05 April 2008

To Blog or Not To Blog for a Blog Ranking

I am not so technologically savvy and it took me forever how to work out how I might increase traffic to my blog and I do not think I have been so successful at that in any event. I was going to whack a widget into my blog that lets me track my ranking and lets other people see it. Yet, when I thought about this a little bit, two things came to mind; I did not start blogging to make money (hence no thoughts of commercializing my blog) and I did start blogging to amuse myself.

It would be nice to be popular and have people drop by just because I write good stuff and people want to see what I am ranting and raving about now. But, the fact they are not dropping by means that the stuff I am writing is probably crap and not so interesting. This perhaps should be motivation to write better crap (although so far it has not been any motivation at all!).

The other way to go to make my blog ranking climb is to adopt a contentious position or to be racist, or bigoted, of just write plain unsustainable arguments into my postings. This seems to bring people out in droves. I am guilty of this slowing down at a car crash mentality as I am a regular poster at Indonesia Matters. Some, nah most, of the stuff posted there is outrageous in the most outrageous of senses but it can sometimes be a little addictive because you just do not know what kind of far right or far left extremist views will be posted. But, I guess that is what keeps everyone coming back for more. It must be said that there are some attempts to post rational and reasoned responses but they tend to be a minority rather than a majority...

Back on point though (and enough of a plug for Patung -- do not even know the bloke!). The question is should I be too worried about a dropping blog ranking to the point where I do something about increasing that ranking from the 400's to the 10 -99 range? Simple answer - Nah!

As I said if people want to read they will eventually find me and if they like what they read they will be back. Some of my kind readers have linked me to their sites and maybe it is time I tried to work out a more effective way of using RSS, technocrati, de-lici-ous (or whatever it is),and some of these other blog assistance tools! Yet, I am humoring myself and I am currently humored, so maybe later!

The inspiration, well not really inspiration, or at least what got me thinking about blog rankings was a post on Unspun's blog about a proposed meeting between the Indonesian Minister for Communication and Information with the top bloggers in Indonesia which got me to thinking about what makes a top blogger a top blogger!

Enjoy the weekend!

15 comments:

Jakartass said...

Do what you've gotta do, bro'.

You may note that I've removed my counter. This was because it ran - erm - counter to my stats breakdown. I keep that in order to know my readership, which is much wider than I originally envisaged.

Anonymous said...

Be careful, you may suffer from blogger status anxiety. LOL

Unknown said...

Don't beat yourself up!!

Low traffic doesn't = Crap posts

Because this would mean

high traffic = meaningful comment
and some of the high traffic sites are just sh*t.

Write for yourself, somehow I don't think you would get a start with the minister anyway, no matter what your rating

GJ

Rob Baiton said...

M...

Blogger status anxiiety? Is that something akin to penis envy?

GJ...

Not beating myself up over it...

Rather just making a point as to what constitutes a "top blogger" and who makes those decisions...besides I am not technologically savvy enough to even know where to find my "stats" to even break 'em down, pretty sad really (like I assume my stats to be) :)

As to the Minister thing and contrary to some other posts it seems to be an open invitation with the discretion applied after you express interest rather than a few bloggers being invited because of their numbers in cyber space...nuf said!

Patung said...

That sure was some 'plug' there, he he.

But blog ranking, have you seen this one http://blogs.indonesiamatters.com/widget_link.php?url_id=256?
It's even got your name on it. But, whether a blog ranks highly in rankings can depend a lot on whether some technical issues have been sorted out, it might be half the battle actually. If you actually are interested in blogging fame and fortune then drop me an email at the address I use to comment here and we'll get you on the way.

Another thing - "if people want to read they will eventually find me" - I don't think that is right, or at least it is the wrong way of thinking about it, the point should be to make it as likely as possible that they will find you.

Rob Baiton said...

Patung...

I have seen the widget thing on your site before...and I note that I am spiralling southwards at a rate of knots :)

My point was really that I am not blogging for the 15 minutes of fame or any commercial rewards, but rather I am blogging for myself and to amuse myself!

I am into the Kevin Costner, Field of Dreams, thing...If you build it they will come :) hence people will find me if they want to! And those that do but can't, such is life!

Thanks for the offer though! You could always email me at baiton_rob[at]yahoo[dot]com and explain what I need to do and it might turn into a maybe I will / maybe I won't sort of a deal!

NIF said...

I have come into disfavor any kind of blog stat. Well, Rob; do you come into the Ministry of Information Meeting? Too bad it happen at night, it will be harder to me to get there.

Anonymous said...

ha ha. very funny Rob,
status anxiety is a book written by Alain de Botton, discussing about people's anxiety in climbing up the ladder to reach higher status..

in blogging, i guess it means higher rates, higher income, more visitors..more recognized..

Rob Baiton said...

Hey M...

I thought you were a weekend visitor :) but everyday is fine with me!

Tongue in cheek joke about "envy" and anxiety being everywhere. The idea that people are always striving to be somewhere or someone else..."only if I had done 'this' then I would be 'here'" scenario...

Sometimes you just have to be happy in your own skin! If you're a God-fearing person then you need to believe that God has a plan for you. Nah, if you are not into God then the plan still might not entirely be of your own making anyway :)

As I said in other parts (the original blog and the comments), I did not start the blog for commercial reasons or to have 15 minutes of fame...

But, I guess if you can make money out of just sitting around at home playing on the laptop, then "who am I to look a gift horse in the mouth"?

M, enjoy your week!

rimafauzi said...

I don't care about blog rankings. I don't even know what it is about. But I do wish more people read my stuff. Apparently my stuff aren't deemed too good, thus the minimal visitors. But it's ok, I started blogging to have something to do in my spare time which has culminated into some kind of an online diary/rant bin/opinion publisher (all this can be summed up in the indonesian phrase 'tempat uneg-uneg')

But your stuff is good. Keep on writing and I will keep on reading!

Rob Baiton said...

Rima...

Thanks for dropping by! I try hard to write interesting stuff sometimes I get it right and then sometimes not...

I am with you on this one in terms of I started doing this blogging thing to amuse myself more so than anything else. It is also kinda fun to have people stopping by :)

I suppose blog rankings are important to those that are selling something (commercialized) than it is to those of us that are really into it just for the fact that it gives us a forum to vent, rant, rave, or just muse about those things we find interesting...

Enjoy the rest of your week...

Finally Woken said...

Think it's 2 different things. Blog ranking is like Patung's IM rank, where your blog(s) are positioned against others based on several conditions (page rank, alexa traffic etc).

Blog stats, which I'm more interested in, will tell you (the author) many things, from how many visitors per day you have, where they come from, which topic interest them the most etc. It's more like getting to know your visitors. Some people will use the stats to capitalize or monetize their blogs. I personally check who visit my site and try to always visit them back, as a thank you.

Rob Baiton said...

Hey Anita...

Yep, appreciate the difference between rankings and stats. Particularly aware of the difference in the sense that blog ranking might not (or perhaps never) reflect the stats in terms of visitors.

In terms of responding. Those that visit and leave comments I endeavour to do two things: visit their blog or page and answer or comment on the comment!

As I have said many times; I am no techno wizard and as such have not been paying that much attention to either and do not necessarily know how to find either :)

The point of my post was to solicit and encourage comments on why people blog and also what makes a "top blog" a top blog :)

Cheers and thanks for stopping by!

Jakartass said...

Although I may claim "bragging" rights, they weren't sought as I explained on my 4th anniversary back on March 21st, or whenever. Unlike several bloggers who claim to speak for the rest of us, I am not interested in monetising Jakartass - my ads are for friends or folk I approve of in my maybe misguided way. None have paid for the 'privilege', although some have asked.

So why do I write? The same as everyone commenting here - to see if I can. But as the blogosphere has grown, I am interested in seeing how far reformasi has taken root and how far the old New Order can be pushed. With most of Indonesia's Fourth Estate controlled by a very few oligarchs, the Indonesian blogosphere has a role to play as the Fifth Column, expressing those opinions which challenge the status quo.

If we don't, who will? And if no-one does, then this country will atrophy even further into its mire of complacency and arrogant despotism.

And this is why I'm interested in my stats. I appreciate comments because those are the overt responses, but knowing, for example, that a Polish stamp website appreciates something I wrote for my own pleasure gives me a glow of quiet satisfaction. Maybe I could be writing for the Readers Digest, but why should I?

So it seems as if thee and me have similar motivations, Rob.

Because I have commented here, I expect to have a small boost to my circulation. if they're bloggers, they may give me a permanent link in their 'blogroll' ~ as we have for each other. Unlike magnets, likes attract.

I note that you use a lot of tags. I don't because I wasn't that tech-savvy when I started and after 1,150 posts, it's a bit late to go back and read them all in ordrer to catalogue them, but the one advantage of Blogger is that it's owned by Google. That means that with careful use of key words ~ and I've found "Paul Scholes penis" to be quite useful ~ you can attract a lot of visitors.

I know all this because I'm a regular reader of my stats.

Extreme.de is free. I suggest you sign up and add their (your) code to your sidebar somewhere at the bottom. Few other than yourself will be interested in what it conveys, but if it gives you further sites to explore and thoughts to capture in prose, then it'll be worth every cent you don't pay for it.

(PS. Hope to see you on Saturday.)

Patung said...

"one advantage of Blogger is that it's owned by Google. That means that with careful use of key words ~ and I've found "Paul Scholes penis" to be quite useful ~ you can attract a lot of visitors."

Jakartass, no, there are no advantages to using blogger, and certainly not that one. Google gives no special weight in their search results to blogspot results. Nor is there any advantage even in terms of indexing. Hoary old myth.