5 tips for riding the wave of success

At some point every blogger will write an article which resonates with a large body of readers. When that happens it is imperative to take some actions to ensure that your blog is riding on top of the wave instead of getting sucked under. In this article I will point out 5 things that will help you to take advantage of your new found fame

Sometimes you won’t hear the wave coming

All to often we expect to hear about our success before we really see the results of it. We expect a pingback or trackback from some “A-list” blogger or perhaps a major website to pick it up. It doesn’t often happen that way for most of us. Another way we “listen” for the wave is by monitoring our comment sections on particular articles. Because it goes to reason that an article drawing comments is probably drawing readers as well, right? It turns out that this isn’t always the case.

Seeing is believing

I’ve never managed to get an article linked by an “A-list” blogger. In fact I’ve pretty much given up on the idea. Number one I don’t generally shop my wares around to them and number two they aren’t in the position they are in because they have a lot of time to stumble across my little blog. Mind you I won’t complain if it happened, but I’ve realized that depending on that kind of a link for my traffic would be insane.

Early this morning I resubmitted an article I had written about a month ago. By resubmit I mean I changed one thing and put the link out there in cyberspace where I knew (or rather hoped) it would gain some attention. The first time around the link had received a grand total of 34 views between July 18th and this morning. It peaked at 17 views on 7/20/07. All of that changed when I reposted it. In very quick order it was Dugg, Stumbled, and popping up on Reddit. Because Google Analytics isn’t real time I can’t tell the exact effects of this will be, but it is looking pretty good at this point. If I had been listening for the wave, in other words been listening for hype, I would have missed the opportunity altogether.

Riding the wave

Once you realize what is happening the next step is to actually paddle out to meet the wave. When I looked at my Word Press dashboard I realized that I had a pingback from someone I had never heard of before. I quickly went and visited the site in question. The sites author has been kind enough to put a counter for the number of people who have read his link back to me. At the time it was around 30 or 35 reads. Instead of admiring my link I got to work paddling out to meet the wave. I quickly stumbled and dugg that page. The last I checked the meter is reading 406 reads. Which translates to an increase of about 370 views over the past 2 hours. And I reaped the rewards as well. Because that page links to my article my traffic spiked from that as well. Without ever talking to this person or even having heard of them before (and I doubt they had heard of me) we became a two man viral marketing team. Each of us benefitted from the work of the other in terms of an increase in traffic.

Timing is everything

There’s much more to this than a single link causing my article to rise from the grave. It has much more to do with timing. The words keywords “ron paul” have been popular for several weeks now, and to be honest that is part of the reason I wrote the article originally. I was on Technorati taking a look around and saw it at the top of the list. So I wrote the article. Like I said before it didn’t take off at all. This time around it did and that’s because I timed it. Now almost everyone knows who Ron Paul is, and even if they don’t have an opinion on him he’s become main stream enough that his name is recognized. By putting the article back out there now people are more likely to read it, because in some respects it is like familiar territory to them.

Avoid the undertow

While surfing the wave is great fun at some point it will collapse and unless you are prepared you could get sucked down into it. You need to realize when this is happening. Since the majority of traffic on the article I’ve been discussion has been generated either directly or indirectly via digg and stumble I realize that it won’t last. It won’t keep generating traffic for me. The key is to realize when it has run its course. That’s part of the reason why I thought this article was so important to write now instead of in a week or two when I had originally intended to do it. By then it will be to late and you won’t get the benefit of seeing the whole process in action.

Once the wave starts to collapse (e.g. a significant drop in the page views) it is important to exit gracefully. Sitting there and beating a dead horse won’t help you or anyone else out at all. Before you are finished however make sure to capitalize on the momentum you gained. Maybe write a follow up article or something that ties in with your original piece and yet is able to stand on its own.