Getting people to visit my website

Increase website traffic.

Increase website visitors.

Get more people.

Those 9 (nine) words plus the 6 (six) in the subject line are enough to guarantee this blog will get slammed by visitors in the next few days.

How do I know?

I’ve been experimenting. Alot.

Rewind back 3 years ago when I first started this particular  blog – it was the trendy thing to do here in Melbourne, Australia, because people were  expecting that if you knew what you were talking about in digital, you would put your money where your mouth was and write it up for all to see – and shoot at.

Like most blog writers I follow, I started this particular blog for a couple of reasons: a place to crystallise random thoughts; somewhere to park some business concepts and ideas I had been nurturing and not least of all, to play around with the key words and meta whatsits that live within these pages to see what effect they would have on traffic. Ostensibly this was for the benefit of my clients and to ensure ongoing continuity in my viable employment.

In recent months, I haven’t really touched this platform, because I’ve been busy playing dad to my 1  & 3 year olds, trying my best to be a good husband to my wonderful wife, selling the  family home and starting a new job. Been a bit busy really. However courtesy of my Blackberry, I’ve noticed my hosting traffic going into orbit, due in now small part to the  3 articles on:

1. The up and coming new McClaren MP412C car http://www.theculturemind.com/2009/07/mclaren-f1-reborn-2/
2. Cannondale Mountain Bikes http://www.theculturemind.com/2009/04/mountain-bike-cannondale/
3. Request for Tender (RFT) process. http://www.theculturemind.com/2011/02/the-perils-of-the-rft-rfp-rfq-eoi-pitch-process-for-business/

Now in all seriousness, these articles have absolutely nothing to do with each other aside from being within the same blog location/address. I won’t probably ever be able to afford a new McLaren (costing somewhere north of AUD $500,000), I actually ride Cannondale’s arch nemesis in a Specialized and RFT’s – well they can go blow – I hate them, as they are on the whole a ridiculous waste of time, not withstanding the fact I’m quite good at responding to them.

What twigged the traffic increase exponentially, was the fact I had to login and remove the pictures off the McClaren post, which I wrote 22+ months ago, because the visitor load was pinging my upper bandwidth. I logged in, removed the pictures and republished. The WordPress Platform, which I use to run this site, in its wisdom duly archived off my previous post and I got a brand new URL, which was annotated with a #2.

Curious, I Googled the article and lo and behold it pops up in the search results. Now here it gets interesting. The previous post was annoted “mclaren-f1-reborn” where as the new post was mclaren-f1-reborn-2/ . Within about 3 hours of me publishing the new post, sans pictures and with the #2, I thought, cool, I’ll drop the bandwidth from people finding the post, because its got a new URL. Wrong. My bandwidth trebled. Not pesky spider traffic either, but proper clicking visitors.

Fascinated, I changed the now pictureless post and re-added the original YouTube Video and republished. Further Increased traffic load.

Additional, basic things to add relevance and increase the site load for this post, which will guarantee extra traffic:

• post tags, correctly referencing search type terms
• cross links within the post to articles of note and reference articles
• cross links to external 3rd party websites, again of relevance
• actually writing an article that has relevance
• ensuring your URL is human readable and has hyphens/dashes – separating words and not spaces or %20 characters
• Using a title for the post which is relevant easily digestible

How Interesting.

Mountain Bike: Cannondale

Cannondale Rush Team Replica 2009

Cannondale Scalpal Team Carbon 2009

Headquartered in Bethel, Connecticut, USA, Cannondale designs, develops and produces bicycles at its factory in Bedford, Pennsylvania, USA. Owned by Dorel Industries, Cannondale operates subsidiaries in Holland, Switzerland, Japan, and Australia.

Cannondales 2009 Mantra is “The Good Fight”. Throughout their website, they have extensive references to fighting to be different, daring to innovate in the face of adversity and challenging the norm. The folk at Cannondale, to be fair can be called a proud lot. From their point of view, it is all driving toward being the best.

And that’s the thing about Cannondale – they ARE different. And that difference has seen their fair share of elite cyclists making up Team Cannondale and a covey of podium wins. The Lefty front shock mountain bikes are an eye opener when you first see them and when you ride one… lets just say you would never have realised how quick and supple your steering could be – it’s awesome. The lower inertia weight of just the one stauncheon and the reduced mass, all contribute to a superb ride. Anytime I see a Cannondale up close, I always marvel at the finish the bikes have – hand polished weld lines, to show up flaws and sub fractures during manufacturer and the famous “Built in USA, Lifetime Warranty” emblazoned upon the frame.

The range is extensive, covering road bikes as well as mountain bikes. Mountain bike wise, they have some of the most well regarded frame geometries out there:

* Scalpal – Cross Country/Race
* Rush – 24 hour/Endurance/Marathon
* Moto/Rize – All Mountain
* Perp/Judge – Downhill
* Taurine/Caffeine – Hardtail

Each of the above ranges are topped off by the Team variants, often with extra high spec goodies. Of particular note with the Scalpal is that it doesn’t actually have a pivot in its rear suspension where the chainstay meets the crank – it is made out a light weight, flexible carbon monocoque, which allows enough bend for the lean 3.5 inches of travel to take out the jitter in your ride. It’s a light and ultra fast bike.

Cannondale also do a cracking range of self branded components – warranting a closer look are the aforementioned Lefty single stancheon front shock, Hollowgram Cranksets and a good range of mountain bike shoes (I ride a pair).

Notable Factory Riders & Teams:

* Team Liquigas (Tour de France/Road)
* Chrissie Wellington – Triathlon
* Mirinda Carfrae – Triathlon
* Tinker Jurez – 24 Hour Enduro MTB
* Team Monivie

The Cannondale website keeps on improving every time I go there. Sometimes I wistfully wish I was part of team Cannondale and had one stored under the house instead of my Specialized, the site doing such a good job of imparting that sense of clan and adventure. Structurally, one of the best MTB websites around – it has good font size, images are crystal clear and the layout of product is excellent. The introduction landing page which directs you to the appropriate country makes use of flash in such a way, I just want to shut the laptop lid and jump on my bike and go for a spin – the action footage is fantastic. Continuing the theme, once you are in the site, language is written in a manner which appeals to mountain bikers – think the 24 hour enduro set, who subsist on 3 hours sleep, 9 litres of Gatorade, Musashi Mongrel Bars, burning through 2 sets of Lithium Ion batteries on their $600 HID lighting systems and riding upwards of 140km with our 2 team mates….

Cannondale’s site inspires – Go ride.

http://www.cannondale.com