Measuring A Blog’s Success
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So, can you really measure the success of a blog based only on the revenues? Or would you consider the amount of comments, or even the number of RSS subscribers as the best indicators of a blog’s success?
Those are all “symptoms” of a successful blog, i think. It really depends what your goals are with your blog. Some will never make a dime from blogging but are getting a truck load of comments, while others will earn a decent income but rarely any comments.
Can you focus enough on all the aspects of blogging to “make it”?
Writing (for the readers, the search engines and the social networking and bookmarking sites), conversations/discussions, increasing the number of RSS subscribers, trying to get a better page rank, monitoring the traffic (and trying to get more), dealing with spam comments, replying to comments and e-mails, improving monetization strategies and techniques, getting involved in communities, commenting on other blogs. Wow, that’s a lot of stuff!
But it can be done! Professional bloggers do it, why can’t you? It depends what your goals are. (that last part is extremely important!)
Nate Whitehill wrote a post about the pressures of blogging consistently, and i can definitely relate to what he wrote in his post. Although i don’t feel a lot of pressure, sometimes the creative juices are just not flowing, but fortunately there are many things you can do get the creativity back and find inspiration.
I want a formula, a scientific formula that is!
Ok, well, that would be pushing it a little! I don’t think there is a formula you can use to measure a blog’s success. Like i said, it all depends on your goals. But what are those goals? If you have no idea where you’re going with your blog, chances are it won’t go really far. Unless what you want is simply a place where you can write down ideas and share your thoughts, no matter who’s reading, it’s fine. But if you see it as a business, and want to blog professionally, you have to set goals. Like with any business, you need a plan.
How do YOU measure a blog’s success?
Your turn to talk! :) How do you measure the success of a blog? What is important for you? The number of comments, the conversations, the income, the traffic, the links? All those?
Please take some time to share your thoughts, and if you can come up with a cool formula or equation, that would be great!
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35 Responses to “Measuring A Blog’s Success”
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Hi Jonathan,
I think there is only one way to measure the success of a blog, and you’ve mentioned it in your post. A blog is successful if it achieves the goals that its owner set for it in the beginning. For example, the blogger that just wants to keep his friends and family updated on his world holiday has been successful if he’s done that. On the other hand, it certainly looks like John Chow with his goal of Make Money Online has also been successful.
Hi Ripley, yeah i think we all have different goals, and success can be measured only depending on the goals. Many people will see money/income as the best indicators of a blog’s success, sure it’s one of the important things to put in the equation, i think conversations are far more important! :)
Everyone has a different view on success. If you have set goals for your blog and you achieve them, you’re successful, no matter what those goals may be…
Hey Alex, thank you very much for the link on your blog. Yep, success means (at least to me) getting things done and achieving your goals, like you said, no matter what those goals are!
Good Morning. I enjoyed your web log and Stumbled your site.
Going to Micky Mouse Land tomorrow. See you in about ten days. Take care.
Theresa, thanx a lot for stumbling my blog! appreciate it! :)
Enjoy the vacation! Take care!
Jonathan,
Excellent post that brings up some interesting questions. I would think that each person has their own “version” of success, although most versions would probably include parts of all of the success factors that you listed.
I like your idea of a scientific formula. With all of the factors that go into successful blogging, it is very easy for certain things to slip through the cracks.
Personally, I try to do a least a little bit of everything each and every day, although when push comes to shove, the only absolutely “must happen” thing on the list is writing the blog posts.
With 3 blogs now that I am updating every day, the content has to come first! :)
Aaron, well to me you really are a successful blogger. Running more than one blog is definitely time-consuming, and takes a lot of energy.
I agree with you Aaron, when i feel i have too much stuff on my to do list, i simply move “writing posts” to the top of that list, that’s what matters the most i think. :)
Personally, I haven’t really explored the income thing as of yet….although I’m interested.
I’m using my blog probably more as a hobby than anything. At this point I would measure my success primarily by subscribers and comments. When either one or both of those things “picks up”, I get motivated to keep going with it.
Anthony, your comment makes me think, what makes bloggers want to keep blogging? You said it, motivation comes from a lot of different places, comments on my blog is what makes me want to keep blogging! :)
As for the monetization of your blog, i think it’s fine if you don’t monetize it, but maybe adding adsense ads, or text-link-ads would be cool, and it would cover the hosting fees and the costs of running the blog, so that your hobby would not cost you any money. Those 2 are pretty easy to implement, of course the cutline theme helps a lot in making things easy :)
Good questions! Successful blogging can’t be measured statistically, but statistics are good metrics to see where you stand. When comparing, it’s best to compare yourself to yourself, from one month to the next. If you haven’t progressed, you may or may not be successful depending on your goals. Comparing yourself to someone else is really self-defeating.
RT, good point, if you compare your achievements from last month with this month and then next month, you can see (by looking at graphs and stats and all) what needs to be corrected and what could benefit from more investing more time. Comparing yourself with someone else is really self-defeating, but i guess most people do it anyway, it’s always fun to know we did better than the guy next door, just have to keep both feet on the ground :)
[…] Measuring A Blog’s Success […]
Having only recently really gotten into trying to build my blog, I find myself wishing there were some magic formula that would tell me if I am being successful or not. Alas, there isn’t. We all use rankings and comments and all sorts of other measurements to determine whether or not we’re being successful but in the end it comes down to whether or not we enjoy what we’re doing and whether or not we’re satisfied with the growth we do have.
Hi Jason! totally, we just have to set goals for ourselves, and work our way, some people will make tons of money and get hundreds of comments after only 6 months, while others will make almost no money and rarely see any comments. But it’s fine, it depends on the goals. Darren Rowse says he spend tons of time on blogging, and he sure is successful, it’s cool to try to imitate successful bloggers, but maybe that particular blogger doesn’t have the same goal as you, so gotta keep that in mind :)
I think a successful blog just comes down to what exactly the blog owner’s goals were when he made the blog.
Hey Daniel! Exactly! For sure a blog owner may change his/her mind and have different goals a year after he/she started the blog. Baby-steps, small achievements and encouragement from others can go a long way !
You’re right, Jonathan, everyone does compare themselves with others, even if they don’t mean to. I just took my Alexa widget off this evening (here) to make it a wee bit harder to do the comparison. Of course, I had another reason to do that but I took care of two birds at the same time.
RT, good point there, having a widget that displays stats “for all the world to see” makes it a little too easy to do the comparison. People can still go on alexa.com and do the searches.
Progress.
Set your goals and make steady progress towards them.
It’s always difficult to set goals without some experienced, so measure your progress. Figure out where you will be next week or next month with your current progress … and then set your goals higher than that and make it happen.
Shane, totally! If your goals or expectations for this month are lower than last month, you won’t go really far, that’s for sure. I think the hardest part is the “and make it happen” part.
I agree; it’s about the goals you set. And there can be many goals, I feel.
I’ve got
- money goals
- traffic goals
- “reach” goals (like my Alexa ranking)
- comment/conversation goals
Plus, my own personal goals, such as, “I feel I’m really in my element, speaking from my authentic voice in that post,” as opposed to, “That post was weak and flabby.”
:-)
Hey Adam! I totally see what you mean! “weak and flabby” posts are usually not the ones that seems to get good results anyway. Sure it’s fine sometimes, but gotta keep the crap to content ratio to a good level (meaning more content than crap) :)
I would suggest the success of a blog can be measured by readership growth. If you are attracting more readers day after day, month after month, year after year, then you must be doing something right. In this context, I would say it is safe to declare your blog a ’success’.
- Martin Reed
Martin, “growth”, now that’s a good way to measure a blog’s success, sure if it’s growing it’s cool, just gotta keep writing and all even if the numbers sometimes get a little lower.
i believe consistency is the main measure of succes!
cheers,
John, it’s true, most successful people are consistent in their work, and bloggers are no different. Writing posts every day, managing the site, networking, commenting, gotta keep “consistency” close to the top of the list.
Hey Buddy,
it’s been some time since I dropped by. Was busy with my upcoming product so forgive me for not flooding your comments box.
Anyway.. my blog is a success IMO.. At least I took action and got it setup. :)
Hey Erwin! I’m happy to know that things are going good on your side! :) You’re right, gotta take action, that’s the only thing that will help grow a business or a blog.
Keep me posted on your upcoming product bro!
Hi Jonathan, it was a question like this which prompted me to write the tumbleweed plugin.I wanted a visual way to see how many of my posts were receiving comments. If my TR is low then I know I need to work harder. Since installing it, its risen, my posts are getting more comments. I’m not saying its the sole reason of course, just that it motivates me to think about what I’m writing in a more user focused way, rather than disappearing up my behind in tech speak - does that make sense?
Hey Rob! Well i’m really looking foward to using your plugin Rob, i will try what you mentionned in your reply on your blog, and try to edit the plugin, i’ll let you know how it goes.
Yep, makes sense! :)
Blogging success I think is you are able to live off your blog income and people know your name all over the Blogosphere. RSS readers and comments kind of come along with that.
Sean, I agree buddy, income is definitely a good way to measure a blog’s success, if the goal is to make money. Usually comments and recognition will come along inevitably.
I’m new to the blogging world and I measure my success three ways.
#1. When im posting frequently, which hasn’t happened lately, if I’m posting with some frequency I feel a sense of success.
#2. When I hear or read comments about my blog. If they are bad comments I ask for “constructive” advice and if they are positive comments…I still ask for “constructive” advice…LOL
#3. And of course I like to see traffic. Especially from search engines.
That’s it for now!
Don
Hey Don, welcome to SWR, make yourself at home!
those are 3 good ways to measure a blog’s success, the goal is to be satisfied with our own results and keep raising the bar.