Friday 2 May 2014

Blogging Networks or Blogging Notworks how blogging success seems to have changed?

I've been blogging since 2010 and I remember back in the day that I saw SO many people who started a blog and then never got more than a few posts done. I charged myself with the task of blogging every other day for a year. If it got too much I could take a break but thanks to scheduling most of my posts in advance it's been quite a run, three years on [I know it's just started getting patchy ;) ]. In the beginning though any increase in traffic was great news and I think I've reached a place now that I never dreamed of. I think I've learned a thing or two and as other folk start down this path I thought I'd share an observation should you be wanting to take your blog to the next level.


Back in those days if you wanted to get noticed it was blogging networks and blog rolls that you had to be on and if there was only one blog roll to be on it was Ron's of From the Warp. Now Ron has been on hiatus from blogging for the last 16 months [come back Ron, we miss you!] but to this date, outside of google searches, From the Warp has referred more people to my blog than any other source, the main reason I still have the FTW blogger group logo on the right hand side [the other being it's very cool]. You can see I'm also a member of Tale of Painters Blog Network and the UK Bloggers Group, I even used to have the BoLS banner up there too. In truth though I'm not sure if any of these 'memberships' brings new readers or followers to the blog, certainly not based on the statistics my blogger dashboard tells me. This isn't a dig at them, it's not their fault, viewers can't be forced to follow up links I just think people are creatures of habit, they go to a location and do their thing, if they link to something else it must be pretty special or pushed in such a way to be worth following. However, no man is an island and so it's important to be part of the community so I will still continue to promote those groups I've committed to on my blog.


What I do find is that if you want folk to come to your blog then you really have to do the leg work yourself. Blog rolls work a little better, certainly Faeit212 is the place to be and Natfka openly wants new blogs to go on the roll. I think his blog has massive readership and quite a potential audience but equally the blog roll is large so your place within it when you post will rapidly be taken by someone else's post. Anyone who gets on his BlogExchange will see a massive surge of hits but once that post is 'yesterday's newspaper' there's no guarantee you'll retain those readers. So if you haven't applied to be included yet I'd consider when you want to be added, probably not in the infancy of your blog 

There are a number of other blogs that when my blog has been mentioned I've had a surge in visitors - www.fritz40k.com was one, www.3plusplus.net  was another. Recently someone posted a link to my Tyranid Aegis Defence Line in a comment on a BoLS news story - I got over 2,000 page views in one day!


However, a lot of my views come from forums where I'm actively sharing the work I've done, most often a short precis of the larger blog post. That way folk can either take what's offered or come to the blog to find out more and hopefully experience everything else on offer. Equally Facebook Groups and Google+ are a great way to access 1000s of people already interested in the hobby.


What I'm trying to get at is that there are options available to grow your blog but my evidence would suggest it is no substitute for hitting the streets and promoting it yourself. There are definitely sites that if you can get featured on will greatly increase your traffic but the double edged sword is that 'with greater traffic comes greater responsibility' with more followers your obligation for decent and more importantly regular content is increased. If you want to take it to the next level then you have to make sure you're delivering a 'next level' blog.


One other downside to 'keeping score' is it becomes obsessive [like I need any more of that!]. Constantly checking hits, trying to predict how you will do this month compared to last - it can get a bit much. For instance in December I managed to break the 20,000 barrier, not bad when a lot of folks were spending time with family instead of trawling the interwebs. In January I eclipsed all the freebies and Capillary Tower content from December with a 25% increase in page views! I've also noticed that weekend posts often get less traffic than a weekday post. Never assume your audience has loads of free time at the weekend, if they do they're probably out enjoying themselves, they're not you, they're not a geek with a blog who sits there watching their stat counter. ;) So if you're ever deciding which blog post to cut, I'd recommend Saturday or Sunday's!


I'm not saying blog networks are a waste, far from it, you should be part of them, but I think they're less successful than they used to be in introducing people to your blog. From my experience there's really no substitute for hawking your blog yourself. There we have it, a little peak behind the curtain at 40kaddict Towers, maybe some advice that can help with your own efforts. Just a reminder too there's still an open invitation to anyone with a blog to be featured in my own 'Support your local blogger'. I'm not a network but those that have been featured have seen a few extra hits. So feel free to leave a link in the comments section, perhaps a link to an image, maybe a description and I'll put some of them up and see if it helps.

11 comments:

  1. Thanks for the blogging tips! Having started blogging recently, I find them very useful. Other things I've found helpful are...

    1) Actually visiting other peoples blogs and commenting on them. (That's the whole point really, meeting new people and learning tips and tricks to the hobby!)
    2) Diversifying the blog (possibly joining others) so you get a variety of different types of visitors.
    3) Using google analytics alongside the blog analytic s. Sometimes the blog analytics are really off. Good to have multiple sources of data!

    Btw, I don't know the submission for support your local blogger, but if you stopped by and said hi, that would be great!

    http://www.feedyournerd.com/greggles-tabletop.html

    I run the tabletop section (update W/F usually), but we have all sorts of stuff going on with gaming, cooking, etc.

    Anyway, have a good one!

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    1. Thanks for the input Greg, I had a look at your blog I'll be sure to add it to my potential upcoming 'support your local blogger' posts.

      I looked at google analytics but I'm not sure how to tie it to a blogger account. You need to embed the code in the pages you want to track but I don't think that's possible with a blogger URL, because you can't directly add it to the page, unless it can be inserted in the page layout somehow, perhaps I'm missing something.

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    2. Hrm...don't know how to do it in blogger exactly. We started up with weebly, which is a completely different beast. (The images from our blog posts never show up in blogger rolls to start with). I just noticed that weebly's analytics, and googles analytics are different for some reason. Which one is more accurate? Your guess is as good as mine!

      One thing I wish the bloggers would do...is remember when you've posted before and stop making you do all these dang "are you a robot?" things.

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    3. I know, that's a real pain, not sure how to turn it off but I have noticed some blogs where I comment that doesn't have it anymore. I learned a while back that linked images rarely get sent through to blog feeds, hence why when I do a Support your blogger post I create a screen grab of the blog of my own. I don't like linking images either as sometimes they're removed which leaves me with dead links, I came across a page the other day that's riddled with gaps because it was pointing to pics on GW's old website, now it just looks stupid but it's more trouble than it's worth to try and fix it, who is going back two years to read that article?!

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  2. Thanks! Very cool post with lots of good info in there! .. I really need to sign mine up for more .. I just never get around to it .. haha

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    1. Thanks Todd, I was a bit unsure about posting it as it feels like I'm criticizing the networks which do drive some readers to your blog, I just think it's less than what a rookie blogger may expect when starting out and not to be complacent about it.

      Alternatively you paint great models, like you do, and you'll have loads of readers ;)

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  3. Hey, thanks so much for taking the time to put these thoughts down. I've been blogging at Imperius Dominatus for the last year and change, but recently I started my own project (www.occupyterra.com) based on the idea of doing a blog more or less in character as someone in the 41st Millennium. I'm currently working on getting readers, so all the advice I can get helps lol.

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    1. Thanks Ian I'll sort something out in the future, there's no schedule for this but I'll put something up in time.

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  4. Good post Dave & as you know I do abitof blogging myself, Ithink one of the important to remember when starting out is post on things that interest you not on what you think you should post on the reason for this is simple really, if your interested in in the stuff you put out your more likely to do it.

    So if say painting is more your thing then say gaming then do more painting post but that not to say you shouldn't do any gaming post either.

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    1. Thanks Frank, good advice too. I'll add your blog down the line. 'Going with the flow' or painting what you like is my most valuable advice for overcoming lack of hobby mojo, it makes perfect sense to follwo the same advice for blogging. Afterall, it's always the same advice of 'write what you know' for authors so it's equally applicable to writing a blog.

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  5. great post Dave. Been pondering a lot of thes issues over the last 6mo and have come to some similar conclusions. We also find that picture heavy game recaps get surprisingly high traffic. They're also fun to write and break up the painting WIP monotony.

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