I’ve been getting quite a few questions lately in regards to my BlogJolt project - and one of them is, “Well, what are the long-term benefits of this kind of time commitment? Why should I work hard to jolt the traffic of other blogs - is it worth it?”

I can boil this down to the question that I aim to answer every time I communicate with anyone, anytime, anywhere::

“What’s in it for me?!”

Let me first speak to some of the benefits of participating in a link-building project, then I’ll talk about what to do when the day comes that you receive a huge amount of traffic in a very short timeframe.

Again - the quick premise of the BlogJolt is for the group to flood a weekly target blog with links, traffic, and social bookmarks. Why is it a good idea to help other bloggers?

1. The obvious - participation is mandatory if you want to be considered as a future target blog - but you only have to participate once every three weeks to keep your name in the hat.
2. You start becoming a better resource to your readers. The more they look to you as an expert in your field - the more they need you to point them to other valuable resources besides your blog
3. Participating in weekly BlogJolts forces you to “get out of the ‘virtual’ house” so to speak, and read blogs you might not have found otherwise.
4. You never know what kind of connections you will make as you write about a new blog. You never know who is reading, who is watching you. I don’t mean in a big-brother kind of way - I mean, one connection can really change the course of your career. Don’t believe me? Read my post about how I got here.
5. This BlogJolt is getting some good publicity - and I believe it will get more. The BlogJolt group is nothing without its members - and I’m promoting the members as much as I am promoting the project. Good PR is a good thing.

Now, what can you do to prepare for being a BlogJolt Target Blog? It can be broken down into two categories - things you need to do on a consistent basis before you get a flood of traffic, and things you need to do specifically in regards to getting that flood of traffic.

Before I go further, I must give great credit to Jason Unger who wrote a great post about this topic - which inspired me to take it further in this post. He talks about what to do before, during, and after a huge flood of traffic hits your blog. (And thanks to Brian Clark at CopyBlogger for the great find!)

To add to Jason’s wisdom from a business perspective:

1. Take the publicity and run with it. Use it as an excuse to open more doors with other bloggers whom you admire. Or even with the press for particularly newsworthy stuff
2. Analyze what you did right and do more of it.
3. Write about what you figure out from #2, and use that knowledge to write posts to help other bloggers duplicate your success.
4. Keep the conversation going. Respond to comments a lot. Get out and comment a lot more, especially on blogs related to yours, or to your post that got linked from a large traffic source. People will start seeing your name more often and start wondering - who is this person who seems to be everywhere? I MUST know them!

To add to Jason’s wisdom from a personal perspective:

1. Own your success. You just got a lot of traffic. A LOT. Guess what? That doesn’t happen to everyone. It happens to good bloggers. It happens to good writers who add value to the blogosphere, or to the internet as a whole. That’s now who you are. Make it a part of your identity. As you let this ‘go to your head’ a little bit, you will start thinking of yourself differently, coming up with different ideas, and accessing different resources within yourself, which when done properly and ethically, will take you from good to great.
2. Take this as an opportunity to rethink your blog. Perhaps you got a lot of attention for a niche topic or post - could this be telling you something about the interests of your readers? Are you writing about all of the things you really care about on your blog? Or can you take this opportunity and use it to expand the content you offer to your readers?
3. What did you learn about yourself when you suddenly got a lot of attention? Did you tell yourself “Finally! I’m getting the traffic I deserve!” or did you say “Why the heck are they writing about me?” or were you suddenly uncomfortable with all of the scrutiny and attention? Just notice what your reactions are - when you get a chance to be in the spotlight, all sorts of things can creep up in our minds - voices from the past saying ‘you don’t deserve this’, ‘who are you to be writing about this stuff’, or ‘I wonder if I can really maintain this success - there isn’t enough material in me to keep this going!’.

   Whatever your reactions are, this is an opportunity for you.

   Limiting beliefs can kill a blog, let alone a career, and ESPECIALLY an entrepreneur’s dreams. Most of the time, we don’t even know they are there until it’s too late, already wreaking havoc by creating crappy circumstances or experiences, or sabotaging our success. You have an opportunity to actually have these limiting beliefs become clear NOW, hopefully before the damage is done long term. Identify the limiting beliefs that come to mind that could have potential long term consequences, and be vigilant about getting rid of them.

When I received a “BlogBoost” from the LinkedIn Bloggers, everything changed, and is still changing - so fast I can hardly keep up with it all. I started writing more about topics I hadn’t touched on this blog, and started taking this blog seriously, whereas before hand, it was practically an indulgence.

But I siezed upon the opportunity to build upon my success, reach out to my readers, and I started developing a lot more content that was a lot more valuable. The day I recieved a lot of inbound links could have been a one-night-stand. People could have come and gone. But I did a lot of the things Jason suggests in his post, as well as the things I have suggested. Since the day I was boosted, my traffic and subscribers has consistently increased because of these steps. In fact, my highest day of traffic before my “boost” is now a slow day… a REALLY slow day.

So perhaps it’s not a marriage proposal for my readers just yet, but I can definitely say,  “We’re more than friends”. Wink. Wink.

Tags: Blogging, Blog, Weblog, Blog Tips, Blogging Tips, Blog Traffic, Blog Publicity, Increase Traffic, Limiting Beliefs, Empowerment, Growth,

This entry was posted on Monday, August 7th, 2006 at 11:28 am and is filed under Business Tips, Success Thinking, Blogging + Business, Overcoming Obstacles, Empowerment, BlogJolt News. You can subscribe via RSS 2.0 feed to this post's comments. You can comment below, or link to this permanent URL from your own site. Your comments will be moderated but will appear as soon as humanly possible.