Sometimes I wonder if long-term goals actually distract us from the job at hand. If you’re always yearning for more, are you ever happy with where you’re at? At times it takes something catastrophic at home or at work for us to figure out all we have to be thankful for.
This last week, my blog is back on the mend. I started a new job and have been working nights on developing another application – and both are taking a lot of concentration. I’m not a good juggler – I like to concentrate on a goal and work to achieve it. As a result, my focus on my new job right now is intense. As soon as I leave work and jump in my car, my attention turns to the side project. In the morning drive, it’s back to thinking about my job.
Lost in the last couple of weeks was my blog. I continued to post my daily reads but was sporadic at best with my blog posts. I don’t believe they were accomplished in haste – but I definitely didn’t concentrate as much as I should have. Perhaps the area that I ignored the most was monitoring my advertising revenue, analytics, and rankings. I knew I had work to do and couldn’t worry about the loss, so I decided to ignore it.
The habit of monitoring my rank and traffic was becoming quite an obsession! I don’t believe I would check it more than once a day, but when I watched the numbers lag, I would mull over it for hours and try to fight it. It’s a little like pushing back a wave – readership is about momentum, not reaction. That means that it’s the marathon and not the sprint… and I need to remind myself of that often.
So – if your stats aren’t going in the direction that you want, perhaps you need to take a break from the compass. I can honestly state that I’m rebounding nicely now… my readership is up, my feed stats are up… and my revenue is up. I need to do what I do best and that’s stick it out for the long haul and quit watching the numbers. I’ll be getting back to Blog Tipping as soon as my project is completed! Thanks to all of those readers who have been patiently waiting.
The less I watch, the better things get!
Nice little story 🙂 i can say this is the case with me now, checking my Adsense channels stats as often as i can, since it’s optimizing season for me. But this did pay of, so i’m soon going to slow down a bit 🙂
I agree. It can be quite easy to get obsessed with the stats. I still look at my stats once a day which I think is way too much.
Just focus on writing good content and marketing your blog and the traffic will keep coming 🙂
I can completely relate! And especially since my company blog was relocated and thus started from scratch again, it’s ridiculous how much time I spend obsessive over our so far, pretty sad stats.. If only I could re-direct that energy to the posts… It’d probably be doing a lot better!
I wish you luck, I’m sure once you get into the swing of things you’ll make more time for posting!
I can also relate to the above. I guess it is also an integral part of life as a blogger (and a sales/marketing person). From time to time I also find myself checking my site’s stats way too often. Have to kick myself in the behind then to concentrate back on developing original content.
As a professional sales person I also know this: The tendency to spend time in forecasting, spreadsheets, etc. in stead of sitting in front of your customers closing deals and worrying about the commission check later on. As a blogger I need to concentrate on getting my subscribers up by concentrating on flagship content. And the rest will come, as they say 😉