Video: How to Build a High Traffic Blog

I recently had the pleasure of coming across this presentation by Tim Ferriss, author of The 4-Hour Workweek (name of both his book and blog) on “how to build a high traffic blog without killing yourself.”

Generally, I don’t like to sit around and watch videos especially ones that are just shy of an hour long.  The reality is that most don’t offer any information of real value. However, I must admit I was instantly engaged in this presentation for some reason and was rewarded with a lot of great stuff. 

I have embedded the video below for your convienence and also included some notes below the video in which I took away from this presentation in case you don’t have 50 minutes to check it out.

Notes From Tim Ferriss Presentation:

• Change the word “Category” that appears in most side bars to the word “Topics”.
• Place in the sidebar at the top “Most Popular” section in which offers the ability to select from several different options:
  • Current Hits
  • All Time Popular
  • My Favs
• Perhaps had a similar RSS strategy such as 7 Reasons To Subscribe
• Remove dates from the individual blog page posts. It is okay to keep the dates on the blogs main pages but when someone clicks through a search engine for example credibility can be lost based on how old the post is.
• Add total read time to the post.
  • Average person can generally read about 25o words per minute.
• Twitter Opportunities: Polling, Surveys, Personal Diary.
• Be carefull as Twitter can cost you by sending people, especially new visitors, out of your website.
• When you get writters block… write about what makes you angry. Avoid calling individuals or people out as there is enough negativity in the world. Just write about the topic.
• When do I do my best work? For Tim it was between 1AM and 5AM. What time is generally my best. <— I need to discover the answer.
• Edit Posts By Hand… <— An idea I never really thought about
• Ignore SEO on first draft
  • If you want to increase SEO afterwards research using Google’s average key word tool; by volume.
• Two topics on one post = Bad Idea
• Short video is good; doesn’t always need to be long to be a valuable addition to your site.
• Don’t always chase the news… It is tiresome.
• Zero Tolerance Policy on blog; “It’s like me inviting you to my home”.
• Add Comment Rules…
  • Example: Comment Rules = Comment Rules: Remember what Fonzie was like? Cool. That’s how we’re gonna be — cool. Critical is fine, but if you’re rude, we’ll delete your stuff. Please do not put your URL in the comment text and please use your PERSONAL name or initials and not your business name, as the latter comes off like spam. Have fun and thanks for adding to the conversation! (Thanks to Brian Oberkirch for the inspiration)
• Emails I receive can provide effective ideas for future blog posts
• Comments can also provide ideas for future blog posts

Here are some resources in which I noted throughout the presentation:

• Ever Note – Software
• Tucker Max – Book
• Stumple Upon – Good Traffic Source and impressed with advertising results.
• Digg
• Flickr