When you read the title of this post, were you quick to say, “yes?” How do you know? The success of a blog depends upon how you define that success?
How is blogging success defined?
The success of a blog can be defined in any of several ways. It all depends upon what you are trying to accomplish with your blog.
1. Rank
Do you define your success by a ranking such as Alexa or Technorati?
2. Traffic
Would you be satisfied simply by a certain level of consistent traffic?
3.Income
Maybe your blog is a source of income, and your definition of success is a certain level of income per month.
4.Comments
Or maybe you define your success by the number of comments your posts are able stimulate.
It could any of those or any combination of them. It could be in ways that I haven’t even mentioned. If your blog exists to make you a regular income, then just because you’re getting 300 visitors to your blog every day, unless they are buying whatever it is you’re selling, you are not a success.
Does the definition of success change?
As your blog matures and grows, you may find that the goals your originally set for it need to be changed. Most bloggers begin with little more than a desire to reach as many people as possible. As their blog grows, they may find that they develop a more focused interest in their niche. It becomes more refined. Instead of just chasing more readers they may decide that they want traffic of a particular sort. By that I mean they want traffic sources that provide visitors with an interest in whatever they might be selling. It becomes more important to find visitors from search engines. They decide that learning SEO has become a priority. They need to learn how to get ranked on the first page of Google for instance.
Or maybe the focus changes from blogging about oh say widgets in general to a focus on exclusively green widgets. Those are widgets in the classic business school sense, not the wordpress aps.
If I change my blog won’t I lose readers?
Some bloggers may be afraid to change, even if they know that in the long run, the change would benefit them. They just can’t bring themselves to risk losing readers. The fact is that if they pursue the long term goals they envision that they may be much better off in the long run. So yes, if you change, you may lose readers in a purely numerical sense. The good news about that is that you will more than likely pick many times more readers than you lost, and the new readers you gain will be more engaged with your blog. You will know that they are there for a purpose. Instead of just being there as what I have referred to in other places as tourists, they will be there to contribute. They will help you grow your blog into an active community of readers. Readers who will look at your posts from varying points of view and discuss them in comments. Everyone will benefit, both you and your readers.
As always, comments are encouraged.
Blogging Lessons Learned
I have made great progress with this blog in the short time that it has been in existence. In 29 days, I have moved from an Alexa rank of over 17, 000,000 to being poised to go under 600,000. In all honesty I have not been doing the promotional tasks that I really should be. I have published 1 or 2 guest posts, commented here and there, but my efforts have been haphazard at best. I will try to do better in those areas in the coming months. I am also guilty of not posting as often as I did the first 3 weeks. That one I won’t apologize for though. I am developing some new sites, and that requires time. Having said that, I am compelled to point out that I am still averaging slightly more than 1 post per day.
I have learned some things that are a bit of a surprise in writing this blog. The most surprising fact is which articles have attracted the most comments. I had thought that posting articles about keywords and the things I am learning abut how to improve your ranking in the search engines would be of interest to the readers of this blog. I was wrong. The keyword articles were among the least commented on.
The single article that received the most comments was the article I wrote that was critical of Steve Pavlina. Following closely behind that one article were the articles I wrote about some of the tools I use in writing this blog. As tempting as it might be to write more posts that are critical of some of the well-known bloggers, that isn’t what I or this blog is about. That was a sort of a special case, and I gave credit where credit is due. Steve has written much that people have found helpful. Here’s a link for those who may be unfamiliar with said article. A Criticism of Steve Pavlina.
So where do I go from here? I shall continue to write articles on promotion, and the tools of blogging. Probably fewer SEO articles for now. Just in case…SEO is search engine optimization for those who may be new to all this blogging stuff. SEO is what gets your site ranked higher in the search engines (along with backlinks). I will start writing some articles on writing too. To sum up, fewer keyword articles, more articles on the tools of blogging, and some new articles on writing. And maybe some off the wall articles every now and then too. Thus endeth the lesson.
As always, comments are encouraged.