Yesterday, Derek Halpern tweeted a link with “If you’re looking for more traffic, STOP!“, I am regular twitter user and users tweet like this to get more clicks on their links.
I would have clicked the link, but I have stopped there only. Of course, who wouldn’t want to get traffic.
Immediately, I opened up a new tab on Firefox and opened up his blog to have a overview of whats going on. I opened the latest blog post, with the same attractive title.
I must say its worth reading.
First of all, I have to say he knows how to convince. Yup, he really does because I don’t often click links with tweets.
But I was lucky to get that link, to the post he wrote about getting readers and not visitors.
Till now, I was just keeping in mind to increase traffic. Traffic in the sense, the traffic from Google Search Engine and Referrals too.
Till now, I was only thinking to increase the counter number, which got stuck at around 700 daily visits for this blog.
Of course we all want traffic, though the traffic is nothing if you are helping, if your blog is useful. Getting loyal readers is much more better than getting traffic, is what I learnt yesterday.
I know I don’t have best writing or convincing skills.
Moreover, this is a Design blog, what people expect out of the box. Tutorials, Resources, Freebies ? I am working damn hard on these, and I recently release Thesis Statement skin for Thesis 2.0 in case you don’t know about it.
Why Readers and not Visitors ?
It could be obvious question for you, was not for me.
You have to accept that traffic helps you earn from your blog, readers are mostly returning visitors. They won’t click the same ads everytime though a Visitor can.
So, why I accepted to built Readers and not Visitors ?
The answer is simple. Conversion!!
Conversion is the only thing.
Readers who listen to what you say and buy what you sell.
This is exact phrase which defines the readers from the blog post.
Till now, I was making articles which were helpful, though not informative.
When I started this blog, my simple plan was, first make this blog popular and achieve the planned traffic. After that, sell ads on the blog using BuySellAds and use Google Adsense.
I seen a lot of blogs running on the same strategy, which first get traffic, I don’t know how, and then start selling ads on their blog.
Getting Readers on a Design Blog Niche
After the reading Derek’s Blog post, I commented my problem hoping to get a solution from him. Seth, a guy from the community replied my comment there, which made my day actually.
I realized after reading that reply from Seth, I am getting the traffic that comes and goes. Not the ones who come back.
My blog doesn’t make any sense for readers. This blog is solving temporary problems, and so I am not successful loyal readers, that come back.
I am still discovering ways I can make this blog as much informative as I can. And that doesn’t mean I will stop publishing posts that solves temporary problem. I will sure do that too.
So, from now, I will turn my experience into writing, and you will see a lot of blogging guides on DesignSkew expressing my experiences. And if you are reading this then, I love you for being my Reader.