In a new series on AndrewPavelski.com, I’ve decided to dig deeper into the depths of successful blogs and discover what makes them so successful. As you can see, I’ve added a new category entitled “Successful Blogs” that I will be updating on a weekly basis. This week, I’ve decided to blog about Alan Johnson, owner of The Rating Blog, who was able to go from ZERO RSS subscribers to 1,000 in less than 30 days! I’ve decided to analyze his current blogging success story and write my interpretation of what has made his success skyrocket in such a short period of time.

So how did Alan Johnson create such a popular blog in such a short period of time?

He has a solid layout and solid “brand” — First of all, he started his blog with what I think is a solid layout and “brand.” The Rating Blog doesn’t have a super catchy design, but the header is unique and does a good job of branding his blog. He edited his theme to put in some 125 x 125 advertisements and spiced up the color a bit. His theme looks professional and definitely serves its purpose.

He posts valuable content on a daily basis: whether it’s a new podcast or an article – You’ve got to be “on the grind” and post AT LEAST everyday if you want to even consider quitting your day-job and becoming a full-time blogger. His podcasts’ target his audience perfectly because he has his readers ask him questions they’d like answered the week prior to the next podcast. His articles provide value to his readers and have a catchy writing style — a couple “key” aspects to being a successful blogger.

He conducts interviews with successful online entrepreneurs — Alan targets successful bloggers and arranges an interview. I have found all of his interviews to be great reads because they include insightful blogging advice from people that are already successful! The interviews include great blogging tips and information that everyone can benefit from reading. He has conducted interviews ranging from internet superstar Aaron Wall (SEO Book) to Leo Babauta (Zen Habits). The interviewee’s include great advice, insight, and include things that readers can learn from their past mistakes.

He wrote an e-book: The Online Business Handbook — Writing a free e-book and distributing it to your readers for free is definitely something people enjoy. Everyone loves freebies, especially when they are packed with high-quality information. When people read a free e-book that is informative and is a worthy piece of material, you can bet that they will return to your blog!

He targeted the most popular websites within his niche for commenting — Initially, in the earliest days of The Rating Blog, Alan put in the necessary effort to become the top commenter on all of the most popular blogs (John Chow, Shoemoney, etc.) that displayed the “Top Commenter” widget. He contributed valuable advice in the comments section of popular blogs, and didn’t just spam the websites with short quick comments to get his name up in the ranks. By contributing many comments to the most popular blogs, he earned a free link on their top commenter widget, which helped build more incoming traffic to his website. You’ve got to admit, everyone that visits the popular sites like John Chow want to know: “who is that top commenter Alan Johnson?” “I see him on every popular blog…” They become interested to find out and they check out his blog. When they see his blog filled with solid content, he begins to attract more frequent readers.

He targeted the most popular websites within his niche for guest posting — If you’ve been reading through some of the most popular “make money online” blogs lately, chances are very good that you read a quality post by none other than Alan Johnson. Where he gets the time to write great guest posts is beyond me, but the fact is: he does! He writes on his own blog daily, guest posted on other blogs what seemed to be daily, promotes his blog, and who knows what else… I don’t know if Alan has a day job, but either way, he’s been doing impressive work.

To seal the deal, he ran a HUGE contest — Any contest with $500 dollars first prize in the blogging world can be considered huge! When he is giving away a grand total of over $1,000 dollars worth of prizes, you know that he’s going to attract a big crowd if marketed successfully. He was able to market his contest successfully by including a small blurb at the beginning of each of his guest postings on various popular blogs. Due to the high-quality of his contest prizes, he naturally got a lot of people to participate.

Here were his contest prizes:

1st Prize - $500 via Paypal

2nd Prize - a promotional Bidvertiser account with $200 in free clicks (you won’t even have to provide credit card information)

3rd Prize - a $100 Amex card offered by Copeac

Prizes 4, 5 and 6 - free hosting for one year offered by LunarPages (each prize is worth $95.4)

He has been passionate about his online work — By analyzing his efforts to make his blog a success story and reading his posts, you know that this guy is highly passionate about his work. If he were not passionate, there is no way he would’ve been able to go from RSS ZERO to RSS HERO in less than 30 days!

He’s well organized and doesn’t procrastinate — You’ve got to be well-organized if you plan on accomplishing a feat like Alan’s. After reading his site, it seems to me that he’s got everything well-planned out. He has several sets of article “series” like: “10X10 Popular Myths Exposed,” “Make Money As Simple As 1-2-3,” and “10 Days To Building A Long-Term Website” that are written in an organized fashion and are are of very high caliber. Just reading some of his articles make you realize that Alan does not procrastinate with his website work.

Why did I chose Alan Johnson for this week’s success story?

I think that there is something that everyone can learn from Alan’s experience and apply to their current blogging habits! You can tell that Alan puts forth the necessary effort to succeed and is highly motivated. There is no denying that his accomplishment was quite an amazing feat and I send him my congratulations!