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SeededBuzz.com helps bloggers grow their traffic and popularity

SeededBuzz.com helps bloggers grow their traffic and popularity

SeededBuzz

SeededBuzz is a site that promises to help bloggers promote themselves.

Blog posts are promoted using what are called Seeds, which are summaries of a blog post that has been written on a topic that you think other bloggers may want to also write about. The idea is other bloggers read these Seeds, get inspired and write about the same topic, and link to the Seed owners post in doing so.

The blogger that has then written about the Seed can then submit their post on the same page as the Seed that inspired them, under what is called Buzz. The idea is both Seeds and Buzz attract visitors and link.

As a way of discovering new topics to write about this looks like a great idea. Seeds that have attracted Buzz and valuable backlinks should also find that their search engine rankings get a welcome boost. Quality links are never easy to come by.

Other community features I like include the ability to receive and offer Guest Posts, and the tagging of Seeds that inspired you for a later date.

Reading other bloggers posts, telling bloggers about your posts, linking to them, messaging them, and offering and receiving guest posts can are all activities that help blogs grow their readership and revenues. They can also all be done manually without this community, but there is no doubt it looks easier and more fun with SeededBuzz’s help.

It’s an idea that Matt Roberts, SeededBuzz’s co-founder had designed and planned for almost 18 months, with the final launch coming at the turn of this year. What’s great is within a few short months over 3,000 blogs have applied to become members and the community is gathering a loyal following.

Members blogs are reviewed before they are accepted. “Matt Roberts, SeededBuzz’s founder says that this screening process has become an essential step and community differentiator. Only good, active and more importantly, real blogs can take part. This ensures the content being promoted is of a really high quality and you don’t have to look too hard to find something to inspire you.”

Membership is also subscription based, although the cost is low at $4.95 a month. Trail 30 day memberships are available to everyone, and all features are enabled to give you a feel for the potential benefits.

Exclusive interview with Matt Roberts, founder of SeededBuzz

The Blog Herald recently caught up with SeededBuzz.com founder Matt Roberts and he was kind enough to answer a few questions for us via email. The conversation is below.

BH: What’s your background online and how did that lead up to you starting SeededBuzz.com?

Matt: I’ve been involved in online marketing for 10 years and have worked in large digital agencies advising major brands and even political parties. I have also been involved in blogging personally and as an affiliate. This gives me both a creative and commercial edge.

My motivation and inspiration for SeededBuzz was simply the realization that starting and growing a blog is not easy and most fail. SeededBuzz was created in response to this and is designed to make it much easier for bloggers to promote themselves by helping them to replicate the strategies and thought processes of really successful blogs. The idea that is central to the whole concept is we want member to write great editorial content that other bloggers may want to write about and link to. This content we call Seeds.

The types of Seeds that do really well on SeededBuzz are the ones that inspire others and make continuing or evolving the debate easy. A good example is this recent post called ‘what has blogging taught you‘. Other members quickly started writing about it and in a few day 3 other bloggers have written posts on the same topic and linked to the original author that inspired them. The blog which in this case is called Better in Bulk also will have received direct traffic, a tweet and a stumble.

As well as learning to write posts that other bloggers want to feature, SeededBuzz also has an SEO angle. When a blogger builds links from other bloggers, Google takes note and the blog gains more authority, posts rank higher and traffic increases. Another feature that continues the theme of making strategies that are proven to make blogs more successful, more accessible is our Guest Posting feature. If you see a blog topic you like and would like another blogger to write about it for you, all you need to do is publish an invite. Other members can then get in touch via Private Message to discuss writing the Guest Post for you.

BH: Over the years, blogging seems to have lost some of it’s core values, like how bloggers used to heavily link out to other blogs and sites as a way to let their readers know about interesting things. In my opinion, much of the external linking mindset has been lost due to bloggers concentrating too heavily on SEO and leaking SEO juice via the external linking. What are your thoughts on this and was it used as a factor in setting up SeededBuzz.com?

Matt: Absolutely. I have noticed this trend to and think it’s a real shame. In fact we use it as one of the selection criteria for membership. If we can’t see evidence of a blogger taking an interest in other blogs and linking to them, we are unlikely to accept them. Blogging is meant to be sociable and I see thousands of very unsociable blogs and think bloggers that are like this have missed the point a little. It is true that link juice is leaves your site via external links, but it also true that you attract more links by being sociable, so I think there is usually a net gain.

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BH: Do you think ‘blogging as a business’ has had a positive or negative effect on the way blogging has evolved?

Matt: For me commercial blogging has had both a positive and negative effect on blogging. For bloggers that have used the motivation of making money to push them to create a great product with a constant stream of interesting and popular editorial I think the carrot of cash is in everyones interest. The flip slide this is the growing number of blogs where every post is a product feature or voucher code, or the content is not original and taken from syndication sources without any editorial integrity applied. For me, these are not really blogs and don’t have any real value.

BH: Some people out there may look at SeededBuzz in a negative light since the way it’s promoted leans toward links and search engine juice. What will you say to those people?

Matt: Making it easy to promote and sharing great content ideas is central to the SeededBuzz concept not link building. However, links are important and are a sign that this process is working effectively. Whether we like it or not, links are a significant part of search engine algorithms and this is a fact that can not be ignored by any website that hopes to increase traffic from natural search engine results. I think SeededBuzz get’s the balance right and for that reason it’s a good community to get involved in.

BH: There have been similar services and communities to SeededBuzz in the past and they’ve fallen by the wayside. How do you see your community flourishing after so many fell before you?

Matt: For me SeededBuzz is unique in it’s approach and positioning however that doesn’t mean we have got the product right. This is why we have spend a lot of time listening to our members suggestions for how to make the community better. Whether it’s been simple things like the addition of new categories, or the addition of more significant features like tagging posts that you want to write about at a later date, we’re determined to make the site an enjoyable and effective way to grow blog traffic and meet other bloggers.

BH: Stats. Numbers. Projected growth. Blog Herald readers want them :-)

Matt: Since January we have reviewed over 3,000 blogs and accepted just over 1,000. It’s not easy or nice to reject blogs but we want the blogs that take part to both benefit and make a contribution. We are now in a position where we are happy that the site does what it is meant to in terms of increasing traffic, links etc. and we are going to be more aggressively attracting new members. Our target is to have 10,000 active members by the end of the year.

Disclosure: SeededBuzz.com is a sponsor of the Blog Herald as well as several other SplashPress Media sites.

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