A blogger recently told me how his analytics software was unavailable for several days.
He went on to say how much more he enjoyed blogging and social networking his business during that period; without the pressure of checking ‘the numbers’ after everything he did.
Freedom to blog and connect
He kept saying how he enjoyed the freedom to really connect with his readers and those in his network; without the worry of whether his last blog post, tweet or facebook entry was driving visitors to his blog or not.
Although (like me) this blogger sells a service via his blog and not a product or advertising, he says he is obsessive about checking his statistics. It guides everything he does.
Like many service providers, I monetize jimsmarketingblog.com by attracting enquiries from people who read my work and then contact me, when they want someone to help them market their small business or boost their profits.
As a result, I only write posts if I believe people will find them useful, but I base the decision on what to write exclusively on whether I feel the post has value – NOT it’s potential to go viral or attract hits!
Because of this, you will see posts here like this one, which I know in advance will only get a small number of comments, next to the previous post, which currently has over 70 comments. You will see other posts here with over 250 comments, next to posts with 20 or so. The reason this happens, is that if I believe a post like this one, is offering a valuable message, I will write it – even though it’s not a sexy marketing topic.
Give everything you believe your readers need
I believe that it’s important for everyone, but for service providers especially, to write posts based on what we believe to be valuable to our readers; even if it’s not always going to be a viral post or get hundreds of comments. The irony, is that this approach has helped this blog grow from it’s launch a few months ago, to a couple of thousand unique visitors a day (often far more.)
The numbers are important for every commercial blog, but they should not be the only driver of what we decide to say! After all, some of your least populist output, can be the most interesting to a section of your blog’s community.
Related posts:
Some times the Sexy Flashy blogs drive people away, they see them as just another ploy or something to pull people in.
I have never been a good or creative writer, but still have the desire to write and share with those that might be interested.
Thank you again for the way in which you are contributing to the online community.
Jim,
You’ve just given me a lot of common sense, very useful information. Thank you
Well Jim… The problem is that people have not time to decide if product/service/information is useful.
They need sexy title which lead them to the information (post).
I’m a woman of few words! Love it! I agree with a fellow that commented above, this is one of the best sites I’ve been on. The reading is great. Thanks for following me on Twitter. Sincerely, Tami
Some extremely generous comments above; thank you.
I work hard to ensure that what I post on this blog is as valuable as possible to as many people as possible.
Whilst all feedback is good, such positive feedback as you have given here makes all the work worthwhile.
Thank You!
You know, because my blog is designed to generate regional advertising, I take the long view and don’t worry too much if a post doesn’t generate traffic that day. We have these art reviews which don’t attract huge first-day hit numbers, but people find our blog by searching for reviews of these exhibits, and it’s a niche our blog can fill. My hope is these readers will keep coming back.
My main goal is keeping up to my every day posting schedule, without publishing anything that’s an outright embarrassment. And that keeps me busy.
This inspired me to go a couple days without looking at analytics. Sometimes it is a good idea to just take a step back once in awhile focus on other tactics.
Since I’m not very advanced when it comes to technology and blogging, I am not an expert in “checking the numbers” or even knowing how to capture them. I know this is important and I plan to continue learning, but for now, I’d rather just write about things that interest me that might be useful for someone else out there. Needless to say, I really appreciated this post.