Monday, February 15, 2016

Changing the Blog (Change: part 2)

The blog is tricky business. It's tricky business, and I could go into a lot of detail about how and why it's tricky business, but I'm not going to do that. For one thing, some of my blog history and why I blog is here on the blog in older posts, especially since blogging about blogging was not uncommon in my earlier days of blogging, that being a common theme on blogs (or, at least, writers' blogs). blah blah blah presence blah blah blah branding blah blah blah

What it boils down to, though, is that the blog needs to generate traffic which needs to generate sales, and the blog wasn't doing that. Also, I was spending an inordinate amount of time on the blog in comparison to the non-existent sales it was generating. Spending time on the blog included spending time visiting other blogs. Obviously, something needed to change.

I announced the first change last January (that would be January of 2015). So many blogs, especially the blogs of writers, try so hard to be non-offensive, and I decided I was through with that. And I have been through with that. During 2015, I did a series about racism and started a series about the Church (which will be picked up again sometime or other fairly soon). I'm not sure if any of that, specifically, has increased traffic, but it certainly hasn't hurt it. I'm not planning on changing that approach any time soon. It just feels more real.

I cut down on the essay-type posts I used to do three or more times a week. They take a lot of time that is more productively spent on fiction writing, so I tend to not do more than one of those a week.

I do more reviews. Book reviews, movie reviews, other reviews. Reviews seem to be a good way to drive traffic. At least based on my page views for review posts, I'd have to say that's true.

I started covering more local events and artists and doing interviews. Those, also, have done very well. One of my interview posts with the guys from Parcivillian is one of my top 10 most viewed posts. This year, I'll be picking up again with interviews with the women from one of the local roller derby teams, the Cinderollas. I've done the interviews; I just haven't gotten them transcribed.

And I've started doing picture posts. Those have surprised me most of all. Every once in a while, a particular picture will generate a lot of page views or comments, like this recent one.

The final analysis is that I have been doing more post with less effort without losing any traffic. I don't have enough data, yet, to know if the traffic has increased or if it's just regular fluctuations. That it has not decreased, though, is significant. Probably, this year, the blog will continue in this pattern. I do have some other changes planned that are more geared toward actually increasing sales, but those aren't quite ready yet.

The take away for you? Well, if you are a blogger, why do you do it? Is what you're doing right now with your blog meeting that goal? If it's not, you should look at making some changes.

14 comments:

  1. This is interesting and certainly gives me food for thought.

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  2. I like the new changes, and I especially like the new IDGAF attitude about topics and offending people. And the interviews. Like a real interview, not "I have someone else that you already know in the blogosphere here today talking about a book you already know about from the blogosphere."

    This is why we change our blog around every year, even if it is doing well. Change is the only way you can ever expect to grow.

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    1. ABftS: Yeah, I like the interviews, too; I just wish they didn't take me so long to actually put together.

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  3. I always blog what I want to blog. I know it might not bring in the views, but...well, I want to have fun. But I like what your blog is doing and I'm always interested to hear how and why you do things the way you do.

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    1. Jeanne: I would say that I never blog anything I don't want to blog.

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  4. I think your blog has improved a lot over the past year -- it's become more personal feeling. It was always good but it's really good now.

    I'm not sure why I blog. I suppose it's just to say the things I want to say. I'm supposed to be using it to generate sales, like you, and also to raise some money with the Amazon stuff, but most of my posts remain kind of aggressively anticommercial. I don't TRY to do that. It's just what I enjoy doing.

    I also stopped going to other people's blogs unless they were interesting. Commenting on my blog might get me to check one out now, to see if it's holding my interest, but most bloggers aren't talking about things I care about. That's not an insult to them; they just don't like to talk about the things I like to talk about.

    You mostly talk about things I'm interested in; or at least when you talk about things I don't much care about you do so in an interesting way.

    Keep up with what you're doing.

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    1. Briane: That's interesting that you would say that it's become more personal feeling since I feel more detached from the content than I used to in a lot of ways.
      I do try to be interesting no matter what it is I'm writing, though.

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  5. I'm glad the changes are working for you. I had to (admittedly) skip the Star Wars related posts since I have no frame of reference or real interest regarding them, but I do try to catch the posts in between.

    My blog is going through some changes, gradually, as well. Leaving Japan means the prime focus of the blog is about to disappear, and so I am grappling with that right now. More than anything, though, I'm ready to make some new connections with new viewpoints, so the "community" I am a part of continues to grow... especially since a lot of the people I follow have either quit blogging or switched to self-hosted (and hard to comment on) blogs in the last year.

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    1. Alex H: The Star Wars posts have been less of a draw than I expected, but I enjoy doing the Clone Wars thing, so I'm going to keep doing it anyway.

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  6. Why change? Kidding. Sometimes venturing is a nice change of scenery and guests.

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    1. Tammy: Yeah, I agree with that in principle, but the time investment, overall, is way too high for the return.

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  7. I think it can be a very good tactic to change things up on a blog if it is consistent with the blogger's character. I'm all for blog experimentation and I like to try new things to see how readers will react. So far I guess I haven't upset too many of my regulars, but I don't seem to experience much growth in readership either.

    My blog posts about blogging are some with the most comments, but they don't necessarily have the greatest amount of traffic. Whereas some odder posts where I had dubious expectations of how people would react might show very high traffic, but only average comments.

    I've mostly given up researching the whole thing and trying to figure it all out. I just post (and post less than I used to) and see what happens. So far no appreciable change to traffic or comments.

    Good luck with the changes you might try and hope you keep us posted as to what is most effective for you.

    Arlee Bird
    A to Z Challenge Co-host
    Tossing It Out

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    1. Lee: Well, you know, my most viewed post is still and by far the one about how to become a werewolf.
      Go figure.

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