Use Networked Blogs

Honestly, I'm not the greatest networker. I'm pretty bad at it actually. So, when I find a tool that works small wonders, then I must share it. Several months ago, I joined NetworkedBlogs on Facebook just to do it. I've joined blog networks before and never gotten any significant result, so I didn't think much about it.

I check my traffic once or twice per day. I'm not obsessed. I have a stat counter plug-in installed, and then I also use Google Analytics. When I write a new article, I check my stats shortly thereafter to see who's coming to check it out. I've seen the incoming traffic from NetworkedBlogs, but it wasn't astounding. Then I saw my numbers today on Google and decided to write to you about it.

A sidenote…I've already written about the differences between stats plug-ins and Google Analytics. There tends to be a stark contrast between the two simply because many people turn off the Javascript in their browser. Google Analytics uses a small piece of Javascript code to count visitors and gather information.

The Meat

I don't do regular traffic updates to the public for this site because I don't normally have a reason. I get just under 3000 hits per month. The Google data that I'm going to share only reports about half of that due to the information in the sidenote above. I was pleasantly surprised this morning to find that NetworkedBlogs is currently my biggest referring site. This is why YOU should be using it if your website includes a blog. If you are just starting out, start out with NetworkedBlogs.

The Stats

This screen shot shows the number of Absolute Unique Visitors I've had to my site per Google since March 4, 2011. The pie chart gives a simple visual representation where that traffic is coming from. 7.73% or 99 of my unique visitors came from referring sites. Referring sites are places where a link to my site has appeared and users clicked that link. Nearly ALL of this traffic is through NetworkedBlogs as shown in the screen shot below.

Here you see the top 10 sites that have referred traffic to my website. Out of 99 unique visitors, NetworkedBlogs referred 30 of those hits to my site.

How It Works

You must have a Facebook account. You can either search NetworkedBlogs on Facebook or go to their site linked in the first paragraph above. Follow the prompts to create your account. The essential part of this is to opt to send links to Facebook and Twitter each time you update your blog. If you don't have Twitter, well, why not!?! Are you a writer, or what? I'll talk about Twitter later. Anyway, that's pretty much it. When you post, NetworkedBlogs does the rest.

Don't forget to use the app on Facebook to find like blogs to follow. With Yahoo getting rid of MyBlogLog and sites like Entrecard just being junk traffic, this is a fine alternative to help you network. Give it a try. I would love to see your results! Best of luck, Writers!!!