LyteByte

Experiments are the ones which open closed doors to an unknown realm and leads to revolution. Here is a list of experiments that were conducted online that changed their blog stature forever. All these experiments are repeatable, so try out for yourself and increase your blogs value and stature.

It’s a huge list of experiments, so try to book mark this page and refer to this whenever you are taking a step or approach in a particular experiment.

List of Experiments Considered are,
1. To Increase Page Rank and Links
2. Technorati Rank
3. Traffic from Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and other social bookmarking sites
4. Social Community Site – MyBlogLog
5. Alexa Rank
6. Alexa Review
7. Technorati Favourite and WTF
8. Feed Subscribers Count

Page Rank and Links

Page Rank is one of the important factor when it comes to search engine and to achieve higher SERP. The Google’s and other major search engine algorithm are majorly based on the number of incoming links to a site and by the quality of the links.

One of the traditional methods is by exchanging links at forums and by contacting likeminded bloggers. This is a very slow process to build incoming links.

The evil John Chow (That’s what he calls himself!) came up with an idea to exchange a link for a review. He did not put up those thousands of links in his sidebar; instead he put them in forms of batches in single posts. As of now there are 57 posts with 10 links in each of them and that gives 570 reviews!

This method is very one-sided as the site which is being reviewed gets all the links and benefits while the other site gets only one link and that link also points to the review. So this is nothing but a pingback or trackback link.

This method works for bloggers who have considerably grown and have traffic so that they can use this method to get links and grow exponentially. Usually only the beginners fall for this kind of experiment. Anyhow a link to site is a new link and it’s always considered valuable. I also have seen quite a number of people who have been trying to imitate John’s experiment.

Technorati Rank

Technorati Rank has also become one of the important criteria by which a blog is weighed upon. This also works by the number of incoming links. Here the important factor is not only the number of incoming links but from how many different sites or blogs.

John’s experiment builds this also as it’s based on incoming links.

Other Ways to Improve Incoming Links
1) Link to other blogs in your posts, most likely they will do the same.
2) Comment well on blogs which have ‘Top Commentors’ plugin. (Yeah I have it here, so comment more)

Traffic

The main motive behind improving the ranks in different sector is to increase the traffic. When you gain a stable traffic, all the others come by default. As many people read your blog, the chances of people linking to your blog or marking it in social sites are high. But, there needs to be an initial momentum.

These are some of the experiments which get that initial momentum:
When it comes to building traffic momentum, what comes to mind is digg, stumbleupon, reddit etc. Let’s look one by one.

Digg

Digg being one of the first social sites, it still has its own popularity. Seomoz conducted an experiment to make it to the digg front page and they succeeded and Daniel wrote an article about it under the name ‘Anatomy of a Super Digg‘. If you read this you will get an idea of what exactly can happen if you get to the digg’s home page.

But what he missed was to mention, how he got to the digg’s home page. This topic was covered in detail by SEO Black Hat under the post titled ‘10 Steps to Guarantee You Make the Digg Front Page‘. He talks about the approach to be taken, what to write and how to convince others that digging this is worthwhile. Extending this article Pronet adds another 5 ways that will you to get to the digg’s homepage.

To sum it all, this is what they have to say,
1. Make a list or tutorial headline.
2. Write about digg.
3. Appeal to the Apple fanboys.
4. Doom and Gloom about how Global Warming will destroy us all.
5. Write about how great Firefox is.
6. Remember: Walmart, George Bush, and Fox News have NEVER done ANYTHING right.
7. Repeat after me: “Microsoft sucks, Microsoft Sucks, Microsoft Sucks.”
8. Make up outrageous statistics that you have not researched.
9. Insult as many groups as you can.
10. Include the world’s slowest loading plugin.
5 more from Pronet,
11. Write about Google.
12. Write a catchy title
13. Write in-depth analysis
14. Digg users love YouTube and Ubuntu
15. Use buzz words

Apart from this, JohnTP adds the Tips he got from a Top 10 Digg User on ‘How to get to the FrontPage’. If you are still wondering why there is so much buzz about digg, know that getting on the digg’s homepage can bring anywhere from 10,000 to 30,000+ visitors and over 1,000 links after three weeks.

Stumbleupon

As far as Lyte Byte is concerned, stumbleupon is one of the major traffic provider. Dosh Dosh has done an experiment with Stumbleupon and he has given ‘A Comprehensive Guide to StumbleUpon‘ with complete detail and explanation on these various titles.

What is Stumble Upon?
How do I get started with Stumble Upon?
How do I get started with Stumble Upon?
Why should I use Stumble Upon?
What type of traffic can I get from StumbleUpon?
How can I ensure repeat visits to my website?
How can I use Stumble Upon to increase my blog feed/newsletter subscribers?
How many visitors can I get from Stumble Upon?
What determines how much traffic I receive from StumbleUpon?
Are there any ways to game StumbleUpon and increase the traffic I receive?
How do I monetize StumbleUpon Traffic and make money from it?

Hardly few write an article with such a detail and here are some of the notable benefits of Stumbleupon Traffic.

1. Generate rapid exposure
2. Establish a reader base
3. Gain numerous backlinks
4. Traffic is long-term

Also read, ‘How to Use StumbleUpon for Your Business: The Definitive Guide‘ from 10e20.

Reddit

Maki has done experiment with reddit too but he has written an article about his experience in 10e20. Reddit is no different from other social sites which works based on the number of votes and this also has a huge potential in bringing lots of traffic. But many settle with only Digg and Stumbleupon.

Maki talks about in his post titled, ‘Reddit – Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About It‘. He covers these ideas,

Why should you bother with Reddit?
How do I get started on Reddit?
Submitting Links on Reddit
Reddit’s Front Page: Observations on Topics, Votes and Link Duration
How long will a story remain on the Reddit front page?
Reddit’s Top Links Section: Fodder for Analysis
How to Become a Reddit Power User
Networking in Reddit
Getting on the Reddit Homepage
Seven Tactics to Get Your Link on Reddit’s Front Page

According to him, these are the 7 proven strategies to get to Reddit Home page:

1. Create a sub-domain or individual web page for Reddit submissions
2. Build up your user profile in the community
3. Send Targeted Messages to Reddit Friends
4. Form a Private Reddit Voting party
5. Interpret and Critique News Material or other Popular Links
6. Take Advantage of On-Site Traffic
7. Optimize your Submissions

Other Bookmarking Sites

There are also other social bookmarking sites like delicious, which bring lots of traffic and exposure. They are also built on the same basis as these sites, so you can have the same approach to get the best out of them. But before that learn about the algorithm of social sites like Digg, Reddit orNetscape

MyBlogLog

The other social site which brings a considerable amount of traffic and regular readers is MyBlogLog.
Here are some of the good articles which give ‘Tips on how to get more traffic from MyBlogLog’,

‘MyBloglog – More ways to get traffic to your site‘ from Google Organic
‘MyBlogLog 101‘ – Marketing Hipster

Alexa Rank

Alexa Rank is used to measure the traffic of a site or blog. In spite of all its inaccuracies, it’s been widely used to measure a blog’s worthiness. Ideally, if you get more traffic, the Alexa Rank should improve but these experiments conducted proved to improve the alexa ranks much faster.

This experiment was an initiative started by Dosh Dosh, where he explains the ‘20 Quick Ways to Increase Your Alexa Rank‘. The more important points were explained by connected Internet.

1. Install the Alexa toolbar or Firefox’s SearchStatus extension
2. Add an Alexa rank widget on your website
3. Encourage others to use the Alexa toolbar.
4. Use Alexa redirects

Technorati Favourites and WTF

Technorati is a blog search engine so if your site is favourited by lots of people or break into the list of ‘Top 100 Most favourite’ list, the worthiness of your blog goes high. The end result is more hits from the searches made in Technorati. You can read more about this experiment at ‘Dosh Dosh’s Ultimate Technorati Favorites Exchange: An Interactive Experiment’. The easy way to join others in exchanging technorati favourite is by following Garry Conn’s idea.

According to Maki, Technorati’s ‘Where’s the Fire’ (WTF) also has a huge potential as a social site and hence bring lots of traffic s and readers. If you are interested in WTF, learn how to you WTF as a Promotional Strategy for your blog.

Alexa Review

This is not talked about much in the blogosphere as this doesn’t have a direct impact on your blog. If you considering to monetize your blog, Alexa Rank and Alexa Review are considered to be of high value. Kyle from Kylescove talks about exchanging Alexa Reviews.

Feed Subscriber Count

Feed Subscriber count is what tells the number of regular reader and who are interested in following your blog. These numbers are also considered of high value while monetizing your blog using Review Me and such. Collis from North X East has recently conducted an experiment with a new blog that took the subscriber count from 0 to 2000 subscribers in just 12 days.

He states that the following are the reasons by which he achieved this.
1. Choosing the Right Niche
2. Leveraging existing assets and knowledge
3. Writing some pillar articles
4. How we utilized Social media to its best advantage
5. Design to look like a Professional Outfit

Ok, that’s a huge list of experiments and their outcome. You can try out all these experiments in your blog and for sure it will change its stature forever!

If you come across any other experiments that I have not listed here, be sure to point them out and if I feel it’s appropriate to add them in this list, I will append it to this post and give you full credit. Also if you would like to exchange links in a post, exchange technorati favorite, joining MyBlogLog community or partner in terms of digg or stumbelupon then do drop me a message and I would be happy to do that.

If you liked this post and found it useful, please spread this by digging. Thanks!