Quality not quantity!
One of the recurring themes I come across in blogs is that of increasing the readership by getting more traffic. Recently I’ve seen a trend in bloggers trying to get listed on the main porn indexes as a way to increase traffic. Now that is fine if they are shooting porn or something very similar, but if they are not selling porn then I don’t understand why they would want to do that.
Let’s face it, the people who frequent those lists are not looking for tasteful art, they are looking for a cheap thrill. If they were to come here they wouldn’t stay, because we don’t have what they are looking for. Most of the art sites are like that, they may have some images that are a little raunchier. But to get that type of visitor to stay you have to offer a quick chick fix rather than appeal to their mind. I suppose it’s like mud, if you throw enough of them at your site in one go, some may stick, so maybe that’s the plan.
So why has this post come about? I had a spike in readers after my last post. Looking at the logs there was an extra 200 odd visitors from Glamour1 courtesy of JimmyD from Pretty Girl Shooter posting a link in their forums (thanks Jimmy). Now I don’t know how many of these visitors will return but it struck me that I would rather have 200 like minded visitors than 25,000 porn viewers.
In the online advertising arena they talk of visitor conversions. These are visitors directed to a site by an advert and who end up buying a product. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, it’s the conversions that count. In blogging a conversion is getting someone to visit again and again, and I would love to know the conversion rate of some of the sites that used the porn links to get them more traffic. Is it a spike that fades fast when the chick fix doesn’t materialise, or are they returning viewers with a real interest in what the blog has to say?
Alternatively, do they find that they can get this traffic spike, and then shoot images specifically to get them to stay? The latter reason is very similar to why I left the camera club. I didn’t want to shoot to feed some specific audience and let them tell me what I should shoot. Shooting a specific type of image to keep the porn hits up is the same thing. Just take a deep breath and say no. Shoot for yourself and if they don’t like it they can take a hike. After all, no one pays us to write these blogs. They are ours to say what we want to say and show what we want to show. The visitors that we value will stay.
This image of Claire Louisa will not remotely appeal to those looking for a porn fix, but hopefully will appeal to those of you who appreciate beauty.
Let’s face it, the people who frequent those lists are not looking for tasteful art, they are looking for a cheap thrill. If they were to come here they wouldn’t stay, because we don’t have what they are looking for. Most of the art sites are like that, they may have some images that are a little raunchier. But to get that type of visitor to stay you have to offer a quick chick fix rather than appeal to their mind. I suppose it’s like mud, if you throw enough of them at your site in one go, some may stick, so maybe that’s the plan.
So why has this post come about? I had a spike in readers after my last post. Looking at the logs there was an extra 200 odd visitors from Glamour1 courtesy of JimmyD from Pretty Girl Shooter posting a link in their forums (thanks Jimmy). Now I don’t know how many of these visitors will return but it struck me that I would rather have 200 like minded visitors than 25,000 porn viewers.
In the online advertising arena they talk of visitor conversions. These are visitors directed to a site by an advert and who end up buying a product. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, it’s the conversions that count. In blogging a conversion is getting someone to visit again and again, and I would love to know the conversion rate of some of the sites that used the porn links to get them more traffic. Is it a spike that fades fast when the chick fix doesn’t materialise, or are they returning viewers with a real interest in what the blog has to say?
Alternatively, do they find that they can get this traffic spike, and then shoot images specifically to get them to stay? The latter reason is very similar to why I left the camera club. I didn’t want to shoot to feed some specific audience and let them tell me what I should shoot. Shooting a specific type of image to keep the porn hits up is the same thing. Just take a deep breath and say no. Shoot for yourself and if they don’t like it they can take a hike. After all, no one pays us to write these blogs. They are ours to say what we want to say and show what we want to show. The visitors that we value will stay.
This image of Claire Louisa will not remotely appeal to those looking for a porn fix, but hopefully will appeal to those of you who appreciate beauty.
posted by Richard at 2:28 PM
3 Comments:
"This image of Claire Louisa will not remotely appeal to those looking for a porn fix, but hopefully will appeal to those of you who appreciate beauty."
If [for whatever reason] you really want to believe the above statement, fine, but I can assure you that somebody, somewhere will see you image and absolutely get off to it.
My question is, why does that bother you so much? Finding the nude bodies of our fellow humans sexually stimulating is as old as evolution, old as the bible, old as DNA. Why take such issue with it?
Thats not the point I was making.
While there maybe someone who find the image a pornographic high, its unlikly to appeal to those who haunt the porn site listings. Thus they would not have any interest in this site and would not stick around.
It doesnt bother me if they like it or not. I was posting about relevence of visitor referral. I often see quotes of "I got listed on xxx porn liste and got x bazzillion hits", but what does it mean if they are not relevent to the subject matter.
Are they just addicted to hits rather than looking for loyal readers?
A few months ago, a very popular porn info site wrote a small review of my blog. This site isn't a porn site, per se, but reviews porn sites and reports news and information of a decidedly "adult" nature.
The day they posted their bit on my blog, my traffic spiked to almost 10,000 visitors. For the next week, however, this traffic spike declined until, a week or so later, I was back with, essentially, my normal daily traffic.
Did I retain any readers from that porn info site's post? I don't know. Maybe a few. But you're right, the people who visited aren't the people my blog targets.
I'm pretty happy with the number of visitors my blog receieves. I'm confident these are the very people I'm targeting. Altho sudden traffic spikes can bring a smile to a blogger's face, that's about all it's good for. If I were selling something (besides myself) on my blog, I'd be going out of my way to seek more traffic. But I'm not so I don't.
On the plus side of blogging, I have offers of free drinks from readers in places all over the world. If I were a globe-trotting alchoholic, I'd be a happy camper!
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