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How this guy went from Zero to One Million Pageviews on his Blog

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As you know that we are attending BlogWorld Expo East in New York City. We had a pleasure of attending Jared Polin’s (@froknowsphoto) session in which he shared how he took his site over a million page views over the course of one year. Here is a summary of his story:

First, he is passionate about his subject matter. He lives in a world of excitement about what he writes and is inspired by his past to keep pushing forward. He took the time to learn about the craft he was so passionate about. He surrounded himself with successful and encouraging people. He cut out a lot of the negativity in his life and became more open. He also raised his own self confidence by striving to be happy with himself before he tried to make other people happy.

Once you as a person are ready for success, it is time to start developing your blog for success. First, brainstorm about your brand. Make yourself defined by what you do. Just like you think Caeser Milan when you think of dogs or Gary V when you think of wine, create a strong link between who you are and what you do.

Jared also stresses transparency. Go beyond the buzz words and be truly transparent by owning up to your mistakes. For example, don’t edit a video a thousand time to make it perfect. Your audience wants to know that you are a real person, so act like one. Jared also stresses not starting your site too soon. If you don’t have enough content for people to view at launch, then don’t launch. Wait until you accumulate content and then release content consistently each and every week.

When you do push out content, make it quality content. Find decent quality video, photo, and audio recording technology and use it. A digital camera is better than a cell phone and a cheap external microphone is better than a built in mic. Also, if you can crete your own brand material then do so. A custom logo or a custom introduction music is well worth the time creating it if it makes you stand out.

For your content, use anything and everything that you can find. Some recommendations that Jared mentions include recorded Skype calls with users, free critiques on reader submissions, rapid Q & A’s via Skype, and random recordings of your daily life. This is good, simple content, but if you keep it fun users will keep visiting.

As for platforms, Jared recommends using YouTube to push video content. It is free, easily sharable, has a huge audience, is easy, and it can even earn you money via adsense. Twitter works quite the same way, it is free and it will drive traffic back to your site.

So how do you monezite? First, establish an email list where you can offer exclusive content, contests, ebooks, coaching, etc. From there you can get money from adsense on your content. Also, if you have a unique brand like Jared, you can create branded merchandise and create a profit. A word of warning though, if you do create branded merchandise, use local wholesalers and printers and self shipping to make a profit and provide high quality materials.

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