Paul Jacobson

traffic stats

All about the traffic?

I’ve been a little obsessed about my blogs’ traffic for a while now and lately I have found myself wondering why. Sure blog traffic is important if you want to make some money off your blog because it is all a numbers game. It didn’t help when I was told that the stats I have been relying on are probably not the important stats from an advertising perspective and the 200 000 page views (give or take) are not nearly as important as my humble 21 000 unique visitors last month (which doesn’t sound nearly as impressive as the page views for the month). So I started to reconsider what is important to me when it comes to my blogs, particularly the blogs that have even less traffic than this blog and it occurred to me that while the traffic is great (when I have a lot of it and get a cheque from Google), I blog because I enjoy writing and talking about stuff.

I am probably not going to be able to retire on my blogs for a long time (ok, probably never) and with all the new blogs starting up, the first mover advantage sailed long before I started blogging that exciting day in December 2004 so I am probably far better off just focussing on my writing. That is the important stuff, isn’t it?

I came across a post by Seth Godin where he talks about this emphasis on stats and how too strong a focus on traffic distracts us from the real reason why we blog in the first place. After all, if it was all about the traffic then I may as well spend the time it takes to put out a decent post setting up multiple link blogs and begging for links from other bloggers. But it isn’t really about the traffic for me. Sure I am ecstatic to have loads of people (all of you) reading what I write and letting me know what they/you think (and I’d love to have more of you dropping by) but you are more than just numbers to me so I write for you and for me.

Technorati Tags:
, , , , ,

Posted

in

by

Paul

Tags:

, , ,

Comments

  1. 90 Days of Blogging: Lesson 5 – The Pitfalls of a Blog « Brett’s Blog

    […] traffic and things will happen over time. The good news is that it’s exponential in growth. And remember why you’re doing it in the first place – it’s more than the […]

    Reply
  2. South Africa flights avatar
    South Africa flights

    It’s the only way to go, whether you’re writing for 10 people or 10000 people, it should always be treated as if you’re writing to one person…for me, the blog is the human face of our website, its soul.

    Reply
  3. South Africa flights avatar
    South Africa flights

    It’s the only way to go, whether you’re writing for 10 people or 10000 people, it should always be treated as if you’re writing to one person…for me, the blog is the human face of our website, its soul.

    Reply
  4. South Africa flights avatar
    South Africa flights

    It’s the only way to go, whether you’re writing for 10 people or 10000 people, it should always be treated as if you’re writing to one person…for me, the blog is the human face of our website, its soul.

    Reply
  5. South Africa flights avatar
    South Africa flights

    It’s the only way to go, whether you’re writing for 10 people or 10000 people, it should always be treated as if you’re writing to one person…for me, the blog is the human face of our website, its soul.

    Reply
  6. South Africa flights avatar
    South Africa flights

    It's the only way to go, whether you're writing for 10 people or 10000 people, it should always be treated as if you're writing to one person…for me, the blog is the human face of our website, its soul.

    Reply
  7. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Using a blog to put a human face on an otherwise faceless business is very much what all of this is really about. It is very Cluetrain and one of the main reasons to blog.

    Reply
  8. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Using a blog to put a human face on an otherwise faceless business is very much what all of this is really about. It is very Cluetrain and one of the main reasons to blog.

    Reply
  9. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Using a blog to put a human face on an otherwise faceless business is very much what all of this is really about. It is very Cluetrain and one of the main reasons to blog.

    Reply
  10. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Using a blog to put a human face on an otherwise faceless business is very much what all of this is really about. It is very Cluetrain and one of the main reasons to blog.

    Reply
  11. Paul avatar
    Paul

    Using a blog to put a human face on an otherwise faceless business is very much what all of this is really about. It is very Cluetrain and one of the main reasons to blog.

    Reply
  12. Competitive Blogging | nicharalambous.com

    […] about competing for me and the fact that I am competing means that I have lost the plot somewhat. Paul is often talking about why he blogs and why others blog. I think that the simple fact of the matter […]

    Reply

What do you think?

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.