Try Things Out for Yourself
For those of us who have desired to blog with a purpose (and that purpose often being profit), one of the things many of us have done is to listen to the supposed gurus.
That’s all fine and well and really is good advice if you’re new to blogging and don’t know where to start. Better to start on a path that showed promise for someone else rather than risk venturing out there and falling off an unexpected cliff. That’s not to say that you cannot find riches blazing your own trail, but it’s unlikely that you would stumble upon an oasis if you’re not an experienced hiker. You’ve got to have the basics down before you can set out on your own path. Learning from others is an advisable way to learn those basics. Otherwise, you might die from a poisonous berry.
However, you cannot be content with simply emulating what others have done. What may have worked for someone else may not work for you. This will be especially true if your market and audience are completely different from that of your selected guru.
That’s why you need to test and try new things.
Case in point, the use of photos. It’s long been advised that putting photos on your blog attracts readers. It makes for a more pleasant appearance and engages the reader, we’re told. For a long time, I’ve been sticking photos in almost every post, generally at the top of the post which was also the advice offered by some of the blogging gurus. As mentioned previously, since mid-April I have not been able to post new photos on this blog. So, traffic should decrease, right? I should be losing readers, no?
About a week later, I mentioned that traffic had actually increased. Coincidence? Maybe. But, on the other hand, I’ve not made any other changes to this blog. I’ve not advertised it more. I’ve not been commenting on other blogs more. The only change I’ve made (albeit unwillingly) was to not post new photos. Mind you, I’ve sporadically recycled old photos from the blog’s archives, but those have been very few. Overall, most posts have been strictly textual in nature.
But, how has that trend been holding up in the several weeks since then?
Well, traffic has continued to increase. In fact, in terms of traffic, May (so far) has beaten every single month of last year in terms of traffic, even the best months. Also, it’s beaten every month of 2008 (for which I still have stats available to check). And May is usually a down month compared to other months. It’s also beaten every month of this year so far, except for March. But, unless traffic shrivels up by a staggering percentage over the weekend, May should best March too.
Could this all be coincidence? I can’t rule it out but I also cannot account for anything else that might affect the traffic. Maybe people got tired of looking at silly pictures (even though the dancing monkeys were quite popular)? I don’t know. It’s just that the only difference I can identify that corresponds with the increase in traffic is the point at which I stopped posting new pictures.
The point here is not that you should not use photos, but that you shouldn’t take my word for it, nor the word of any blogging expert that says you should use photos. Test things out for yourself and see which method performs best for your blog.
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