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Friday, March 03, 2006

You're only as good as your last post

In most instances, people that stumble on your site from a search engine will see only what appears on their screen. This will be your most recent blog entry. They're not likely to scroll down and see what else is there, nor are they likely to browse your archives. If they don't see what they're looking for in the first couple of seconds, or if they're not 'pulled in' by what you've written, then they're outta there.

This means that in order to retain visitors to your site, you have to make every post a quality post. You have to make your 'last post' the best post of your blog. Until the next one, that is.

I've started using BlogExplosion recently (which is how I stumbled upon Human Advancement), and it's given me a better understanding of how this kind of thing works. As I'm forced to view blogs for 30 seconds, what I find is that IF the very first entry is crap I just sit there and wait for the countdown to be reached and then go to the next blog.

It's more preferable than sitting there and scrolling down to read more of the crap that's sitting there at the top. Finding crap often leads you to more crap if you follow it, but if you sit there and read nothing, you avoid the crap...

But it's given me more of an appreciation for making each of my posts good posts.

You might want to consider BlogExplosion yourself, to get a better idea of this. At the same time, as you browse other people's blogs, other people are forced to browse YOUR blog, so it's a good way of getting traffic to your site. (Thanks Liz :-)

Posted on 3/03/2006 04:16:00 PM


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7 Comments:

Blogger Jon said...

Alan,

What is the point of your blog?

3/03/2006 07:19:00 PM  
Blogger Alan Howard said...

hi Jon, thanks for asking. The point of it is supposed to be 'the philosophical and spiritual musings of life through my eyes'. However, really, the point of it is to help me relate the experiences of my life in such a way that people are going to find interesting. It's a means of self-growth, of exploring how I do things, how I write about things, how I feel about things, and how I would like things.

That's the point of it all. :-)

3/03/2006 09:38:00 PM  
Blogger "ME" Liz Strauss said...

Hi Alan
What you seem to also pointing out here is that so many people are losing out--having missed opportunities. I know that people in clicker programs do other things and click away. Sometimes I do the same. But often I use them to see what's out there. I see what does or doesn't catch my eye. I've found some great blogs that way and learned what I'll never do too.

Great post Alan. Thanks for the mention.

Liz

3/04/2006 12:42:00 AM  
Blogger Chancelucky said...

I'm not sure I agree. A fairly significant percentage of my hits come from search engines or links from other sites including this one.
When they actually read as opposed to glance, it's usually a funciton of the post genuinely being about what they were looking for.

When people land more or less randomly, particularly through being the "next page" in blogger, they generally don't hang around unless they happen upon something that they're interested in. fwiw, I actually found this site through "blogger's" next page function. I'm sure if it's written well etc. it helps keep people around, but usually it's topic.

3/04/2006 02:27:00 PM  
Blogger Alan Howard said...

So what was it, Chancelucky, that kept you coming back to this blog?

3/04/2006 02:29:00 PM  
Blogger Alan Howard said...

Liz, yes you're right, and you're welcome. Credit where credit's due. :-)

3/04/2006 09:20:00 PM  
Blogger Chancelucky said...

I think I was interested in why anyone from New Zealand would be interested in American politics. Also, I noticed something of a restless spirit rather than an ideologue and the former is a lot more interesting.

3/06/2006 08:23:00 AM  

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