Blogging. Are we kidding ourselves?

Warning. This is going to be opionated and pretty much off-the-cuff. (ie. Chickenshit way of saying I haven't fully thought this through - but felt enough to post!).

Are we kidding ourselves with the amount of traffic our blogs are getting? Ignore the Top 100. Think longtail now... All that quality content... All that EFFORT going into regular posting. For how much quantifiable return?

Really?

Was reading the Quirk newsletter just now and came across a link to Decker Marketing - apparently a great blog with some pretty well thought out e-marketing content. Hell yes. It's a FANTASTIC blog. Written by a kingpin in the e-business industry.

Quirk says:

As Senior Manager of Dell Consumer eBusiness for four years, Sam Decker drove the growth in online conversion rates and consumer online sales to over $3 billion. He launched Dell's Consumer CRM & Segmentation team, improving processes for sales call routing, direct mail, email, and customer experience. He's running a great blog - tune in for some of his thoughts and insights.

Hell's teeth. That's a big corporate boy made good in the world of new media and technology. He's achieved that nirvana that we'll all (soon) start striving for - REAL business value out of online. It ain't no Bubble 2.0.

So - blow me sideways when I decided to crumble under the weight of his site stats!


*stunned silence*

142 visits per day on average. 60 seconds per visit on average. Hardly enough to read the quality content this guy is posting. OK. So maybe he has a million RSS subscribers - but based on that stat - I doubt it.

Reasons?

1. That stats widget is wrong.
2. Um.

Which got me thinking... All Scrubbed Up gets roughly 140 visits per day. It's a cutesy medical blog that relies on a loyal readership of a 100 or so and tons of traffic from good rankings on "Scrubs Bloopers" and "Dr. Cox Quotes"!

OK, I like it. It's in my "stable". But in terms of medical expertise it's a kudotjie in comparison.

Are we kidding ourselves? We spend a LOT of time writing posts, generating content - social networking ourselves out in the great beyond. What if nobody is reading? What if our hard worked 200 uniques per day are 75% Google traffic from dodgy Russians who happened upon our art by chance of a badly spelt keyword?

What if... nobody is reading?

Ego-induced paranoia aside - the South African blogging industry has a long way to go. Our South African online media consumption audience has a long way to grow. Of course, it wouldn't be anywhere without the efforts of our pioneering few - but doesn't it feel a bit frustrating? Yelling out into the wilderness?

There is just so much that we don't understand about this Web 2.0 thing yet. So much leverage we have yet to gain.

Sad. Or exciting?

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Comments

  1. I know exactly how you feel - there's so much stuff out there, and 99% of it is crap - but we feel this pressure to keep posting content to our sites (which, by the way, we think our blog postings are in the 1% of good stuff!) so that maybe, one day we'll be as popular as Gizmodo, SDSJ etc.

    When we grow up will we be a top international blog/site? ... I hope so.

    The only way to find out is to keep blogging away and hope someone notices, and tells their friend about the opinionated piece of trash they read online with pictures of naked ladies who are available in their local area on the same page.

    ReplyDelete
  2. amen brother! and i have PARTICULARLY opinionated trash :)

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  3. Amen brutha. I am a small fish, barely a tadpole, in this big-@ss ocean and I feel exactly the same way. I really put a lot of effort into my daily posts, I answer all of my comments and I do obsess over my stats.

    According to SiteMeter I average 183 visits per day with an average visit length of 2:33. My average page views are 1.6.

    That's not a huge rate of return, as you have noted.

    I think it comes down to marketing. I haven't figured this one out yet. I am trying to figure out how to be seen by more people, hence BuzzFuse. That's where I found you, incidentally.

    Have you seen a big improvement since joining? I've only been a member for three days now with three posts under my belt. Oh yeah, look at me crow, baby!

    Anyway, I have high hopes for BuzzFuse and I feel your pain.

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  4. Well, I pretty much get stoked for every single new reader - so good on Buzzfuse for that :)

    I've noticed a bit of extra traffic. Nothing hectic.

    PRO: Every item I release is getting pushed to 100 people.

    CON: Every item I release is getting pushed to 100 people.

    :)

    Nah. I think there's something there. It'll be interesting to see how it develops as more people register. Still a pretty small community.

    I'm waiting for recommendations to start flowing. After all, the whole idea is "peer review"...

    Look forward to your next moth post. :)

    Check out http://allscrubedup.blogspot.com - our medical blog - you'll enjoy...

    ReplyDelete

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