Hits or Readers?
This is a question that many of us have wondered about. What is more important to us? To have pretty stats of thousands of visits, or to have lots of comments on each post, and have people who actually read the blog. We all need to ask ourselves what our goal is, and it’s different for everybody. Theres are lots of people, who just want to have a ton of visits, but don’t really care about influencing or helping people with their blogs. But plenty of others who get 1-30 visits a day on their blog, but don’t even care because it’s all people who read the posts, and then they can relate with.
Well today I was realizing, one, if your trying to make money with your site, then unfortunately you need to have both. And two, my blog is unbalanced. I’ll let you decide which way.
So I was reading my google analytics, looking at where my traffic had come. I saw the depressing stats of entrecard, a good amount of traffic with 3,000 but the 38 second, and 43 second average stay.
Then I wasn’t surprised to see Blog catalog, with an average of over 2 minutes. I was quite happy with that, but then I saw the one underneath it and couldn’t believe it.
Blogger Choice Awards, had an average of over 4 and a half minutes. That’s really quite amazing, and considering there were over 500 visits from that site, the visitors were consistently staying that long to. I hadn’t checked out Blogger Choice Awards and went over to it.
For those of you who don’t know, Blogger Choice Awards is a blog competition site, where you vote for the winners. Here’s what they say on the front page. “Welcome to the Blogger’s Choice Awards, the most popular user-generated blog voting site on the planet!”
So I looked at my categories and saw that this blog was on the first page, both for Best Business Blog, and Best Blog about Blogging. The last blog on the first page admitted, but on the first page nonetheless. I was surprised, and impressed with both the volume of the reader’s it’s sent over, and how much they read. If you look at this graph you can see that they came in a consistent manner.
Well ok… consistent arguably, but that’s about as consistent as you get in the blogging world.
But the point of this blog post was not to talk about my site but to tell you to check out Bloggers Choice Awards. Whether the purpose of your blog is Hits or Readers, you will profit from it.
How about you? What sites send you your most traffic? And which site sends the visitors that stay the longest?
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:35 pm
I’m greedy, I want them both….:)
TeasasTipss last blog post..Tips For Recruiting New Affiliates
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September 24th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Well that’s not greedy Teasas. That’s what you should be trying for. You’ll need both to be successful.
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September 24th, 2008 at 5:14 pm
I’m greedy, too and also want both. I take what I can get, though.
In any case, I’ve given you an award. Please visit for more details!
http://www.imnotbeautifullikeyou.com/the-hawg-hearts-me/
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September 24th, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Good post, and perfectly timed since this article highlights the issue that I’ve been thinking of today.
Since signing up to EntreCard a couple of days ago I have had a massive (well, large at least) increase in traffic to my blog, however as with yourself, most of these were quick stops of less than a minute. To me, this kind of hit is useless as I am not overly interested at this point in time about making money from my blog. I need people to read, understand, comment and share their opinions.
Well done with the Bloggers Choice Awards ranking, you’re doing very well, and maybe I’ll take a proper look into it sometime soon.
Thanks for the article, it’s good to know i’m not the only who thinks about these things!
Diesels last blog post..Logmein.com – Quick Mention
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September 25th, 2008 at 4:09 pm
A hit for the most part is nothing more then a link click, yea and? What’s 100,000 hits if 5 are actually reading…
Am I missing something?
Dennis Edells last blog post..New Feature! Link Love For Your Thoughts
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September 25th, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Yes Dennis, that is what a hit is. I don’t really understand what your question is, but I’m just saying, that you can be getting hundreds of people coming to your site like if you’re the top site on entrecard. But there staying for only ten seconds, to drop the card and move on. And I was just saying it’s a question that people have to answer about their site, what’s more important to them, Hits or Readers?
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September 25th, 2008 at 6:43 pm
Sorry, my sarcasm may have overrode my initial message on that one
My point being, aren’t “hits” pretty much worthless as they are?
I guess saying BOTH is ok, but really you wouldn’t have readers without hits…isn’t it also redundant?
Dennis Edells last blog post..New Feature! Link Love For Your Thoughts
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September 25th, 2008 at 10:08 pm
Yes, all readers were at one point “hits” on your site. But it’s not redundant because it’s two very different things. With my example of entrecard. If I worked really hard, I could get one of the top sites on entrecard, and thus get probably 50-100 visits a day from it. But the majority would be people who don’t even read my posts, but just come and drop the entrecard and leave. They would be “Hits.” Visits on my google analytics that give me one more visit for the day, but didn’t even read anything.
What I mean by a reader is somebody who comes to read your content. And maybe even comments on them. And you may be suprised at how small a percentage of people’s traffic are really readers. And are instead just hits. So people who came to the sites for many different reasons, but not to read the content.
Does that explain anything? I’m sorry I guess I’m being really confusing or something lol.
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September 26th, 2008 at 10:16 am
a very vital issue has been raised differentiating the hitters from the actual blog readers.. Well I can add something to it - some one who actually reads your blog surely leaves a comment, so you don’t need to see the stats. But for a blogger a Hit is also as important as read, so the discussion continue…
Rituraj Vyass last blog post..Chrysler goes Electric with Dodge EV !
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