Comments on: Measuring Your Blog’s Success: It’s Not All About Numbers

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:20:14 +0000

It’s very tricky Trace, balancing results and building relationships. You almost always have to sacrifice one of the other. I have experience from both ends of the spectrum. Personally, with Life Without Pants, I have branded myself as someone who is very enthusiastic about promoting community conversation – but as I continue to evolve, I now find myself wondering how to appeal to a wider audience, how to further optimize for more organic traffic, etc.

Professionally, in my work as a ‘community manager’ I see the exact opposite with clients. The traffic is there, the eyes-on impressions are huge, but the level of interaction is slim to none. So my job there is to replicate what’s happening there, while continuing to build traffic. It doesn’t have to be about one or the other, but balancing the two is far from an easy task.

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:20:00 +0000

By: Trace Cohen

Trace Cohen — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:35:16 +0000

At first we based all of our “success” on the amount of unique visitors to our blog. Using SEO and other tactics to drive users to our site, the numbers have been steadily increasing to hundreds of readers a day. This brings up the problem though of quality over quantity as we don’t get as many comments as other blogs do in our niche who receive far less traffic. Once we build up our following a little more we will probably move to more of a community blog and try to make it more interactive.

A major problem though is that it is a double edged sword; we’re trying to build a business around it and unfortunately cant be caught with our pants off.

By: Trace Cohen

Trace Cohen — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 16:35:00 +0000

A major problem though is that it is a double edged sword; we’re trying to build a business around it and unfortunately cant be caught with our pants off.

By: Ana from far away

Ana from far away — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:46:32 +0000

I started blogging for real since May I think, I have only 31 followers but they are my favorite ones! I still remember the day I saw that I had a follower! I started writing for me only at first, but know I like to also write for other people.
For me a successful post depends on 2 things: how much I enjoyed writing it and the types of comments I get, not the amount. I like when I help someone to feel better about life with a motivating post, or just to laugh with a really stupid one.
My favorite posts are the ones that talk about just being happy and positive… As I mentioned in my blog, I might sound repetitive… but I just love writing about happy things! It makes me happy, and I know that they can make someone else happy.

By: Ana from far away

Ana from far away — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:46:00 +0000

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:41:28 +0000

@Elisa. This was a big one for me, and you summed it up perfectly. Carlos had a post earlier this week about the ease of sharing content, and while it may only take a couple clicks to re-tweet a blog post, subconsciously it means that person took away enough value to share it with others – at least, that’s how I approach the ‘sharing’ process. Couldn’t have said it better myself Elisa.

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:41:00 +0000

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:33:13 +0000

@Dan. Happy that I could inspire all of this thought within you. I would love to hear more about what your experience and what you do, you’ll have to shoot me an email when you have some time.

Also, cheers to you for posting daily – I’ve tried my hand in daily posting and I just can’t do it – I find myself to be too long winded – I’ll spend a good couple hours (at least) on a blog post depending on the topic. One thing I am trying to do – to challenge myself – is to write short, concise, powerful posts (think Seth Godin with slightly more substance). The challenge is not sacrificing quality for more quantity. Life Without Pants will continue evolve!

By: Matt

Matt — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 01:33:00 +0000

@Dan. Happy that I could inspire all of this thought within you. I would love to hear more about what your experience and what you do, you’ll have to shoot me an email when you have some time.