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Author Topic: Attracting blog traffic  (Read 8685 times)

Online TWD

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    • Tom's Toy Soldiers Blog
Attracting blog traffic
« on: January 25, 2020, 10:58:41 AM »
I've seen a few posts on blogs fora and elsewhere lamenting the decline of traffic to blogs and suggesting a move to social media was a cause and in some cases advocating a move to social as a result.

So I wrote a short thing about how to attract more traffic to your blog.

Naturally it's on my blog, so you'll have to click this link* to read it.
https://tomstoysoldiers.blogspot.com/2020/01/getting-people-to-view-your-wargames.html


*see what I've done there :) ?

Offline FifteensAway

  • Galactic Brain
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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #1 on: January 25, 2020, 02:33:01 PM »
Um, aren't blogs social media?   :?

Offline Elbows

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #2 on: January 25, 2020, 05:14:27 PM »
I definitely don't think blogs are what you'd consider "normal" social media (a more interactive platform with more discussion/back-and-forth). 
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Online TWD

  • Mastermind
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    • Tom's Toy Soldiers Blog
Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #3 on: January 25, 2020, 05:25:31 PM »
Um, aren't blogs social media?   :?

Yes, yes they are.
Why do you ask?

Offline pixelgeek

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #4 on: January 25, 2020, 05:39:25 PM »
Um, aren't blogs social media?   :?

Not in the modern sense of the term.

There are, I think, two main reasons that Facebook is killing blog traffic. The Like button has, I think, neutered comment even on Facebook. People just click a Like button and feel as if they have made a suitable response to a post. The horrible commenting system on Facebook doesn't help. I think that this has extended outside of Facebook. People don't comment on blogs as much as they used to.

Facebook also tries to capture as much of your activity as possible and keep it inside Facebook. They recently killed the ability to autopost Wordpress blog posts to your feed. I used to generate a lot of traffic back to my blog that way. They also allowed people to make Groups private. Which means that you can't share private content across Facebook further siloing that content.

A forum like LA has been split into 100s of groups. And if any of them are private then you can't  share content. It makes your browsing on Facebook time consuming.

Blog traffic is going to suffer when you have a globe-spanning system like Facebook that actively works to make itself the central focus of people's time online.

Offline OB

  • Mastermind
  • Posts: 1610
Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #5 on: January 25, 2020, 05:48:17 PM »
Good post with solid advice for bloggers.  I'm not sure it was a Puffin though.

Offline Yarkshire Gamer

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #6 on: January 25, 2020, 06:12:01 PM »
I suppose it depends on your reason for blogging, don't get me wrong it is great when one of your posts hits the spot and becomes popular or gains a lot of comments but my main driver has always been to keep a record of my gaming and painting activity. I also put stuff out there for other gamers to use (painting guides, scenarios etc) because I use others blogs for the same reason, kind of me putting something back to the gaming community.

There is so much choice out there on social media now, some of which is beyond me, but Yarkshire Gamer has a presence on Blogger, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and You Tube.

I use the blog for long posts like Scenarios or AARs that don't fit anywhere else because of size, Insta and Twitter (with a blog link) for one off pics and Facebook for inbetween stuff. YouTube is an entirely different kettle of fish and sometimes me talking about a rule set is easier than writing for hours about one.

Overall hits on my blog are down around a third on average to where they were at their peak a couple of three years ago.

Main reasons In can see are,

1) The fracture of TMP, it was "the" Wargames site and nearly everything flowed through it. Without going into the reasons many people have left (or been barred) from that site.
2) That fracturing has led to an increase in other Forums effectively splitting the audience. I have posted on here, Dakka Dakka, Wargames Website, Beasts of War, Bolt Action.
3) The demise of Google+ another great source of traffic that has now gone.
4) The way people consume social media, is more "quick fix" and people just don't seem to spend the time reading a whole blog post when they can get the jist of a post from a Facebook summary.

Nice article highlighting some good ideas. The blog is here for a while, you just cant put a full Battle Report on Twitter.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer
https://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.com
"Glittering prizes and endless compromises,  shatter the illusion of integrity"
http://yarkshiregamer.blogspot.co.uk

Online TWD

  • Mastermind
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    • Tom's Toy Soldiers Blog
Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #7 on: January 25, 2020, 07:08:02 PM »
Yes, I think "why we blog" may be a subject for a future post. Like you my reasons are very little to do with traffic (though it's nice to have).

Offline mcfonz

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #8 on: January 25, 2020, 08:05:15 PM »
Modern trends seem to be for throwaway things. So social media is no different.

Twitter, facebook, instagram, are probably the main ones. And reddit even if I continue to struggle with the layout and format - it causes my head to glitch for some reason.

Personally I really can't stand them for hobby stuff for anything more than "oh looky" because I like to be able to look around for inspiration and forums are far easier for that along with pinterest.
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Offline ced1106

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #9 on: January 25, 2020, 08:55:15 PM »
I suppose it depends on your reason for blogging, don't get me wrong it is great when one of your posts hits the spot and becomes popular or gains a lot of comments but my main driver has always been to keep a record of my gaming and painting activity. I also put stuff out there for other gamers to use (painting guides, scenarios etc) because I use others blogs for the same reason, kind of me putting something back to the gaming community.

fwiw, I only read blogs that provide information, so I'm a little surprised to hear if Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. are competitors. I guess these other social media are more useful for time-sensitive announcements. Personally, I find forums to be more useful for this information, since forums accommodate multiple threads, while other social media topics are usually dictated by the owner. I do find these other social media easier to browse for a company's pictures than blogs or forums.
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Offline von Lucky

  • Galactic Brain
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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #10 on: January 25, 2020, 09:37:46 PM »
Some good points, though "why we blog" is important too (I'm like Yarkshire Gamer for my reasons in blogging).

However, I'm interested now if I should add the "wargaming" tag in my posts and if that will make it easier for people to find my posts (as I don't have "wargaming" in my blog title).
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Offline pixelgeek

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #11 on: January 26, 2020, 03:01:13 AM »
1) The fracture of TMP, it was "the" Wargames site and nearly everything flowed through it. Without going into the reasons many people have left (or been barred) from that site.

There were as many, or more, people that didn't go to TMP as did. There were already a lot of other forums that existed in blissful ignorance of TMP :-)

Offline Yarkshire Gamer

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #12 on: January 26, 2020, 09:54:25 AM »
There were as many, or more, people that didn't go to TMP as did. There were already a lot of other forums that existed in blissful ignorance of TMP :-)

There were and there are now, but none of those other forums generate anywhere near the volume of traffic to a blog that TMP did and to be honest still does.

I will still get over 50 % of the traffic to my blog from TMP, in comparison LAF is less than 10 percent. The argument about TMP has been had ad nauseum here and elsewhere I'm talking solely numbers.

Regards Ken
The Yarkshire Gamer

Online Digits

  • Scatterbrained Genius
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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #13 on: January 26, 2020, 10:42:09 AM »
My own experience of TMP is simply you HAVE to follow links to blogs to see anything (shiny photos of great minis etc) whereas, and maybe it’s a little lazy of me, on a forum such as this, if someone just starts a thread with, “check out my blog to see......”, I find it a real turn off and immediately move to another forum thread where I can browse at my leisure things of interest.  I am not therefore surprised at that ratio of traffic.

I had a thread on Ammobunker that gained over a million hits.  I can only attribute that to the fact it concentrated on one particular topic, project if you like.  I can NOT in my wildest imagination believe the same would have been true had I instead posted it on a blog.

However, I have never had a blog, so I could be wrong.


Offline vexillia

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Re: Attracting blog traffic
« Reply #14 on: January 26, 2020, 12:48:34 PM »
I suppose it depends how you define traffic. 

I stopped measuring my blog by how many comments I received long ago.  On the technical side:
I do regularly post here and elsewhere with a teaser picture or paragraph to alert interested parties but I have noticed two things [1] TMP still drives the most traffic from links and [2] people generally comment on the starting forum.

Hope this helps.