It is that time again where we visit the past week of posts and events that have taken place here at GrandmasterB HQ. I am struggling to find the words to explain how successful the blog has been over the past week and for the month of July thus far. I am so excited about the direction of the blog; I feel like a kid in a candy store.

The image to the left summarizes the journey that I have been on with this site over the past four months, and I’m finally realizing that what I’m doing is being noticed. I know that most of you who visit the blog and are regular readers know how passionate I am about the tutorials that I have written thus far. I have put a lot of time and effort into each one to ensure that they are accurate, detailed and helpful to my readers. That hard work and dedication to providing my readers with a valuable content has translated into quality linkbacks and a record month for traffic to the site. In a single week, with all of the linkbacks to the tutorials I managed a whopping 5,101 page views and a grand total of 7,196 page views for the month of July; shattering the previous record of 5,169 set in May.

I know now just how powerful receiving links back to your site can be and what an impact they can have on making a blog successful. My tutorial for creating Killer Metallic Text has been linked on three major Photoshop Tutorial sites thus far, and they’re providing a steady stream of traffic:

Overall, that one tutorial (parts one and two) has received over 5,200 page views and the numbers keep increasing daily. If you read my post regarding linkbaiting, you can see that the tutorials that I’ve written follow the Five Laws of Persuasive Blogging (well two of them for sure): Giving readers something of value and showing them “how-to” do it. I must admit that when I wrote the tutorials, the thought of them being linkbait never crossed my mind. It was quite accidental; which I guess is the purest form of linkbait around.

July 9: Zero Punctuation: LEGO Indian Jones - A rather hilarious video review of the newest game from Travelers Tales and Lucasarts centered in the LEGO universe.

July 10: T-Shirt Factory: Vector Artwork Treasure Chest - A review of one of the coolest sites I’ve seen in a long time. It’s a veritable treasure trove of vector resources that would make any Illustrator user giddy as a school girl.

July 13: What is Linkbait? Guidelines for Building Links - After doing some research I’ve found that linkbait; while being a powerful ally in building your blogs traffic can also be used for evil. While there are no set in stone rules for linkbaiting you can use this post to guide you along the way.

Well, that’s it for this weeks edition of the Week in Review for July 6 through 13. I would like to give a special shout out to my network of bloggers that have guided me through this blogging journey and helped me achieve the success that I’ve seen thus far.

  • Cuzoogle - Cuzzy, you’ve been a great help and given me some great ideas for building up my little blog.
  • BuzzMyBlog - Jeff has been pointing me in the right direction since day one. If you’re new to the concept of blogging you should definitely check out his site. It’s a terrific resource! Check out his other hilarious site too…BuzzPirates.com
  • TheRandomForest - Forest has played a vital role in helping me get my content noticed. If you want to become a full-time blogger check out his site. Also, if you could give his newest site Frugal Zeitgeist some buzz it would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all of your help guys…can’t wait to see what our network can do in the future.

~ GrandmasterB