I’ve given up trying to figure out why certain posts I put on my blog get a better response than others. I haven’t really been tracking it to be truthful. But I have noticed that some posts go through the figurative roof.
Looking at the ‘views per post’ doesn’t help at all. I know that I’ve read several other blogs that purport success secrets to increase your “viewer-ship” and widen your audience. I sometimes read these and wonder how do they know this and how do I know they’re right.
The easy answer is, I don’t. It is relatively easy to set down in front of your laptop and present yourself as some kind of “expert” or ‘know-it-all’ who can help every blogger and potential blogger to achieve their goals. But is blogging really about success?
Success is generally measured by income. We don’t, as a rule, measure success by ‘spiritual growth’ or by how much we enjoy our passion about a certain task, job or hobby.
I definitely don’t measure my blog’s success or failure by monetary means. Nor do I measure it’s “success” by the amount of views received over any given time period. I do get excited when I see that something I written about gets over a thousand views. But to say that I don’t get excited when something else I’ve written gets only one or two views, would be wrong.
I still believe that the main reason, I blog is two-fold. I blog to practise writing and to say the things that I don’t always have another forum to communicate my thoughts or feelings on. Because I am not approaching this as a business or a hobby, but as an end to something else, I do get puzzled about why one blog post gets loads of views and another gets a couple of metaphorical glances.
But that is part of the fun I suppose and in a sense another aspect of learning. I am still writing things that one day I would like to see published. If for no other reason than to say I have managed to accomplish something that I’ve always wanted to do. But the other things I write are not for release yet. I am also, I’m embarrassed to admit, very ‘un-coordinated’ about how and when I write.
This lack of coordination, or self discipline if I’m really honest, means that one day I might write four articles; each one about things that are completely different from one another and on another day be hard pressed to write one. And not for obvious reasons either. On the days I have to really work at writing one article, it’s usually because I can’t force my thoughts in one direction long enough to capture a single topic to discuss, discover or dissect.
I have figured out that blogging is a sort of mutual admiration society of ‘like-minded’ individuals. It appears that “to get” you have “to give” in the area of likes, comments, and to a lesser degree, views. It is in this area too that I find myself guessing a lot.
When I was posting to my first blog, Random Thoughts for a Random World (no a “closed” blog), I was very slow to start commenting on other blogs I read. I then found a blog that I really liked and began commenting. The little “love affair” lasted for a while, then the blogger complained that, although she loved my comments, I was using too much space to do so. In other words, could I please shorten my input.
I was a bit taken aback. I hadn’t written ‘Gone With the Wind‘ length comments, I saved that type of writing for my blogs, so I stopped commenting at all. Not only was I a little insulted, but, I also became very reticent about leaving comments on any blog-post. I got the idea that even though a lot of blog writers finished with a “and what are your thoughts” ending that, some of them at least, didn’t want feedback apart from the ‘you’re so marvelous’ variety.
Confusing.
Still, I’ll keep writing my little blog-posts and keep guessing why some are “popular-ish” and others are not. I will still hesitantly comment on other blogs that I enjoy and either agree with the posts topic or at least agree with the sentiment the author is expressing about his or her topic.
I will, in other words keep practising with the hope that I will progress in my ability to put two or more words together in a sentence and not muck them up too badly.
Related articles
- Thoughts on Blogging (maverickphilosopher.typepad.com)
- Ask an Expert: Does the Length of Your Blog Post Really Matter? (blogs.constantcontact.com)
- Entertainment and Pop Culture Bloggers – Mu Media (jobs.problogger.net)
- The 7 reasons I didn’t post it (stormyscorner.com)
- BlogHer ’12 Interviews: Why Did You Start Blogging? (blogher.com)
- Reflections on Two Weeks of Blogging (gnosticbent.wordpress.com)
- Buccaneer Blogfest 2: About the Blog (scotzig.com)
- How to Shave 20 Minutes Off Your Next Blog Post (hubspot.com)
Oh boy, do I hear you there! Some of my favourites, ones that I’d publish in platinum or gold, get hardly a sniff, and the ones that I put out to fast my fingers are a blur along with my brain, those are the ones that take! But, like I say I like doing it regardless. Glad to see someone else feels the same! 😀
Can’t make sense of the madness, just embrace it! No idea why some things click and the ones you think are the most substantial and profound get no likes. I’m just happy people share.