youngfulltimers Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 We are trying to aggressively post to our new blog, Young Fulltimers.com.We are using all the basic social media to promote our postings, but we still need people to find us. We know there are plenty of young full-time RV travelers who would appreciate news relevant to them. Help us reach those people! We'd love to learn what other webmasters are doing to get exposure to their hard work! Thanks all. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 I would start by adding a "live" link to your blog in your signature line on this and any other forums that you frequent. I'll point out that most of us who keep either a blog or a website have links in our signature lines. The other thing that I'd advise is patience. As you develop your blog and get more content in it the readership will begin to increase. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jack Mayer Posted February 3, 2015 Report Share Posted February 3, 2015 Like Kirk said - time is the best thing that will bring people in. That assumes you do normal SEO and other things to maximize your visibility to the world. Probably the best thing you could do is to get established bloggers with similar type blogs to refer to you. That will increase your traffic more than any single thing you can do, and elevate you in the search engine returns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kathydavidb Posted February 4, 2015 Report Share Posted February 4, 2015 I read the RV blogs that post each & every day. I hate it when I go to a blog that hasn't been updated in a month. I end up not going to check those, only the daily ones. Dave Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LFDR3116 Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 I don't read many blogs. Usually only for people we have met. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chris-n-Dennis Posted February 5, 2015 Report Share Posted February 5, 2015 I would suggest concentrating on one venue for your blog rather than multiple venues such as you have ie; Facebook, website, where ever else. That will give you a bit more time to keep it current instead of not freshening the two I've mentioned in over 3 days. If you insist on multiple venues then consider each one a solo entity that focuses on the aspects of your story most pertinent to that particular venue and again - keep them fresh! Its great to cross-link articles and forums as a supplement to your own content but it IS a supplement. Return traffic is dependent on building your own story, style and content and use the linking for emphasis. Right now you are seeing an uptick in visits because you solicited input but you can only get away with that a couple of times before losing your audience entirely. Another churn factor is soliciting for input and then clearly not checking back which I've noticed is a fair assessment on the blog and your facebook page. Just my opinion - you get what you paid for. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
soos Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 I read the RV blogs that post each & every day. I hate it when I go to a blog that hasn't been updated in a month. I end up not going to check those, only the daily ones. Dave Most blogs allow you to follow by email so when a new post is available it is sent to your email. you don't have to keep checking. This works especially well when someone posts sporadically. Sue Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jamtracy Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 With your identity's having to be hidden is a detractor to me. If your blog is interesting enough your followers will spread. Is your blog going to help people or is it going to be story telling? I tend to read the blogs that I can learn things from. Also, you clicked "Lifetime Member" on your profile. Knowing that is not the case you might want to un-click that box. Just a suggestion. James Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dutch_12078 Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 I agree with James that the "Him" and "Her" identity issue really depersonalizes the writing. Maybe you could use "pen names" instead? "Jack" and "Jill" for example, to my mind reads better then "Him" and "Her". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dog Folks Posted February 9, 2015 Report Share Posted February 9, 2015 Update frequently. Keep pictures of people we don't know, and food we won't eat to a minimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngfulltimers Posted February 15, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply. We've spent the last couple weeks reconsidering our timeline and are now prepared to depart by mid-year! That should allow us to reveal ourselves sooner (we are now less concerned about our employers learning our intentions), but I can understand why that might be a deterrent for everyday blog readers. I'd like to get back to giving basic news/tidbits that are relevant to Young Fulltimers. I'm also working on my journalism project that will hopefully be the moneymaker for us during life on the road. I hope to be able to balance all this hard work...we shall see! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chalkie Posted February 15, 2015 Report Share Posted February 15, 2015 You are getting a bit of humor in there, and that will keep me coming back. Luckily I did not have a mouthful of food or drink when I read the question is Trader Joe's cheaper than Walmart. Still chuckling. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted February 16, 2015 Report Share Posted February 16, 2015 The key to lots of visitors to the blog is content. If people fine the site helpful or entertaining, they will return. But traffic doesn't happen over night but takes time to build. We started our site mostly for friends and family. Over the years it has built to where it sees bout 4k visits per month. Return visitors and visitors who quote you are very helpful. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngfulltimers Posted February 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Amazing to learn how consistency can earn thousands of hits per month. That shows me what an appetite there is for fulltiming content. Our goal has been and still is to bring something new to this already well-served niche. Cliche, I know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngfulltimers Posted February 17, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Kirk I saw an old forum post of yours that talked about planning 15-20 years before hitting the road. I could not imagine going 15 more weeks without converting to the RV lifestyle. I'm sure the detailed planning paid off. We can only hope to improvise a bit to ensure our long-term future on the road. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kirk W Posted February 17, 2015 Report Share Posted February 17, 2015 Kirk I saw an old forum post of yours that talked about planning 15-20 years before hitting the road. That early planning came about mostly due to contact with friends who did so and our envy! We first discussed it when we used to meet campground hosts for the US Forest Service in campgrounds that we visited regularly with our 4WD & popup as our boys were growing up. That was probably in the 70's but we really didn't begin to seriously talk of doing so until good friends retired and went on the road at age 56, at least 15 years before we followed in 2000. His health actually improved with his more relaxed lifestyle and the stories that they told each year when they passed through WY were an inspiration. We began to discuss the possibility of doing as they did at that time and also to read as much as we could find about the lifestyle. When we moved from WY to TX after the boys were all gone and I had only 11 years to qualify for an early retirement, we got pretty serious about planning for fulltime but really didn't commit fully until about 5 years out. I encourage you to move ahead with your internet plans as new material is always a good thing! One thing that none of us long term RVers can do is to show the prospective of younger folks because things are always changing and things are quite different today from what we had to deal with. Many things do stay the same, but others are completely different today and so are social attitudes. I will be watching your progress with great interest! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wa_desert_rat Posted February 19, 2015 Report Share Posted February 19, 2015 You have a lot of whitespace along the right hand side of your blog. If you intend on "monetizing" your site with ads placed there you'll probably need a "real" IP address that reverses to your site's domain name not your host's domain name (ns808.dimedns.com). If you're not ever going to run ads then you can fill in all that space with content. WDR Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
youngfulltimers Posted February 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted February 20, 2015 You have a lot of whitespace along the right hand side of your blog. If you intend on "monetizing" your site with ads placed there you'll probably need a "real" IP address that reverses to your site's domain name not your host's domain name (ns808.dimedns.com). If you're not ever going to run ads then you can fill in all that space with content. WDR Thanks for pointing that out, desert rat. That blank space bugs me as well. Of course I'd love to monetize the website in a future best-case scenario, but that is probably a few redesigns from now! I'll have to learn how to fill that space and make better use of my template. I'm very much still learning WordPress. I haven't made a website since the days of Angelfire. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted February 20, 2015 Report Share Posted February 20, 2015 Until you think of something better you could link into your photo album with a daily changing or random thumbnail selection. Not too many or you'll slow the page loading. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jmsrbrt Posted February 23, 2015 Report Share Posted February 23, 2015 Meta tags? The keywords I'm using gets our web site on the first search page when a search is conducted. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skp51443 Posted February 24, 2015 Report Share Posted February 24, 2015 Tagging is not a bad idea but you'd see far more impact from working the tags into your page text, search engines have been discounting tags as spammers and scammers have been using them to skew search results. Do the tags you want to get good search results for but don't go overboard. Print out the list of tags and go through your page content and mark off every one you find there. Now go back and try to fit the other tags into your page, photo or link captions are good spots as can be some of the dead space down the sides, make your own mini-text ads for other pages on your site for an example. Mark off the tags you use that way and then rethink keeping the other tags as tags on that page. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
matthew.cunnings Posted March 11, 2015 Report Share Posted March 11, 2015 What platform are you using for your blog? If it's something like WordPress you can easily add a plugin for SEO to help you attract Google bots to scan your site. Social media page is good; do you ever interact and share with those in Facebook groups? Spreading the word on forums like this is good too. Who is your audience? I think that's the key... who do you want to read your blog and why? If your content is valuable, your target audience will naturally want to read it and share it with likeminded folks. - good luck and happy RVing! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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