Visitors: Down 33%
Pageviews: Down 18%
RSS Subscriptions: Up 5%
Adsense: Down 70%
Technorati Rank: Down 4%.
These are some of my statistics for the last two weeks on my blog! For my regular visitors, you’ll notice I’ve not been blogging consistently – one of those cardinal rules that you should never break. Blogging is all about momentum. Once you lose momentum, there’s no immediate means to snap back.
I’ve noticed some bloggers do a fantastic job of filling dead space by:
- Recapping the most popular blog posts.
- Having Guest bloggers.
- Pulling in multimedia (video or sound) clips that are on topic and available via YouTube and other channels.
The only tactic I’ve been taking is to continue posting Del.icio.us links. I basically stopped writing, thinking about writing and stopped participating in other blog conversations. One of the reasons I didn’t put alternate methods in to retain readers was that I did want to see what would happen.
Having an RSS feed appears to be the one publishing method that can retain (and even boost) subscribers. I’m not positive, but I’d be willing to bet that it was visitors that came here by search engine, noticed how many subscribers I have, and thought it worthy of participating. The daily links from Del.icio.us are at least providing some value to these new subscribers.
If you’re a new subscriber, expect more from me! I’m right in the middle of an employment change and delivering a mapping application to a client. Truth be told, I’m also having a beer or two each evening this week with my fellow employees from my current employer. They are a rapidly growing Inc 500 company and I don’t want employees to think I’m leaving the company for some negative reason… I’m simply moving to a new challenge and fantastic opportunity.
Monday will be my first day with my new employer and I’m looking forward to it. By the end of next week, things should calm down and I’ll be back in action. With this job, I’ll have exposure to outsourced development firms, a new online industry (restaurant marketing and patronage), new technology (Point of Sale integration) and e-commerce. Be prepared for some great content as I dive in!
Martech Zone resurrection is coming!
Doug – Your blog is fantastic. Enjoy the summer and all the new opportunities in your career.
Just wanted to let you know that
I am still reading. Recently, out of
town in July a lot on Vacation.
However, made a car magnet with
my website. Find photo on my blog.
Would be excited to see what you
think?
Joined Technorati after reading about
you on their site.
Now I need more Fav.
Do you have any tips for me?
Good Luck with you new job.
Thanks,
Elizabeth G.
http://BookTestOnline.com
http://BookTestonlinecom.blogspot.com
http://asktheteenager.blogspot.com
I guess I am not surprised. I have little enough time to scan RSS feeds let alone visit individual blog sites. (Blame the whole matter on me!) To make matters worse, if a blogger doesn’t offer a full feed I generally can’t afford to read the blurb and _then_ have to go to the site to finish the offering. (Sorry, blame me again, it is all my fault.)
Having a break is fine and good luck with the career move.
Don’t worry about the numbers. My own blog has pretty static traffic numbers, page views and RSS subscribers. I get the occasional surge from StumbleUpon but that is about it. But then I only have time to blog twice a week so I never expect my readership base to grow rapidly.
I’m going to try a new filler post tactic soon to bring me up to 3 posts a week. I’ll see how it goes.
And I’ll be here with you when it does.
Doug,
Appreciate the post – good luck with the job change! It does back up your thoughts about momentum, as you rightly pointed out. Anyone know of an extra 2 hours in the day widget?! 😉
Jon
Have you heard about Quantcast, a service that gets the hit statistics from across a spectrum. You are not faring badly at all, with a good third of regulars, and 1 in 50 visitors is classified as “addict”:
http://ak.quantcast.com/dknewmedia.com
I’ve had their javascript embedded in my footer for quite some time. Thanks for putting this post up, though! I haven’t actually gone and checked the stats out.
I really am thankful for the friends, like you, that keep coming back and joining the conversation. In a lot of ways, I’m an observer… checking out the conversations between other folks.