Increasing Your Associated Content Page Views: How I Broke All the Rules and Still Average 4,700 Views Per Article

A lot of people on Associated Content have tips for how you can increase your page views. The funny thing is, many of these people haven't been able to increase their own. It's hard for me to consider someone that's written 200 articles and barely broken 100,000 views an expert in attracting readers.

For example, many of the people that write "how-to" articles on increasing your page views (and yet have very low page views per article) say you should post in online forums, post in AC forums, comment on other people's articles to draw them to yours, post bulletins, notes or send e-mails announcing your new content, add lots of favorites so you'll get favorited back, set up a blog, use social bookmarking and write for keyword density.

Well, I do absolutely NONE of these things, and I have one of the highest average views per article on AC, about 4700 views per article.

In fact, I didn't realize my page views per article were so high until I got the AC Top 1000 badge and started comparing my views per article to that of other CPs. Curious as to how I was luring in so many readers when I wasn't promoting my articles, I did a little more detective work.

Here's what I came up with:

My most popular article so far has been "Parents Beware: The Real Meaning of Soulja Boy's 'Superman That Ho." Since I published it in November of last year (about eight months ago) it's gotten about 66,000 hits.

This is partially because Soulja Boy is such a popular rapper right now, (his song "Crank Dat" was the best-selling digital song of all time and had 28,000,000 views on YouTube) and also because it contains useful, little-known information about the smash hit.

If you Google the title of my article, you will find that it is mentioned (and often cut and pasted without linking to my original, unfortunately) in several online forums, there is a YouTube video that references my article, and it even appears (cut and pasted, again unfortunately) on some comments on the Ellen Degeneres show page.

So in this case, the huge success of that article was based on the fact that it provided little-known information about a very hot topic (Soulja Boy and his smash song "Crank Dat") and the result was viral promotion through people posting the information on online forums and mentioning it in videos as a reference.

It also has a strong headline that uses important keywords "Soulja Boy" and "Superman that ho" and does so in such a way that it indicates a warning to parents and invites them to know more.

Another one of my top performing articles is "A Guide To American Idol Auditions for the Wanna Be Superstar: Tips, Tricks and 'Idol" Secrets."

I wrote this article in September of 2006, so I was wondering why this month it's gotten over 8,000 views. Then I realized it was "American Idol" audition time, and people are searching the Internet for audition tips and rules.

After a little Google research, I found out that when you google the phrase "American Idol audition rules," which is a very popular phrase I imagine, my article comes up in the top spot. (Yesterday it was fourth behind only the official "American Idol" site and Wikipedia.)

I believe this is because it has a strong title with many keywords, and the article is well-written with relevant content.

Another of my strongest articles is "Top Ten Songs by 50 Cent," which has earned about 31,000 page views since I wrote it in September of 2006.

This article was in response to an AC guarantee and although I wrote four others like it about various artists, this is the best performing one, probably because 50 Cent is the most popular.

If you Google the phrase "top songs by 50 Cent" my article comes up first. If you Google "best songs by 50 Cent" it also comes up first. This article consistently does about 3,000 to 4,000 views per month, and as long as 50 cent is popular, will continue to do so, because it is easily found through searches for his songs.

Another popular article is "Stopping MySpace Bulletin Spam in Two Steps." This has earned about 11,000 views since I wrote it in September in 2006. The popularity has declined as MySpace spam has become less of a problem. But for those who are still searching for help and use the terms "stopping MySpace spam" in Google, my article will come up third.

Beginning to notice a trend?

Another consistent performer is "How To Start and Maintain Two-Strand Twists as an Alternative to Dreadlocks." Since I wrote this in June or 2007 it's done about 16,000 page views, and consistently does about 1,500-2,000 per month. I believe this is because it provides how-to information that people are likely to search online for, and comes up highly in search engines. For example, if you Google "start two-strand twists" my article comes up second. If you Google "two-strand twists dreadlocks" my article also comes up second.

Another popular article is "Starting Dreadlocks: What to Know Before you Lock." Since I wrote this in June of 2007 it has done about 12,000 page views and does about 1500-2000 per month. LIke the previous article, this provides information that people would be searching for on the web, and comes up highly in search engines; if you Google "starting dreadlocks" my article comes up ninth on the first page, and the title is catchy enough to draw someone in.

Overall, what I've learned from studying the success of my articles is that by far the greatest number of page views you will get come from search engines. Your most efficient and effective promotion efforts will therefore include anything that sets your article up to be highly-ranked by search engines.

So here's what you should focus on to promote your articles:

-Write a strong headline. You'll notice that all of my headlines were not only informative and catchy enough to make people want to click on the article, but they contained the terms people would be searching for. Many contained a colon to allow for expansion on the topic.

-Contrary to what people with low page views will tell you about how to increase your page views, DO NOT worry about keyword density in the article. Writing for keyword density is counterproductive.

I've read articles that are keyword dense and frankly they're horrible. You can tell the writer is writing for keywords and not for human beings, as the same dull phrase is mentioned in every sentence. I NEVER write for keyword density. I keep in mind important words that I should be using, but I never compromise the way I write to include them. I write to be interesting and informative, and that's it.

No one will provide a link in a forum to a boring, repetitive article. I have a feeling that search engines can somehow sniff out the monotone duds as well. Stay on topic and have some style and your article will promote itself.

-Choose topics that are either extremely popular to a large number of people on a short-term basis, or topics that will perennially cater to a smaller set. Soulja Boy and 50 Cent will probably fade in popularity in some point, as will "American Idol." But while they're popular, those topics draw in large numbers of people.

Conversely, the subject of starting dreadlocks and two-strand twists will consistently cater to a small audience over a long period of time. They key is to make sure that your topic has some kind of an audience, even if only for the next few months.

-Focus your efforts on reaching Internet users, not fellow Associated Content CPs. Sorry, but there are a lot more web surfers than there are Content Producers on AC.

I'm only favorited by 5 CPs and my articles aren't generally that highly rated, if they're rated beyond the default 3.0 at all. That means the majority of the people reading my articles are Internet users, not fellow CPs who want to rate and favorite me to make friends.

Conversely, I've seen other CPs with much lower page views who have tons of people favoriting them and all their articles highly rated, because the majority of their audience is likely CPs. If you want to really boost your page views, focus your efforts on Internet users.

-Realize that sending out e-mails and bulletins, posting in forums and putting your AC link in your signature line is better than nothing (I guess) but is NOT an efficient use of your time and is generally not going to significantly increase your page views. While you're scrambling for a few hundred page views, you'd be better off writing so that your article gets ranked highly by search engines and will be promoted by people who find your information useful and share it online in forums, etc.

The key is to work backwards from the goal of being ranked highly by search engines and therefore potentially reaching the millions of people who search for things online every day. Figure out what topics you can write about that people will be searching for, what terms they will be using to search, then write your headline based on that phrase. Write your article as you normally would, keeping keywords in mind but never inserting them unnaturally into your writing.

Keep your article interesting and informative, making sure to provide valuable information that is not readily available somewhere else. Once your article is written, if you want to engage in small-time promotional methods, that's your choice. But just realize that what's REALLY going to bring in the page views is search engines and Internet users linking to your content. Good Luck!!