Archive for April, 2008

NDSU Football Players Mike Dragosovich and Joe Mays Featured on DraftGuys.tv

Mike Dragosavich - NDSU v. Minnesota FootballIt is exciting, but certainly not unheard of for a player from North Dakota State University to make it to the NFL. This year, it is a good chance that the Bison will have two.

Former NDSU inside linebacker Joe Mays was drafted in the sixth round of the NFL Draft by the Philadelphia Eagles and former Bison punter Mike Dragosovich was signed as free agent by the New England Patriots.

Both are very upstanding men, deserving of the opportunity to play in the NFL. You can see what kind of men they are by the very candid, yet intelligent interviews they gave with the guys from DraftGuys.tv.

View Mike Dragosovich’s Profile Video

View Joe May’s Profile Video

As a former teammate and player at North Dakota State – I would just like to send them the message that we are all very proud of them and that we wish them the best.

And to all of the other players that helped NDSU go 10-1 in each of the last two seasons, we couldn’t be more proud of you too. Keep up the good work! Go Bison!

*Connect with other NDSU Football fans at BisonFans.com.

Timberwolves Pay the Pick, SEO Rap and Photoshop Disasters

Minnesota Timberwolves LogoTimberwolves Pay the Pick Promotion - Timberwolves.com
I am not sure the average attendance at Minnesota Timberwolves games, however one Timberwolves blog suggested the team was averaging under 15,000 as of mid-December. With the continued losing, it is hard to imagine it got any higher than that.

This year the Timberwolves decided to put together a promotion, selling season tickets at a per ticket dollar amount equal to the team’s lottery draft number. Meaning that if the Timberwolves get the number one pick, each ticket costs one dollar. The kicker is that you have to buy the tickets before the draft, but that didn’t stop me. I picked up my tickets yesterday morning and am very much looking forward to the upcoming season. Go Timberwolves!

Design Code, SEO Rap – Youtube
The Poetic Prophet (AKA The SEO Rapper) breaks down search engine optimization with another marketing rap. This time he describes how web standards and proper design can affect the ranking and conversion of pages on your site. The poetic prophet works at Poplabs in Houston, Tex. I was most impressed by the thoroughness and accuracy of what he says. It is pretty cool.

Red Bull: Gives You Nightmares – Photoshop Disasters
Photoshop Disasters is a pretty funny web site that looks for exactly what is soundslike – photoshop disasters. Readers can submit examples that they find. I hope they don’t check out my web sites. j/k

Measuring Blog Traffic And Setting Goals

When asked by a reader “what I considered ‘decent’ blog traffic?” – I realized that my answer is not very black and white.

As bloggers I think that in a sense we compete against ourselves – Hoping that with post and with each passing month, we can attract more readers.

As we set goals for our blog traffic, I think it is important to look at our purpose. If your blog is very general like mine, then quantity over quality seems to be of the greatest importance.

Alternatively, if your blog is business focused – then the number of new business leads might trump all other measurement metrics.

It is also important to realize the definition of “decent” traffic levels depends on the topic of the blog. For example, if you are blogging about movies, you should aim to attract more visitors than a blogger that follows innovations in rotor gear manufacturing.

A-List Bloggers
Kineda.com measures blog success as the number of links going into a site. Check out this guide to “Are you an A-List Blogebrity?”  A large number of links means that others view you as an authority on certain subject matter and more importantly, Google will view you as an authority as well.

Setting Goals & Actual Numbers
If you have an established blog and make 5 to 10 posts per month, you should hope to attract between 100 and 1,000 visitors per month. If you are a more serious blogger, you may hope you attract between 1,000 and 20,000 visitors per month. And finally if you are professional blogger, you may hope to attract between 20,000 and a million visitors per month.

Blogscapes - Thanks for the blog post idea.

Building Blog Traffic

Everyone has their own little spiel about increasing traffic to your web site and blog. Earlier this week, when I heard Joseph Jaffe speak, his advice was to be in it for the long haul.

Based on my own experience, I couldn’t agree more. Each month it seems I gain a quality link here and there based on the new content I produce. And now it seems as though each post attracts just a little more traffic than the last. 

Here are a few thoughts I have about building blog traffic:

  1. Choose a quality blog host. I recommend using blogger or wordpress.
  2. Pick a topic or series of topics and make that your thing. It will be easier to attract new links if you are offering up bits of information that is new and timely.
  3. Customize your look & feel. This will help your credibility with other bloggers and help you attract links.
  4. Keep at it. If at first you don’t succeed in building your blog traffic, keep at it. It is unlikely that other bloggers will link to your blog if it is brand new because of the high likelihood that your blog could be abandoned.
  5. Mention your blog in as many other social networks that you are a part of.
  6. Submit your content to social bookmarking sites like Digg.
  7. Interact with other bloggers by leaving comments and adding to their discussion. This will help them find your blog and build your credibility.

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About Allan Woodstrom

Minneapolis, MN, USA
Marketing and Communications Specialist
[AllanWoodstrom.com]

Marketing Breakdown

Read all of my marketing insights at MarketingBreakdown.com.
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