My name is Joel Falconer, and I’ve never posted a word here. Not one article, not even a comment. I’ve been a part of 451 Press for a while, though - I’m a musician, and I talk to other musicians at Musician’s Notebook.
But that’s enough about me, and more about the blog news! The last post from this blog’s previous writer was on the BlogRush system, which was brand-spankin’ new at the time. Since phase two was just rolled out, I think that’s a great place to pick up.
Getting Traffic from BlogRush
Every time I see something written about BlogRush, I notice the question is:
“How much traffic is this thing going to get me?”
That’s a perfectly valid question, too, seeing as the purpose of this widget is to drive traffic. In fact, if you haven’t asked that question to yourself at least once, please proceed to slap yourself over the head and then ask. If you’re not asking those kind of questions and just signing up for every new service that comes out for bloggers, you lacking clear focus and direction in your plan for promoting and marketing your blog.
I checked my stats on Musician’s Notebook. BlogRush brought in 52 hits there throughout October, which is the same amount as Google Reader. It’s not a massive amount by any stretch, but if it’s bringing just as many people to my site as those who’ve subscribed and read it in the most popular RSS reader on Earth, I won’t complain. At those traffic levels, it’s worth keeping around while that blog finds its audience.
I checked the stats here, too. October yielded nothing, but since the previous writer left near the end of September, I checked that month’s stats too. Nothing. There were more referrals from sites with wonderful permalinks such as “free-pantie-hose-movie” - and that certainly didn’t seem like something that’d fit under the Computers & Internet category at BlogRush. Since the traffic at Blog News Watch is three times that of Musician’s Notebook, I’m going to assume it was never installed.
The only other blog I have with BlogRush on it is Alfadir’s Piercing, my band’s blog. It has had one referral from the service.
Obviously there are differences in results between blogs, and many factors that affect click-through. Crafting great headlines is just absolutely vital to having any success on BlogRush. If this blog were on BlogRush I’m also sure that there’d be very few referrals coming through, seeing as this kind of site would be the most common type of site in their database.
Bottom Line: the BlogRush service might help you, if you are just starting out and building an audience. If you do decide to use it, hone up on headline writing skills. Otherwise, it’s just slowing down your visitor’s loading times.
Basic Functions That Never Made It Into 1.0
There was one feature that was absolutely necessary in BlogRush 1.0. There was no way to delete any of your own blogs from the database. I didn’t want to delete my blogs because I was unhappy, but because there was an error in the system when I signed up. The Musician’s Notebook sign up page didn’t work properly and constantly refreshed, thereby sending the wrong information repeatedly to the service.
When I logged in to BlogRush for the first time, there was one listing for Alfadir’s Piercing and way too many for Musician’s Notebook. I randomly chose one and used it.
My list was disgustingly ugly with clones that should never have existed, but I had no way to get rid of them. Now, in 2.0, I do. Thank grok.
New Features - Shiny, like the blinding light that occurs when a blogger finally washes the dishes.
Everyone always starts with the new features because they aren’t as boring as everything else. It’s like journalism school in universities… “If it bleeds, it leads!” In this case, only if it bleeds on the edge of new technology.
It was about time.
BlogRush finally got better statistics reporting. Better yet, it also received a cool little at-a-glance feature that lets you find out quickly which of your posts are going well and which are being ignored by the masses.
Well, I always feel ignored. I have abandonment issues, from the time when I was two and my sister threw my teddy bear out the car window at 110km/h on the highway.
BlogRush 2.0’s fancy stats system allows me to recoup some small amount of self-esteem after that shattering event, by seeing how many people will click on a headline I write.
It also seems to depend what you’re writing about: my music blog gets very little BlogRush traffic, yet Musician’s Notebook gets a fair bit. It may be that the structure of titles on the other blog is very different.
But still, stats! Beautiful, beautiful stats. I’ve always been a stats whore. Better still are the custom reports with user-defined date ranges.
Fair’s fair; helping the poor is better than helping the rich
Those of you considering giving up your BlogRush widget may do well to give it a bit more time. Low traffic members are now getting most of the bonus traffic BlogRush awards, and the radio airplay that comes with it. If you want to use BlogRush to promote your small and unloved blog, you’ve got the right strategy.
OVERALL: I say bloggers who are starting out should keep the widget on for a few weeks or months until they start finding their own audience. Once that happens, BlogRush’s benefits will be negligible and you can save the space and processor energy for other things.
Enjoy BlogRush 2.0!
Tags: blogrush, blogrush phase two, john reese
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