and sites that had any information on how to get visitors. Somebody told me once “it takes time, but after a while you will see your stats grow”… I kind of didn’t believe it.. but now I look back and realize yeah it is just a work in progress. Over time the information you produce will be stored in search engines.. the more you produce THE MORE you will show up in search results. I won’t lie, I started at like 0 visits from search engines the first few months.. now I average anywhere between 30 and 50 visitors a day from search engines, but 2 months ago I averaged 10-20.. so think about that. So DON’T GIVE UP if you don’t see stats right away. It takes time, keep doing your thing.

4. I am just learning this… I am sure if you read around you will see this a bit and say “why?”… BE CONTRAVERSIAL! holy crap, I get a good laugh pissing people off. I posted an interview with a guy who either you hate, or you love. Seeing all the comments on all the sites linking to mine with people saying “THAT GUY IS SUCH A WASTE” or “THAT GUY IS HALARIOUS”.. it is all worth it because then you get people talking about it, arguing, causing them to think more and more about what you have done. This is something I have learned and am learning to love. It sucks at first because you think “I don’t want people mad at what I do, or hate me”… Now, I look at it like this, either you will like what I do, or you will hate it.. the comments that people will annonymously talk bad about me is the BEST feeling in the world! haha I LOVE IT.. because I know what I have done has impacted somebody enough to say something bad about me. It is 100 times easier to say something nice about somebody than it is to say something bad.

5. Consistancy.. DO SOMETHING NOBODY ELSE IS DOING TOO!.. I do interviews with pro bmx riders, I do A LOT of them. Lets just put it this way, in 7 months I have done nearly 60 interviews haha. How does a magazine keep up with that? how does another website that has a bunch of other content to dig up and produce keep up? They can’t, they are forced to link to my site because of it. Because I do something consistantly and what nobody else can actually do to keep up with. And after all this time, it is more rewarding to hear the people I ask if I can interview say “Dude that would be cool I have been digging your website lately”. It means something is going on great. 50,000 visitors later that is. So keep up whatever your doing it might just catch on.

6. People assume that if they start a blog it will just automatically be a huge success. Well if it is, thats great I am stoked for you. If it isn’t the people who were just looking for a quick buck will fade out and sure enough these sites just sit, wasting space. Don’t think googles adsense will make you money. To be honest, I haven’t even made $100 off of it, that is the minimum before they will actually send you a check. I am close, but it wasn’t until I was getting a few hundred-to a few thousand hits a day before it actually added up to anything. So worry about getting your site off the ground before you worry about money. I mean if you follow step 2 or whatever your not losing any money really in the process right?

7. Contributors. Find people your stoked on ,who are stoked on what your doing. Find people who make waves, who people respect, who people WANT stuff from. I am lucky enough to ahve one of my contributors be in contact with TONS of people because of his real job, he has respect, he has a lot of peoples attention, so if he posts stuff it is great. I have another guy who just his personality has made him a big deal, he has a positive attitude and has pulled together a team and company that is successful just because the image they give off, he has a lot of cool stuff to say and people listen and get excited about it. So don’t be afraid to get contributors. If the site picks up and you actually make money off of it, send them a little of the cash their way, I mean without them the success might not happen right?

8. Try new things from time to time, see how it goes, if it flops, well no problem you just don’t do it again. If it goes well, try it again and again, maybe that will be a reason people will come back to your website right? Don’t copy other websites though, I mean think about it you have a friend who runs another site that links to yours, but then you go and steal what they do and then guess what, your contact is now eyeing you as they update their shit list. Creativity is hard, but sometimes thats what is best, you cannot copywrite an idea on the internet, if you post it, it’s fair game.. So do this, go to sites that have NO relevance to yours and get ideas, alter it to fit your site or topic. Could be worth while.

9. Pingers. Pingers. Pingers. Pingers. everytime I post something I have a thing on my favorites I go to… www.pinger.blogflux.com… I go there and it sends a ping to a whole list of websites saying “hey come look at my site it’s updated”… now this isn’t going to do A LOT for your site since theres millions of blogs and millions of people pinging away, but in the long run it works out to help you eventually in one way or another. PLUS IT’S FREE!.. Maybe 5 out of 50,000 visitors were from there, but thats 5 FREE visitors. F- these “only $29.99″ shit.. SORRY FOR THE SWARE WORDS BUT HONESTLY DON’T BE STUPID!

10. ENGLISH… So you grow up dreading writing in school. F this paper, F this journal.. F-edy F F F.. But then you want to start a blog. High five, but heres the most embarassing thing you can do. SUCK AT SPELLING. I mean okay, I am not the best speller ever, nor do I put commas and everything in the right place or even need it half the time. But there is no room for this “OMG WTF” ackranym (sp?) crap. Be straight up and type it legit in its fullest extent. I didn’t worry about writing when I first started my site, people laughed at me. I quickly realized if you want to be taken seriously theres no F-ing around! haha. I get annoyed when people spell bad now, it sucks but seriously the world is a better place when you spell right. 50,000 visitors and I would be embarassed to write like a complete idiot.

So there is 10 things that I have learned in the 50,000 visits I got to my other site haha. Maybe someday this website will actually turn legit and people will read it, but maybe this is my own personal blog. Maybe when I hit 100,000 visitors I will have a whole new perspective on how things are done, but right now thats 10 things I have learned that will allow you to get a ton of visitors FOR FREE, and how to do it right.. HOLLA!