I wrote The Art of Blogging: What is Your Site’s Focus?, and gave quite the list on things you should consider when creating your website’s focus. However, I still get on occasion bloggers who have been blogging and just have not gotten results. When I saw Dragon Blogger’s article, Blogging Without A Purpose, I was further motivate to revisit this topic once more.
My advice for those who have been blogging for a while and have had no success – go back to the focus and use your Google Analytics and other blog tools to see what will work best for your blog.
I will use Blondish.net to convey my own experience. At first, Blondish.net waded around in a pool of content from home life to my internet life. It was a bit disconcerting for some of my tech friends who would look forward to my posts that either contained something about blog tools, social media, but I was having a rough time and kept avoiding that. In fact, it hurt my site a lot and in December 2008, I put down in writing what could go on Blondish.net and what had to go elsewhere. I ended up creating a mommy blog for my home and personal life. Of course, I do put some personal stuff here at Blondish.net, but only if it is relevant to the focus of the site.
See, I have always given a lot of freebie graphics since I got online. While doing that, I kept getting questions on how to make things on just about anything I put on my site. I decided instead of always fielding my instant messenger, I would blog about it. In 2009, I got down and dirty with my blog, starting to clean up section (which I still am), moving contenting off and onto other places, and of course, blogging like a woman on a mission. My mission: to help bring my experience to others as a blogger to become successful and introduce things online that are resourceful. I also vowed to become more active in interacting with my commenters to hopefully continue the discussions beyond my blog’s words.
My blog has become more successful. My Alexa rank at the beginning of 2009 was hanging at 1.6 million, and now it is around mid 2009, it was 217,218. I have connected with quite a few other successful bloggers and have learned from them. I have influenced others in return. Since then I have slowed down some, but still built my site, focusing solely on sharing my knowledge. In the beginning quarter of 2012, I hit 50,000 Alexa, but recently did an experiment on how lack of blogging effects a site’s traffic and ranking….and let it slip to around 72,000 Alexa. As the saying goes- “Content is king.” Without content to attract your visitors, what is the purpose of your website in the end?
With all the tools for blogs to analyze what is being searched, you should not have any trouble on how to develop or even, redevelop your site’s focus.
Have you had a similar experience with your blog? Have you influenced others through your blog? Have any other suggestions?