Monday, May 03, 2010

The Results Of My BIG, BOLD & PROGRESSIVE STEP!

Back in November 2006 I wrote a post for my Linda's Blog and Tips For Crafters On The Web blog entitled: I've Taken A BIG, BOLD & PROGRESSIVE Step!

My post concerned my decision to eliminate my monthly newsletters in favor of my blogs. It was A BIG, BOLD & PROGRESSIVE Step at the time that I got positive and negative reactions from.

In 2006 blogs weren't anywhere near as mainstream and popular as they are now. Today many artists and crafters on the web are using blogs to sell their products. They've become "selling blogs" and are created instead of the more traditional websites - which is fine by me.

I was a big proponent of blogs back then and I'm still a big proponent of blogs - which is why I have so many!  It was also why I was dubbed "The Blogging Queen" crown and all!

In any event, back then on several of the forums I belonged to many members openly stated they would "NEVER BUY ANYTHING SOLD ON A BLOG!" My reaction was; "Why not?" I didn't see any difference between the person selling on their blog and selling the same merchandise in a traditional website. In fact, blogs can be set-up to look like the more traditional websites. So much so nowadays that you wouldn't be able to tell the difference. I wonder if those same individuals would make the same statement today?

My logic in using the blogs versus newsletters was simply based on exposure. Given all the ways that blog feeds were being generated at the time I figured I would gain so much more exposure from my blogs then I ever would from a newsletters. Since then the use of RSS feeds, feed services, feed reader websites, etc. has exploded. So much so that the exposure possibilities are truly endless.

In fact, nowadays I wouldn't be able to tell you exactly how many people are accessing my blogs RSS feeds as so many can do so without my ever knowing they are.

For example, I use Google Reader for tracking all the blogs I am interested in - which is over 500 now. Every time someone posts something new on the blogs I am subscribed to I get notified via a line item on my Google Reader widget which I keep on my desktop. I can peruse the list, read a brief summary of the blog post from the reader and then click over to read the actual blog post, if I want to. None of the blog owners have any idea that I've subscribed to their blogs this way.

Nowadays I can even link my blog RSS feeds to my Facebook profile and Facebook pages whereby my blog posts are automatically posted to my Walls and/or Notes and whereby my friends can then subscribe or read my feeds from my respective Facebook page.  And, I wouldn't have a clue that they had.

I've had a combined total of 1,028,186 visitors to my blogs since I've been tracking them. That's just visitors to my blog and doesn't count subscribers to my blogs that I'm aware of or readers using RSS feed services that I'm not aware of.  If I were to try and estimate the latter I'd have to guess that number would double if not triple the number of visitors to my blogs.

Also, when I look at the statistics for my websites as to referrals my blogs far exceed any other websites I have listed or advertised with. My blogs send more visitors to my websites than any other website.

Plus, most of my blogs enjoy a Google PageRank of 3 - which is very good. Some even have a Google PageRank of 4. Some websites never attain that.

So, in my opinion, was My BIG, BOLD & PROGRESSIVE STEP successful? Just based on numbers of visitors to my blog since my first blog was created in October 2005 I'd have to say "DEFINITELY!"



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