Who Reads Blogs?
Assuming I get this blog posted this will be number 80. That is 40% complete of my overall goal of posting 200 blogs. My commitment to myself was to post 200 blogs, at roughly the rate of 4 per week until I reach number 200. I decided to do this in order to improve my writing skills. I figured, if I can write something generally interesting and if doing so helps me write better, then blogging seems like a great idea. You can be the judge about if it is a good idea or not. I suspect that some day’s readers might think I am making progress and other times, well not so much. If you do share those two thoughts then you are in the same club as me. (please don’t get us removed). When I look back on the dribble I am writing some seem good, and some are pure stinkers. I mean let’s face it I don’t post them if I do not believe that at some point they are good. (I have a group of never published ideas, I am and always will be “working on”)
Still there are times when I post a blog and I think ‘oh I wish I had not done that’, or worse yet, why did I post that. I also get that sick feelings sometimes when I think after posting, why didn’t I see that, or catch this or strike this? But there it is and low and behold it is done.
I am in the process of looking over my work and in doing so I am asking the inevitable question, why did this one fly and that one fall on its head? Like why did blog A get 8 views, 5 of them me and blog B get 70+, four of which are me. I never seem to understand why one gets read a lot and another never gets traction. I can say for certain that whatever the juice is that makes them work; I would like to know so I could juice all of mine up.
Something told me when I first started blogging it was the topic. This is a diabetic oriented board so you might think look dude, write about Diabetes and you will get readership. Well that might be true, but some of the most viewed writings had nothing to do with diabetes, and others were all about diabetes. Some were meant to be entertaining and others factual and scholarly. I have good viewership among both types so that alone is not it.
Now here is time for a great confession, get ready for the juice. I don’t read blogs. For me they seem well boring. I mean, there is a certain professional respect, I don’t want to rip anyone off, and if I do I want it to be an accident. The best way to do that is to make it an accident. But you ask, what about before you started blogs? Sure you read them as you were trying to formulate a decent idea for a blog? Actually I didn’t but not to avoid duplications. I didn’t read them because, I didn’t like it. I thought they were boring dribble that really did not matter to me. One exception to that rule was Kathy’s which read as many as I remembered. Kathy was a good writer with good skills I found her stuff interesting.
So now that you know I don’t read blogs, here are some other things you might want to know about? I do get excited when folks comment on my blog. I do watch it, which is something Kathy suggested I not do. She said look put it out and if they are interested they will come, If not they won’t read it. That is good advice from Kathy because sometimes it is sort of difficult that the first person you need to make happy is yourself.
Yesterday a friend of mine said they read my Blog almost every day. I thought oh my, that must be boring. I mean let’s face it I admit to writing some pretty bad stuff so I might not ever say that. But it did start me to thinking who reads blogs? It turns out there is some information about that. These facts pertain to the world’s best read blogs. Mine is not one of them, so individual rests will vary. Most important t know is that likely none of these are in captured sites like TU diabetes. The best blogs draw their own traffic based on their content alone. You did not come here to read my dribble, you might read it, but only as a second or third or tenth reason you show up. In fact I am more likely to run people off instead of being a draw. Still the information is interesting. So here goes:
1. It surprised me that 55% of the most popular blogs are read by men, and
2. The mean top blog reader is 41 years of age, while the median age is 38, and
3. Blogs are age weighted. That means that some blogs appeal to people over a certain age and others may appeal to different age. If a blog is young oriented, it is seldom read by older readers and vice-versa.
The first thee facts appear on this web site:
http://royal.pingdom.com/2013/03/01/blog-readership-demographics-2013/
So here are the top five reason people do not read blogs:
1. Blogs are boring (guilty)
2. Bloggers do not post often enough (I think I am not guilty of that)
3. To many advertisements (thanks to TU diabetes, I am not guilty)
4. The blog design is boring (guilty), and
5. Blog lack exposure. (I do not suffer from lack of exposure)
These five are listed on this page:
http://socialmediatoday.com/mitz-pantic/505829/5-reasons-why-nobody-reads-your-blog
So if you have come this far what is the meaning? Oh it beats me. But I hope it was interesting, appeals to a broad cross section of readers, can be found, and most of all, isn’t ticking as you read it.
-30-
Rick