Author Topic: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!  (Read 23016 times)

vivek440

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I was debating - whether I should post this here or in the post - FIRE forum. Why post - FIRE forum? Because I am doing this only for fun and adventure and I know, I am taking out time for this because I am FI (Financially Independent). If I was not FI, I would be right now busy earning and saving !!! So I see it more as a post - FIRE adventure !!!

But after reading posts in the both the forums, I felt the thread is more suitable for this forum.

Here I intent to keep track of my progress and things I am doing to increase the readership. I haven't intentionally attached a timeline to this goal yet as I don't have a plan in mind to achieve this goal. Once I have more clarity, I will put some timelines as well. 

I would love to team up with folks who are sailing in the same boat. We all can use this thread to share the progress with each other and exchange things that we are doing to increase the readership.

I would also love to create a mastermind group with people who are in similar situation - Have very few visitors like me and are serious to increase their blog's readership. Let me know, if somebody is interested in this master mind group.

Enough of blah blah.... Now let's focus on the goal :-)

Current status
In the month of May, I have received 35 visitors till now. Average is 35/9 = 4 (Approx) per day

Current challenges
1) Almost no visitors :-)
2) The few visitors that I get, are not engaging with the blog. They are not commenting nor subscribing to the blog. Either the content is boring or the look/feel of the blog is boring or god knows :-)

 Coming week focus area
1) Brainstorm and identify things that can be done to increase the readership and try to come up with a plan

For now, that's it! Through this thread, I will love to connect with people who have similar goals! Cheers!


KMMK

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #1 on: May 09, 2015, 09:00:58 PM »
I also have a blog/website (see my signature) with a small but growing pageview count. I track the numbers monthly.
Here are my monthly views for this year:
January: 296
February: 557
March: 564 (I didn't post at all in March so the numbers reflect this)
April: 833

Currently what works for me the best is just posting regularly. I'm quite busy right now so I make sure to do a weekly post, but haven't been doing anything other than that. Eventually I'll worry about actively trying to get more visitors. But for now I just want to build up my content and keep the rest of my life on track.

I also have an associated Facebook page, which makes it a lot easier to share my posts with my friends and them to share with their friends. I have a dozen or so FB followers who I don't know personally, so this feels like a small success.

As far as commenters I don't get a lot - I think for most blogs most people just lurk and don't comment. So if you see a heavily commented upon blog they have tons of visitors. I'm not sure what the stats are but I bet it's around 1 in 100 people comment; maybe worse than that.

So I'm open to discussing these things and want to follow this thread and I did follow your blog, but it won't be a high priority for me at the moment.

If you want tips from an amateur the main one is to post regularly before you really start trying to get an audience. When I look at your blog and see that big gap between posts I'm less likely to follow or keep checking back. I can provide more comments (if you want them) at another time.


swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #2 on: May 09, 2015, 09:08:38 PM »
Hi Vivek,

Took a quick look through your blog and have a couple of thoughts. There is a disconnect between the homepage image and the tagline of your site just above it. It says "Adventures of an Indian Couple" and you mention you are in your 30's but the picture is of a very white older gentlemen. Now it might just be the sun? but for me it is a disconnect. In the FI and personal finance space, people want personal. The only thing that will make you stand out and be memorable is YOU. You write about a trip to India, but there are no pictures or anything to leave an impression or get people curious to read it.  Your about page reads like a bio but there is nothing in it that would make people want to follow YOUR journey.

If you need to find stock images to spice your posts up and you are not comfortable using your own images, there are lots of great free options. Pixabay is probably the best I have come across. I am in the process of going back through over 100 posts and adding pictures. Don't wait till you are at the point I am! It seems like creative use of images and white spaces and less text (unless you are telling a super compelling story) are what make people stick around long enough to read these days.

Good luck :)

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #3 on: May 09, 2015, 09:15:45 PM »

If you need to find stock images to spice your posts up and you are not comfortable using your own images, there are lots of great free options. Pixabay is probably the best I have come across. I am in the process of going back through over 100 posts and adding pictures. Don't wait till you are at the point I am! It seems like creative use of images and white spaces and less text (unless you are telling a super compelling story) are what make people stick around long enough to read these days.

Good luck :)

Thanks for the free image tip. I definitely need more pictures for my site and was wondering where I should start looking. You've reduced my research time.

Calimandc

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #4 on: May 09, 2015, 09:32:17 PM »
I am posting because i am interested in the same goal for a future project.

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #5 on: May 09, 2015, 09:37:50 PM »

If you need to find stock images to spice your posts up and you are not comfortable using your own images, there are lots of great free options. Pixabay is probably the best I have come across. I am in the process of going back through over 100 posts and adding pictures. Don't wait till you are at the point I am! It seems like creative use of images and white spaces and less text (unless you are telling a super compelling story) are what make people stick around long enough to read these days.

Good luck :)

Thanks for the free image tip. I definitely need more pictures for my site and was wondering where I should start looking. You've reduced my research time.

No Problem! here is a list post with some other great options:https://blog.bufferapp.com/free-image-sources-list I still have found that for my blog, Pixabay has the most relevent pictures, but you never know.

Also - if your theme isn't mobile responsive the JETPACK wordpress plug-in is a LIFE SAVER it basically adds a bunch of functions and utilities that are on the wordpress.com platform and make them usable by wordpress.org sites. There is a really good function for tracking visitors and site data but THE BEST part is an option that takes any theme you are running and strips it to a basic mobile responsive website. These days if your site isn't mobile responsive you are loosing more then 1/2 your potential visitors. I was in the process of starting to look for a new theme and rebuild my site from scratch just to make it mobile responsive. It would have taken hundreds of hours for me to learn how to do or some big $$. This solution is free and buys me more time to figure out what I want to do. Google also just announced last month that they are taking mobile responsiveness into account for their google search rankings. So if your site isn't responsive you are hooped.  You can plug your site into goole's test page here to see if they consider it mobile friendly: https://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/mobile-friendly/

I'm pretty much learning everything as I go, so more then happy to share resources/feedback and ideas!
« Last Edit: May 09, 2015, 09:41:12 PM by swick »

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #6 on: May 09, 2015, 10:49:04 PM »
OP - I read some more of your blog. I find the "he" "she" third person voice of the blog creates a lot of distance. You aren't really sure who is posting or what perspective you are getting. I'd create two different poster and each use your own voice and name.  It seems like you are missing out on what could make your blog really unique which is to have both of you posting and sharing in your own style (and you will appeal to double the readers too)

Dollar Slice

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #7 on: May 10, 2015, 07:18:54 PM »
This is a topic I'm definitely interested in - I've been pretty down on my blog lately for a lot of complicated reasons. One of which is that I've been at a steady low level of traffic for ages and ages. I've been at it for 2 1/2 years and average maybe 30 page views a day. I guess I'm not a person you should be taking advice from on increasing traffic, so I won't give any ;-)  But I keep thinking I must be missing something...

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #8 on: May 10, 2015, 08:04:57 PM »
I also have a blog/website (see my signature) with a small but growing pageview count. I track the numbers monthly.
Here are my monthly views for this year:
January: 296
February: 557
March: 564 (I didn't post at all in March so the numbers reflect this)
April: 833
Thank you for sharing your blog's statistics. You are way ahead than me :-) In last 1 year, have the numbers been increasing for you? Atleast in last 3 months that seems to be the case!
Quote
Currently what works for me the best is just posting regularly. I'm quite busy right now so I make sure to do a weekly post, but haven't been doing anything other than that. Eventually I'll worry about actively trying to get more visitors. But for now I just want to build up my content and keep the rest of my life on track.

I also have an associated Facebook page, which makes it a lot easier to share my posts with my friends and them to share with their friends. I have a dozen or so FB followers who I don't know personally, so this feels like a small success.

As far as commenters I don't get a lot - I think for most blogs most people just lurk and don't comment. So if you see a heavily commented upon blog they have tons of visitors. I'm not sure what the stats are but I bet it's around 1 in 100 people comment; maybe worse than that.

I follow blogs where 400-500 comments seems to be the norm :-) But yes I agree, people generally don't comment. Will be interesting to know, generally what is the ratio > you mentioned 1 in 100, I think it would be worse! But personally I think comments play a important role in the blogs success. First time readers infer how active the blog's community is.
Quote
So I'm open to discussing these things and want to follow this thread and I did follow your blog, but it won't be a high priority for me at the moment.
Thank you for following my blog!
Quote
If you want tips from an amateur the main one is to post regularly before you really start trying to get an audience. When I look at your blog and see that big gap between posts I'm less likely to follow or keep checking back. I can provide more comments (if you want them) at another time.
It is a vicious circle - You are motivated to write when you have a big audience but audience will only come when you have quality content!
Yes yes I will definitely love to get more comments from you (whenever you get some time) !
Best wishes for your blog...

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #9 on: May 10, 2015, 08:14:03 PM »
Hi Vivek,

Took a quick look through your blog and have a couple of thoughts. There is a disconnect between the homepage image and the tagline of your site just above it. It says "Adventures of an Indian Couple" and you mention you are in your 30's but the picture is of a very white older gentlemen. Now it might just be the sun? but for me it is a disconnect. In the FI and personal finance space, people want personal. The only thing that will make you stand out and be memorable is YOU. You write about a trip to India, but there are no pictures or anything to leave an impression or get people curious to read it. 
Thank you for sharing all this useful feedback. I will try to incorporate whatever I can. I absolutely agree that I need to have more photos in my blog!
Quote
Your about page reads like a bio but there is nothing in it that would make people want to follow YOUR journey.

This is something that we realized - We are working on the bio and will soon publish the updated one!
Quote
If you need to find stock images to spice your posts up and you are not comfortable using your own images, there are lots of great free options. Pixabay is probably the best I have come across. I am in the process of going back through over 100 posts and adding pictures. Don't wait till you are at the point I am! It seems like creative use of images and white spaces and less text (unless you are telling a super compelling story) are what make people stick around long enough to read these days.

Thank you for sharing the website! I am sure, I am going to use it big time :-)
I am a little surprised to know that you are adding pictures in your old posts!! Do your old posts also get lot of visits?

How big is your blog? Approx. monthly visits that you get? I noticed that you have been maintaining the blog since June 2010.... That's a long period! You must have learned a lot through the journey!!!
« Last Edit: May 10, 2015, 08:17:04 PM by vivek440 »

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #10 on: May 10, 2015, 08:31:12 PM »
OP - I read some more of your blog. I find the "he" "she" third person voice of the blog creates a lot of distance. You aren't really sure who is posting or what perspective you are getting. I'd create two different poster and each use your own voice and name.  It seems like you are missing out on what could make your blog really unique which is to have both of you posting and sharing in your own style (and you will appeal to double the readers too)

:-) That's called bang on target!
We realized this - Not sure if you noticed but in the latest post, we haven't used "he"/"she". When we started the blog, we thought that "he"/"she" will bring the cool factor and will make the blog stand out - One of the ways through which we were trying to be different!

But after few posts, we realized that writing using "he"/"she" was limiting our creativity and for the readers as well, it was making the content difficult to comprehend.

We are in the process of making this change in the previous posts as well!!

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #11 on: May 10, 2015, 08:34:38 PM »
This is a topic I'm definitely interested in - I've been pretty down on my blog lately for a lot of complicated reasons. One of which is that I've been at a steady low level of traffic for ages and ages. I've been at it for 2 1/2 years and average maybe 30 page views a day. I guess I'm not a person you should be taking advice from on increasing traffic, so I won't give any ;-)  But I keep thinking I must be missing something...

Welcome to the gang - Let's help each other and take our numbers to new height :-)
What is your blog url? Will love to go through it! What marketing have you been doing to get these 30 page views a day?

Dollar Slice

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #12 on: May 10, 2015, 09:06:23 PM »
Welcome to the gang - Let's help each other and take our numbers to new height :-)
What is your blog url? Will love to go through it! What marketing have you been doing to get these 30 page views a day?
It's a live music blog... http://www.concertmanic.com. I'm not looking to make money off the site, but I'd really like it to feel like worthwhile time spent. Spending 2-3 hours writing something that so few people read is depressing. The last post got 56 views; that sounds good until you find out that someone retweeted the link to over a million followers! I mean, what does it take to get some click-throughs?

I haven't done any paid marketing since it's a hobby site and not a moneymaker (although it could reap $$ benefits if I keep getting free concert tickets). It's all organic traffic - I tag the subjects of each article on Twitter and Facebook in the hopes they'll be shared, plus I have some people who follow the blog directly or follow my blog page on Facebook. And I get quite a bit of search engine traffic. And scattered stuff elsewhere (forums, people sharing links on other websites, Youtube, etc.). My traffic is surprisingly world-wide considering that I write about a local music scene - 15 visitors from 9 countries today, for example.

I tried adding a recommended-concert calendar on the home page in the hopes that local people would stop by to check it semi-frequently, but it hasn't made a difference that I can detect.

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #13 on: May 10, 2015, 10:32:40 PM »
Thank you for sharing the website! I am sure, I am going to use it big time :-)
I am a little surprised to know that you are adding pictures in your old posts!! Do your old posts also get lot of visits?

How big is your blog? Approx. monthly visits that you get? I noticed that you have been maintaining the blog since June 2010.... That's a long period! You must have learned a lot through the journey!!!

My old posts get almost all my traffic, I started late 2010 and wrote almost all of my posts in 2011/2012 and a few in 2013 and then pretty much nothing for the past two years. I was working at a super stressful job with insane hours and just didn't feel compelled to write. I have done basic upkeep. I was still earning a bit of ad revenue and selling some copies of my books (despite no marketing at all) but it is 3 maybe 4 out of my 100 posts which get 95% of my traffic. So those are the areas I will be focusing on for new digital products/e-books and possibly some coaching or courses.

When I started writing, longer posts with texts were okay, but it seems like over all the shift is to shorter, snappier posts for the time crunched (especially in my field) so I do think it is worth adding pictures. I don't remember the stats either but it is something in the hundreds of times as far as being more effective. As I go through them I am updating, making sure all the links work, seeing how I can recycle update and consolidate the work I have done into new formats I'm at 132 posts. At the very least all of my old posts that I am keeping will have a headline picture, a new headline and be more broken up shorter paragraphs lists whenever possible, more white space.

My total hits is 630250 which is about 10500 a month on average. It has fallen dramatically since my all time high of posting regularly which was 28500 a month. Right now it is about 12,000. So my goal is to get it up to at least where it was in 2013.

The thing to realize is it takes a LONG time to get started. Most of your hits come from old posts what have targeted keywords people are looking for in search results, it takes a while to build up enough momentum to be noticeable. Many people fail because they quite to soon before they have that critical mass. It took me 20 MONTHS of sitting around 4-5000 then suddenly I hit that critical mass and the next month jumped up to 19,000 and was steadily climbing, so it does take time.

I highly recommend checking out Jon Morrow's workhttp://boostblogtraffic.com/ I have learned the most useful things from him - that dude knows his field.

KMMK

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #14 on: May 11, 2015, 07:27:47 PM »
Vivek, in response to your prior questions - I didn't bother posting 2014 numbers as I was barely working on my website during most of that year.

For comments on your blog how picky do you want me to be? I'm an amateur editor and am good at noticing little details. And of course a lot of it comes down to personal preferences.
I don't want you to feel insulted if I make a lot of suggestions. It's a great thing to work on any creative project. I don't want to come across as discouraging, as that's not my intent at all.

Also I can comment in an email or PM if you'd prefer.

But for now here are a few things I notice on your About page (and you can tell me if this is too much feedback):
- I'd remove the main picture on this page if you are able. It's large to scroll through and not necessary on that page. (I'm not a fan of big title pictures in general.)
- You have a mismatched singular vs plural situations. In the second sentence:
"The only thing unusual about us is that we didn’t want to spend our whole life working in..." I believe it should be "lives". It's a small thing but grating to people who notice that type of thing.
- I wouldn't use the word "illiterates". It sounds insulting.
- it's repetitive to have "FI means" and then "definition of FI..." at the end.

I'm picking on the About page as I've heard it's one of the most read. I hope this is helpful. You're free to pick apart my website if you want.

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #15 on: May 12, 2015, 04:45:41 AM »
Welcome to the gang - Let's help each other and take our numbers to new height :-)
What is your blog url? Will love to go through it! What marketing have you been doing to get these 30 page views a day?

I can very well understand your feeling !

Stay tuned on this thread and I am sure, you will learn a lot - Kestra and swick have been sharing wealth of information !

Wish you all the success and huge amount of traffic! Good luck!

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #16 on: May 12, 2015, 05:02:25 AM »
When I started writing, longer posts with texts were okay, but it seems like over all the shift is to shorter, snappier posts for the time crunched (especially in my field)

This is something we have also been debating. My wife feels that post should be short as people don't have time to read long posts! I feel the other way round. It seems I have been able to convince my wife and we have decided to prefer long posts!

You may want to read this - http://www.problogger.net/archives/2015/05/11/3-content-tweaks-to-increase-your-blog-traffic-without-spending-a-penny-2/

<Copied from the url>

Create Longer and More In-Depth Blog Content

Another way to attract much more traffic to your blog content, and generate more social shares, is to write longer, in-depth and epic content. I know these have become buzzwords, but let me quantify this for you so that it’s easier to understand.
Research after research confirms that search engines love longer content. Kevan Lee discussed the ideal content length in this truly epic post on the Buffer blog. Neil Patel has also discussed the ideal length of blog posts in detail on his blog.
There’s clear consensus that posts longer than 2000 words rank much higher than say 1200-1500 word posts. And this study by SerpIQ provides further proof of this fact.


It might be different in your field but just thought of sharing it with you. You might find it useful.

Quote
My total hits is 630250 which is about 10500 a month on average. It has fallen dramatically since my all time high of posting regularly which was 28500 a month. Right now it is about 12,000. So my goal is to get it up to at least where it was in 2013.

Wow.... impressive stats!

Quote
I highly recommend checking out Jon Morrow's workhttp://boostblogtraffic.com/ I have learned the most useful things from him - that dude knows his field.

Thank you for sharing the link! I have subscribed the blog!!!

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #17 on: May 12, 2015, 05:16:28 AM »
Hi Vivek,

That is some good info and I generally agree with it, Longer posts are in general better - if you have AMAZING, TIGHT content. The danger is if you can't hold a readers interest in a longer post, they'll probably never come back. I have two pretty distinct readers so I try to cater to both. The longer more "theory" driven posts for educators and quick tips and easily digestible and immediately actionable posts for parents, or for when teachers just want some ideas.

What I have discovered is a lot of stuff was too long - even for long posts, so I divided it up further into "series" I'm not sure I like that compromise,  I have already done the work for most of these so I am probably going to use them as a bases for info products and go into them even deeper - flesh out the theory or concepts with lots of activities and printable resources.

Eventually what I would like to do is to have very short, super sharable posts, long post and fill the "middle" with a podcast.

The thing is - you don't have to have all short or all long posts, do some split testing and see what works best for your readers :) I would suggest writing the exact same post two different ways and sending the links to friends and family( and us interent strangers who don't know you) and polling.

I'm enjoying the thread though, neat to see everyone's thoughts!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #18 on: May 12, 2015, 07:06:43 AM »
I'm one who has a really hard time reading long posts, especially if they are walls of text. I completely agree - you have to be a good writer with a really interesting story and/or distinctive voice for me to bother with a long post.

So generally I try to keep mine shorter, with quite a bit of white space/subheadings. I've also been experimenting with a question/answer format especially for the more boring subjects. It allows me to make it a bit more interesting/informal.

I'm also aiming for a younger audience who I believe prefer shorter pieces. I'm sure there are many others who prefer lengthier posts.

Like Swick says, just play around with it and see what works.

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #19 on: May 12, 2015, 07:54:51 AM »
I agree with Kestra. I think a lot of the decisions come down to knowing why you are writing and who are you writing for. Is your goal to make money? Is it to reach as many people as possible? Is it to have an "Online Journal" for friends and family? Honestly, if you are doing it for any reason other then personal satisfaction you should have a business plan.

The big thing is that many blogs that "make money" are not personal passions, it is a niche market that someone has analyzed and decided to treat like a business and it is more "work" then "fun" There are of course outliers, like MMM who made it in a space many don't, because of his unique voice, market timing and void of information.  But for every MMM blog there are thousands that fade off into oblivion without being a blip on anyone's radar.

As far as big walls of text and readability, while longer posts rank better, it is a FACT that attention spans are shorter now then ever before in HISTORY. That is why pretty pictures, catchy subheads and white space are so important. If you can get the eye to slow down long enough to be intrigued by a picture or snappy title - if a reader goes, hmm that meets MY need/desire/pain point they will read more. Also, then general public has approx. a 4th grade average reading level. It would probably be higher for someone interested in an FI blog, but something to keep in mine if you are writing for mass appeal.

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #20 on: May 12, 2015, 09:30:16 AM »
Length-wise, I have noticed that my two most-shared pieces on Facebook are longer than my typical posts (1500-2000 words instead of the usual 1000 or so). And the piece that was BY FAR the longest one I ever wrote (closing in on 5000 words) did quite well (#6 most views IIRC) and was also shared by a staff writer for the New York Times on Twitter who had been assigned to review the same event (basically saying "I didn't get enough column inches to really do it justice, read this piece if you want a fuller picture").  But I'm not sure if it was the length that did it, or just that people were more interested in the (presumably more interesting) events that spurred me to write more.

I *feel* like my typical 1000-word articles are too long... not that I am padding them, but that I am innately too wordy. But maybe that's a lack of confidence that it's worth taking five whole minutes to read something I wrote. :-/

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #21 on: May 12, 2015, 06:27:57 PM »
For comments on your blog how picky do you want me to be? I'm an amateur editor and am good at noticing little details. And of course a lot of it comes down to personal preferences.
I don't want you to feel insulted if I make a lot of suggestions. It's a great thing to work on any creative project. I don't want to come across as discouraging, as that's not my intent at all.
:-)
Thank you for being so thoughtful ! But don't worry about me - Be absolutely blunt with your feedback. The whole purpose of starting this thread is to get feedback from experienced bloggers like you.

Quote
Also I can comment in an email or PM if you'd prefer.

I would suggest to publish your comments on this thread only. It will benefit other readers as well!
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But for now here are a few things I notice on your About page (and you can tell me if this is too much feedback):
- I'd remove the main picture on this page if you are able. It's large to scroll through and not necessary on that page. (I'm not a fan of big title pictures in general.)
- You have a mismatched singular vs plural situations. In the second sentence:
"The only thing unusual about us is that we didn’t want to spend our whole life working in..." I believe it should be "lives". It's a small thing but grating to people who notice that type of thing.
- I wouldn't use the word "illiterates". It sounds insulting.
- it's repetitive to have "FI means" and then "definition of FI..." at the end.

I'm picking on the About page as I've heard it's one of the most read. I hope this is helpful. You're free to pick apart my website if you want.

Thanks for such a thorough reading and your detailed feedback. We will incorporate the required changes asap. Just want to point out on the usage of 'our life' in the sentence. That was intentional as me and my wife- 'we' share our 'life' together. Gramatically also, it is acceptable to use 'our life' when two people our talking about their life together.

Really appreciate all the time and energy that you are putting in to share this feedback! I owe you a treat :-)

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #22 on: May 12, 2015, 06:52:49 PM »
The thing is - you don't have to have all short or all long posts, ........

I'm enjoying the thread though, neat to see everyone's thoughts!


Hi Sheena (swick) ,

The recent debate that I had with my wife was around a draft post (Not yet published) which was quite long. My wife was thinking of publishing it in 2 parts just to avoid long post. My suggestion was to publish the whole post in one go. Otherwise my view is that posts should not be made long just for the sake of making it long. The length of the post should be what the content demands!

I am also enjoying this thread a lot :-) These days after returning from office, the first thing that I do is CHECK THIS THREAD!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #23 on: May 12, 2015, 07:01:56 PM »
I'm one who has a really hard time reading long posts, especially if they are walls of text. I completely agree - you have to be a good writer with a really interesting story and/or distinctive voice for me to bother with a long post.

So generally I try to keep mine shorter, with quite a bit of white space/subheadings. I've also been experimenting with a question/answer format especially for the more boring subjects. It allows me to make it a bit more interesting/informal.

I'm also aiming for a younger audience who I believe prefer shorter pieces. I'm sure there are many others who prefer lengthier posts.


Personally I prefer reading long in depth posts (The assumption is that they are well written) - For short content I use other channels - facebook, newspaper/magazine articles etc. I primarily read blogs to read people who are not *so called experts* and to get in depth insights!

I know every reader is different :-)

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #24 on: May 12, 2015, 07:10:26 PM »
Honestly, if you are doing it for any reason other then personal satisfaction you should have a business plan.

Very well said.... Every blogger should realize and act on this !!!

PS: I just now noticed that your signature has this line - Tangerine Orange Code: 13898399S1. What is it? I did a quick google search and ended up with your posts on MMM forum :-)

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #25 on: May 12, 2015, 07:14:59 PM »
Honestly, if you are doing it for any reason other then personal satisfaction you should have a business plan.

Very well said.... Every blogger should realize and act on this !!!

PS: I just now noticed that your signature has this line - Tangerine Orange Code: 13898399S1. What is it? I did a quick google search and ended up with your posts on MMM forum :-)

Tangerine is the new name for ING bank which is now owned by Scotia. It's just my referral link. I have used them for years and been quite happy. Now that is a whole 'nother discussion we could have...what are everyone's strategies for monetizing their blogs?

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #26 on: May 12, 2015, 07:50:06 PM »

Tangerine is the new name for ING bank which is now owned by Scotia. It's just my referral link. I have used them for years and been quite happy. Now that is a whole 'nother discussion we could have...what are everyone's strategies for monetizing their blogs?

I actually have no plan to monetize my website directly as that would be antithetical to the intent of my business. I can hardly advise people to spend their money carefully and then have third party ads on my site encouraging people to buy random things.

Which gives me an opportunity to explain my actual plan:

The website is just a sideline to generate some web traffic, build my reputation, and lure potential clients. My main business model that I'm working towards is a money coaching business. I will make money from providing direct client services, teaching classes, etc.

So yes, traffic is good. But I won't be putting up ads unless something comes up that I can recommend wholeheartedly to the majority of my visitors.

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #27 on: May 12, 2015, 08:09:47 PM »
That totally makes sense, coaching has the potential to be very lucrative. That is the model I am moving towards, since I do so much offline - but in the meantime, I don't have a problem using ads and recommending resources through amazon or my side bar that I use, and pointing to my own products.

I did have to actually speak to someone at google  on the phone to convince them that "Hydroponics and grow lights" were not really well targeted to my blogs audience, despite having "growing" in the name :)

One idea I have been tossing around is offer my services on (a company that you charge under 10 bucks for small projects)  do the quick work and turn them into blog posts for free content. Basically it would be customized ideas for activities/games/lessons for parents on a specific topic they want to teach their kids or problems they are having. Based on the kids ages/interests and learning styles. I just don't know if it is worth it for them to take such a large cut, when I could be doing email/telephone consulting right from my site and charge a lot more, but would take longer to build. It might be a good starting place. I do like the idea of reusing content - 1/2 of my issue is I come at it from a educational/teaching perspective which is great, but I don't have kids of my own so figuring out exactly what parents want can be hit or miss.

vivek440

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #28 on: May 16, 2015, 06:58:09 PM »
16th May 2015 (End of week 1) - Progress update

Focus areas
General maintenance of the blog - Created logo, changed the cover photo (As pointed out by Swick, the earlier photo appeared to be an old person) etc.
Content creation - Several posts content creation in progress, About us page is being revamped etc. Our target is to publish 1 post per week.

Efforts to publicize the blog
Till we don’t have enough content in the blog, we have decided to go a little slow in this area. For now, the only effort that we are putting in is that we have become active on couple of forums

Visitor statistics
Most recent week’s total visitors: 76 (Daily average: 13)
May 2015 month total visitors: 167 (Daily average: 10 - Daily average is 10 and the target is 100….. Way to go !!! )
Attached is how the weekly visitor graph looks. Please don’t pay any attention to the numbers before May as we were hardly spending any time on the blog.

Acknowledgements
Special thanks to Swick & Kestra (These are their MMM forum names) for going through my blog and for sharing insightful feedback!!!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #29 on: May 17, 2015, 02:54:37 AM »
I'm just replying so I can read further suggestions that pop up on here. I've got an idea for a blog and I've thinking about starting it but I haven't done anything yet so some of this might be useful to me.

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #30 on: May 18, 2015, 03:15:56 AM »
I started my blog nearly 2 weeks ago and I've gotten 54 visitors to date which equals to 4 visitors a day too!

I'm on the same path as you (trying to get 100 visitors a day) so this post is really interesting! I've only told about 3 people about my blog since I find it super embarrassing but I've been advertising it on pinterest and instagram

My blog's www.elisuperoffbeattravel.com in case anyone's interested!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #31 on: May 18, 2015, 06:28:38 PM »
I've only told about 3 people about my blog since I find it super embarrassing but I've been advertising it on pinterest and instagram

Why do you find it embarrassing?  You should be proud of it !!!!

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #32 on: May 18, 2015, 06:55:40 PM »
My blog's www.elisuperoffbeattravel.com in case anyone's interested!

Took a look - I love the concept! If anything I want MORE details! The Gingerline in London sounds like an AMAZING experience - and honestly, one I probabaly wouldn't have come across if I was just checking out regular travel blogs.

Couple of thoughts for you - Headlines - you use "cool" and "offbeat" a lot. I would use "offbeat" in the tag line and mix up the punch words again (especially if it in in your blog name.) If you use any word too many times it looses impact. There is also potential to talk about different aspects of your different locations in different posts. For example, you could do a whole post on "Awesome Bathrooms you never knew existed!"

I do wish you had an about page though, you have me curious!

Edited to add: It would also be neat if you have text links for the places you mention that link to either the place's homepage or a google address/map. It would make anyone who wants to follow in your foot-steps have an easier time getting more information. Search engines love links - just make sure they are set to open in a new window so people don't wander away from your site too fast!
« Last Edit: May 18, 2015, 06:58:44 PM by swick »

elisuper

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #33 on: May 18, 2015, 08:05:27 PM »
My blog's www.elisuperoffbeattravel.com in case anyone's interested!

Took a look - I love the concept! If anything I want MORE details! The Gingerline in London sounds like an AMAZING experience - and honestly, one I probabaly wouldn't have come across if I was just checking out regular travel blogs.

Couple of thoughts for you - Headlines - you use "cool" and "offbeat" a lot. I would use "offbeat" in the tag line and mix up the punch words again (especially if it in in your blog name.) If you use any word too many times it looses impact. There is also potential to talk about different aspects of your different locations in different posts. For example, you could do a whole post on "Awesome Bathrooms you never knew existed!"

I do wish you had an about page though, you have me curious!

Edited to add: It would also be neat if you have text links for the places you mention that link to either the place's homepage or a google address/map. It would make anyone who wants to follow in your foot-steps have an easier time getting more information. Search engines love links - just make sure they are set to open in a new window so people don't wander away from your site too fast!

Awesome thanks so much for the feedback!

Currently I'm back tracking through all the holidays I've gone to over the last few years which is why they're in list form. Plus I love lists! That's the only reason I visit blogs myself. But I guess when I run out of things to write about I can start writing about individual things I've been to? Or would that not be as interesting?

I use cool and offbeat to differentiate between my posts. Offbeat is more weird and not very touristy whereas with my cool posts you can pretty much all find all the places on tripadvisor. How would you rephrase one of my titles? I guess when I start doing posts about individual places the titles will vary widely. haha I don't know that many cool toilets I'm afraid but I will keep a look out! but yeah I get your point :)

I have an about page but its not incorporated into my blog due to the theme I chose (Cubic theme on wordpress). I'll look into it though! But since you're curious I was born and raised in London but have been lucky enough to have lived in Shanghai nearly 2 years. I'm currently in malaysia travelling to thailand and then korea for the next few months before returning back to london to settle down ;)

Ok once I finish my 10th post *phew* I'll go back and add all the links! Thanks so much for your feedback again :)

I've only told about 3 people about my blog since I find it super embarrassing but I've been advertising it on pinterest and instagram

Why do you find it embarrassing?  You should be proud of it !!!!

I'm just a super awkward person haha

« Last Edit: May 18, 2015, 09:51:26 PM by elisuper »

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #34 on: May 21, 2015, 07:00:09 PM »
If you want tips from an amateur the main one is to post regularly before you really start trying to get an audience.
+1 on this. If I check a blog for the first time, and the latest post happens to be more than a month ago, there's a risk I'm not coming to that blog ever again. I want to be fed articles on a regular basis, for me to be interested :)

Good luck to everyone trying to spread the word of the mustachian way through their blogs :)

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #35 on: May 21, 2015, 09:10:03 PM »
If you want tips from an amateur the main one is to post regularly before you really start trying to get an audience.
+1 on this. If I check a blog for the first time, and the latest post happens to be more than a month ago, there's a risk I'm not coming to that blog ever again. I want to be fed articles on a regular basis, for me to be interested :)

Good luck to everyone trying to spread the word of the mustachian way through their blogs :)

I've definitely seen an improvement in my search rankings with every post I post!

CashFlowDiaries

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #36 on: May 28, 2015, 10:07:01 AM »
This is a great thread.  its good to see others going through the same growing pains as I am.  I plan on generating traffic on my blog by creating awesome posts for like-minded people.  And contributing to other member blogs by commenting and just being involved in the community.

Its tough for sure and takes work but you got to do what you got to do.  A few days ago i had my highest hits in one day and it was 167.  That was the day though that I sent out the link to a bunch of other real estate investors i know asking for opinions.   If you know of other people in the same niche as you, that are doing what you want to do, ask them for advice on how they did it and recommendations.  Most people are totally willing to help.

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #37 on: June 01, 2015, 05:52:32 AM »
... I've definitely seen an improvement in my search rankings with every post I post!

How do I go about finding my blog's search ranking?

swick

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #38 on: June 01, 2015, 06:16:55 AM »
http://www.alexa.com Alexa is the fastest way to track your page ranking.

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #39 on: June 01, 2015, 10:24:27 AM »
Thanks for that Alexa link Swick! That's a handy piece of information for sure!

I'm going to take part in this challenge in the hopes of raising my daily views as well - My wife and I's blog isn't very old but we have put a good effort into posting regularly. We were at 2x per week posting, but I think we're going to scale that back to 1x per week - some of our content/topics are focused on woodworking or crafts and simply can't be finished in 3 days while working. So we'll see how 1x per week goes and add in additional weekly posts as we see fit.

I'll post my visitor stats when I get home and can log in to look at them

I'd love some comments/critiques if anyone is willing to take the time - I can't get better without knowing where I'm falling short: www.living-simply.com

Here's hoping those of us not quite there yet, are pulling 100+ visitors per day shortly!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #40 on: June 01, 2015, 10:45:57 AM »
Thanks for that Alexa link Swick! That's a handy piece of information for sure!

I'm going to take part in this challenge in the hopes of raising my daily views as well - My wife and I's blog isn't very old but we have put a good effort into posting regularly. We were at 2x per week posting, but I think we're going to scale that back to 1x per week - some of our content/topics are focused on woodworking or crafts and simply can't be finished in 3 days while working. So we'll see how 1x per week goes and add in additional weekly posts as we see fit.

I'll post my visitor stats when I get home and can log in to look at them

I'd love some comments/critiques if anyone is willing to take the time - I can't get better without knowing where I'm falling short: www.living-simply.com

Here's hoping those of us not quite there yet, are pulling 100+ visitors per day shortly!

Please darken the font. The main text/paragraph for sure, to black, and probably the green a bit as well.

Retired To Win

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #41 on: June 02, 2015, 06:21:14 AM »
... I plan on generating traffic on my blog by... contributing to other member blogs by commenting and just being involved in the community...

In my experience, this is key.  Frequent and meaty comments on other like-themed blogs has definitely helped me get viewership traction.

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #42 on: June 03, 2015, 09:27:41 AM »
Kestra - thanks for the tips! I'll incorporate your advice and see how it looks!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #43 on: June 04, 2015, 10:16:59 AM »
Having a good blog week, the post I posted on Sunday has gotten almost 250 views already (even though I forgot to post it to Twitter). The downside is that I have no idea why this one got a lot of traffic as opposed to some other ones. It looks like they're mostly coming from Facebook.

elisuper

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #44 on: June 07, 2015, 07:34:42 AM »
... I've definitely seen an improvement in my search rankings with every post I post!

How do I go about finding my blog's search ranking?

Oh I'm on wordpress.com so it just tells me how many referrals to my site are from search engines. I went from 0 to 1 or 2 per day yaay ha

I didn't post anything last week as I'm back in Shanghai (interwebs is super slow and you need VPN for everything) so I'm back down to 3 visitors a day argh. The week before I had 45 visitors and the week before that I had 62 visitors though so I feel I could make progress with a bit more effort

Retired To Win

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #45 on: June 07, 2015, 11:25:40 AM »
Some of us are putting up number of "views per day" and some of us are putting up number of "visitors per day."  My particular stats package shows me views, not visitors.  Are those of you using the term "visitors" really meaning that?  If so, how are you getting those numbers?

elisuper

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #46 on: July 02, 2015, 07:36:01 PM »
Some of us are putting up number of "views per day" and some of us are putting up number of "visitors per day."  My particular stats package shows me views, not visitors.  Are those of you using the term "visitors" really meaning that?  If so, how are you getting those numbers?

If you use wordpress.com as a host they have a stats page already built in telling you the number of views, visitors, country, what they clicked on etc.

However since I've switched to google analytics (and bluehost) it's been giving me COMPLETELY different numbers (e.g. number of users on google analytics yesterday was 44 and the number of visitors on wordpress was just 7! No idea which one to trust :()

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #47 on: July 02, 2015, 09:42:38 PM »
Just started our blog in June and are still working out the bugs. I'm sure we will be debugging for quite some time modifying an existing theme. It's been a lot of work but Mr. LC and I have been enjoying the process and we do work well together.

Still trying to interpret visit statistics as Google analytics and Wordpress numbers are so different. I'm sure we will figure it out in time. Meanwhile we will continue developing content that fits the mission of the blog. Good luck to all of us!

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #48 on: July 05, 2015, 04:53:12 PM »
**update**  June was my first full month of having the blog and i got just under 4k page views.  I posted all my blog stats and blog income on my last post actually.  I am very proud of that number to start but it has not been easy for sure.  Hopefully I can continue the progress.   I created a twitter, pinterest and facebook account and have been trying to get as many followers/friends as possible to promote.  I also had a guest post on another bloggers blog who posts similar interest that I do and that helped a bit.

I agree that wordpress stats and google stats are different some days but at the end of the month it is almost the same. At least for me it was. My new best page view day was 300 in one day now and it was from that guest post I did.

Mrs.LC

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Re: Blog readership - From 4 visitors to 100 visitors per day!!
« Reply #49 on: July 06, 2015, 08:07:33 PM »
**update**  June was my first full month of having the blog and i got just under 4k page views.  I posted all my blog stats and blog income on my last post actually.  I am very proud of that number to start but it has not been easy for sure.  Hopefully I can continue the progress.   I created a twitter, pinterest and facebook account and have been trying to get as many followers/friends as possible to promote.  I also had a guest post on another bloggers blog who posts similar interest that I do and that helped a bit.

I agree that wordpress stats and google stats are different some days but at the end of the month it is almost the same. At least for me it was. My new best page view day was 300 in one day now and it was from that guest post I did.
You are doing great!

 

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