Covering the business of education and training

I can hear some people laughing. They are the ones who get 100+K page views everyday. I don't. I am just a rinky dink blogger writing about non-main stream topics, Japan, the PanAsian region and this blog about the business of education, lessons learned and such.

Yesterday, I hit a huge milestone...for me, that is.

My three blogs combined for 124,130 page views in one day. RisingSunOfNihon
received 99,154.

I thought to share here how that came to be and how other bloggers might do the same.

Let me preface the steps by saying it wasn't easy and it didn't happen quickly.

How to:

1. Write about something people want to know....the post that got hit yesterday was Miss Universe Japan - Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo.

Riyo had just won the Miss Universe title and apparently netizens wanted to know something about her.

However, I had written about the girl several times ... more than two months AGO 

If you wait till a topic is hot to write about it...you are likely to be too late. Three of my posts about Mori Riyo were ranked in the top four on a Google search of her name.

Miss Universe Japan - Ballet Dancer, Mori Riyo - Learns Lessons ...

Japan's Hottest Girls - Miss Universe - Riyo Mori

2. Add pictures with titles that are relevant to the topic. I included Riyo Mori pix. 

3. After writing a post, socially network the thing. Think Stumbleupon, Netscape, newsvine, your blogroll, and so on. I do this faithfully. I don't like it...but when my posts get dugg, farked, zwimpled, college humored, or whatever, it gives them a higher rank and makes them more easily found in future searches.

4. Provide relevant links to the topic that readers might be interested in. I don't particularly like doing this either, but, it works.

Two Examples: 

How to Get 1,000,000 Unique Visitors - 7 Steps that Worked for Me

8 Steps to 2,000,000 Page Views

5. Be patient. It does not happen over night. RisingSunOfNihon will be one year old in about a week. I am reminded of a good friend of mine who lives in upstate New York. He shot a 17 point buck one winter and instantly became a sought after speaker on the hunter's circuit. The secret, how, what, and so on. 

"Well, I saw the trail that the buck or deer had left. I knew he or she would be back. So, I climbed up in the tree and sat there. I got cold but I waited. I was hungry, but I waited. I had to relieve myself, but I waited. I got really cold, hungry and agitated...but I waited. Then the buck came back and I shot it." End of story.

6. Be lucky. I think I discovered what it is that people want to read about. The answer is - nobody knows. The most unlikely topic can become hot at the most unpredictable times.

Another story - a group of professional photographers were admiring a photo of a frog - its color, its shades, its balance and whatever else camera bugs admire. One asked, "I wonder how this picture was taken?"

A little 8-year old girl walked up to them, "Well, I saw him sitting on the leaf, so real quietly I sneaked up on him and went 'click!'" 

I am like the little girl who was in the right place at the right time with my toy camera going 'click'.

Thomas Jefferson once said, however, "I find that the harder I work, the luckier I am."

I have written nearly 5,000 posts, 1,000,000 words in the past 1+ year. A more relevant question to how did I get 100,000 page views in one day might be "What took me so long?"

I wish you success in your blog as well. When bloggers get read, we all win. 

You might also be interested in:

8 Steps to 2,000,000 Page Views

How to Get 1,000,000 Unique Visitors - 7 Steps that Worked for Me

3 Things I Learned from Google Analytics about How to Increase Traffic