Blog News Watch

I’ve delayed writing about BlogRush here, though I installed it on my Inspired Solo blog last weekend, because I wanted to give the blogosphere a few days to suss it out and see what the reaction was going to be, so I could sum it up.

What’s BlogRush?

BlogRush is the brainchild of John Reese, who blogs at Income.com . It debuted last weekend to much fanfare, and mixed reactions (see next heading). BlogRush is part sidebar widget, part affiliate/referral program. The widget is created by free code, generated by the BlogRush site upon completion of the sign-up process, which you insert into your sidebar. Then, it displays headlines from other blogs in your BlogRush category (Inspired Solo’s is law and legal.)

Of course, the other side to the value equation (besides the value to your readers of seeing other interesting headlines) is that your headlines get syndicated likewise on other blogs. How much exposure your headlines get depends on an impressions-based formula. You’re rewarded for traffic, clicks, and referrals to the program; the more exposure you give BlogRush, the more exposure it gives you in return.

Summing Up The Blogosphere’s Reaction

There have been several less-than-positive reviews of the service. The main complaints seem to be:

• Repeated headlines that don’t rotate in the widget window (this seems to have been fixed);
• Poor “match up” between and among some categories (BlogRush indicates it’s working on this problem by carving up too-broad categories even further);
• Low quality traffic;
• Low quantity traffic.

The last two problems depend partially on user behavior, as several commenters have pointed out. Many articles lately have focused on headline crafting. This makes ultimate sense, of course - it’s the headline that’s going to draw the attention of your would-be reader on some other BlogRush-enabled blog. You want to make sure that it meets several criteria, as I mention in this article at TIS.

A Note to Michael Martine

Here’s why I think BlogRush isn’t working, and most of the marketing category headlines on it are crap: Nearly all of the people who have signed up for it are too lazy to do what it takes to build their traffic the correct way. And that means that they’re also too lazy to create quality content that would result in getting clicked in the widget and that would benefit a blog’s readership. This lazy get something for nothing mentality compounds itself and the result is that the headlines that appear in the widget are crap. Given more time, more lazy people will sign up and there will be more… crap! So I don’t see how more time will help anything. There are so very few excellent blogs using BlogRush that it’s basically just a rush of crap.

No. I am not lazy. I do not skimp on creating good content for my readers. I also do not find “paid links” and “crap” in my widget. Finally, you really goofed by insinuating that if you’re not Problogger, DoshDosh, or - I guess - you, then your posts are “crap.” That might have been far from what you meant to say but that’s what it sounds like. And you know better. (You also don’t need to resort to some manufactured controversy to gen up your own traffic - you’re too good for that.)

Where I Stand

At TIS, I have experienced about a 10% uptick in traffic since installing BlogRush. While not all of that is due to the service, some of it is. I’m still monitoring the impact. I don’t know whether I’ll keep it up there, or take it down but right now, I don’t see a downside. The posts that are coming through seem to be of interest to my readers, even if tangential at best to my content (frankly, that’s a good thing - I wouldn’t want anything too directly competitive).

Anything that offers my readers more value that they might enjoy is fine with me. I don’t have the all-too-common fear (usually found in beginner bloggers - and it’s understandable because it all goes so contrary to our intuition) of sending readers away. I know they come back when I give them something of value. Although I took Michael to task earlier for some of his post on this subject, I do agree with him that the real value for bloggers is dependent on the quality of the posts featured in their widgets. If that changes for me, then it will definitely be hard to justify cluttering up the sidebar real estate with it on an ongoing basis.

As for “How To Geek”’s comment about “writing for a widget” - well, yeah, that would be stupid. I would hope my readers see the difference between being aware of a fact and chucking all previously held wisdom over in favor of said fact? My practice is quite simple: I write (or try to) good headlines. Then again, good headlines ARE short and contain no extraneous words. They also contain strong, active words; aren’t cute or gimmicky; accurately lead into the post; and have strong emotional impact. I just don’t see the difference between writing good headlines so you get noticed in a feed and writing good headlines so you get noticed in the BlogRush widget.

So, I am still going to maintain BlogRush on TIS, and see what the long-term impact is - whether the rise in traffic sticks around, and whether it leads to better conversions.

If you want to sign up for BlogRush, just click here and follow the simple instructions (note: not an affiliate link; if you want to throw some love my way, you can find the affiliate link in this post).