
I'm rather new to this blog malarkey. It is proving to be more fun and enlightening than I thought it would be. For one thing I have discovered that I am rather vain. This blog started off as a way of discussing things which interest me without having to witness the eyes of my audience glaze over (which is what happens when I do this in person).
To my surprise I started to care how many hits my blog was getting. Now that's a contradiction, how can you write what you think is a boring blog yet expect people to visit it.
Anyway to try and pump up the hits I enrolled in digg, technorati, zimbio, and propeller. Currently I am monitoring which is generating the most traffic.
Although its early days yet I think I have already made up my mind that its going to be propeller and digg that I stick with. I'm toying with the idea of dumping technorati and zimbio.
The reasons for this are simple. I am providing technorati and zimbio with free content which someone can read without ever coming to my blog. I have to hope that someone reading my post at zimbio or technorati will click the tiny link to my site that they provide. There is no way of even knowing how many views my material is getting there. Why don't they show this? Maybe it's because if you saw how many views your post got there and compared it to the referring link stats for your site you would quickly do the math. Another problem for me to consider is that when I do a google search, on a topic I have discussed in my blog, then the results will come back with the zimbio and technorati results for my material far nearer the top than those from my own blog site. It seems that there is a big danger of loosing search engine hits also.
With propeller and digg the person interested in your post is linked directly to your blog so you definitely get the hit as well as the possibility of getting a digg or equivalent.
I feel a bit bad about being down on zimbio because they did but one of my posts on their front page. It was encouraging that they thought it was good but did it generate more hits for them than it did for me? I need the hits more than they do. I suppose it depends why you are doing a blog. If you just want your stuff out there then technorati and zimbio are fine. If you are like me and get your kicks from actual hits on your site (and maybe your ads) then perhaps you should have a think about who you use for your blog publicity drive. Oh vanity, vanity, vanity!