There is a fine line between blogging to blog and blogging for the numbers. I pride myself and my blog on its bloginess and hopefully that comes across as authenticity. But how far can you count on that if no one is reading.
I don’t usually get carried away with the numbers. Yes of course its nice to see that more and more people are reading what you are writing, but it’s not what drives me, what drives these posts. As a new blogger I have the luxury of being able to blog about whatever comes into my head. I don’t have sponsors or reviews that I have to find a way to fit into my blog, I dont have any external influences to blog about anything other than what I want to blog about and that suits me and my blog just fine for the moment. I’m not saying that I wouldnt if the right opportunities came along, because why not open that door and see what’s behind it, Id love to see where this blog could take me. However you cant help but start to compare yourself against your peers and develop a bit of a fascination with the numbers when you stumble on open conversations between fellow bloggers on Twitter, and when its so easy to track how many people have viewed your blog at almost any one point in time. A series of all time low views of my blog over the weekend piqued my interest in this topic and got me questioning for the first time whether I have been doing enough to promote my blog.
You see, for those not in the know (I doubt that there are many of you) there is a whole world of extra curricula activities out there when it comes to promoting your blog besides the usual Twitter, Pinterest, Facebook and Google + and im not even signed up to all of those. Since I started blogging in November I have stumbled across guest blogging, SEO, linky parties, tags and the like, and I just find it all a little bit overwhelming. When I started my blog it was just becuase I wanted to blog. I wanted somewhere to ramble, and ponder and vent and talk as if no one was watching. So far that has been exactly what I have done. But Ive started to wonder how people will stumble across my blog when it is one of a gazillion blogs.
I dont want to get sucked in, I want to stay true to myself and my blog. But is it inevitable? Can you be a successful blogger by just blogging and blogging alone? Id love to hear from others on their thoughts and experiences as seasoned bloggers, new bloggers, or just observers of the whole blogging scene.
photo credit: <a href=”http://www.flickr.com/photos/ethanhein/4666212223/”>Ethan Hein</a> via <a href=”http://photopin.com”>photopin</a> <a href=”http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/”>cc</a>
My Petit Canard 