I appear to somehow or another become one of the core of the WoW gold blog community. Those sites that have blogrolls mostly link here; many posts refer to me as well. While flattering it, when I realised it, I was somewhat surprised. I can be boring & long winded. Today I will continue in that tradition (especially if you are not a blogger or thinking of becoming one).
At the moment I am looking to provide visibility to less read sites. I know what exposure on the undermine journal can for a website. I have in the past, and will continue to post longer comments as stand alone posts on this site, so that:
- I know that my comments are read (yes - I'm vain enough to care whether my articles are read or not); and
- To provide additional visibility to the site I am commenting on.
My early readership was exactly what you could expect. Very low. I don't entirely trust Blogger stats, as it gives me readers before I started my blog; but my guess of a small handful of guildies equals blogger's guestimates (10 pageviews) per post.
My early emphasis was gold for beginners. I was still a relative beginner, though easily becoming wealthier than guildies. I still think that is an important topic. However, beginners don't often read gold blogs; those with some experience do.
Some things that worked very well for me were commenting on other blogs. Sometimes writing up an article in response to someone else's blog post, and leaving a link in their comment. This attracted initial readers.
I already had an established blog with a few months of posts, when WoW Economic Review (since closed - a review somewhat similar to network.phase3profit.net; or the blog review from theunderminejournal.com) asked for new blogs to submit; I did so, and my numbers took off. JTMC also had a linked list of blogs that worked very well for me; but he has since closed that list down.
My best individual post was a work around for Auctioneer when patch 4.1 hit. , with over 5000 page views (as tracked by Google analytics and blogspot's counter). I nearly didn't publish this because I wasn't sure it would be interesting. The majority of these page views came via Google, and for a while, when you searched for auctioneer I outranked auctioneer's own website .
Other posts that worked very well were when Breevok and I 'bantered'. This drove a huge amount of traffic my way, and even today I get a lot of referrals via his website.
'Good' controversy also works, especially when I recovered Critical Goblin's deleted comment. I still disagree with the technicalities; he sells glyphs to provide trinket mats; I sell trinket mats to get rid of less than useful glyph by-products, I think the community has done well in getting someone less dry than me to post a different viewpoint.
Surprisingly enough, posts that don't work well for me are my real life political commentary posts that have nothing to do with WoW. (yes that was sarcasm.) However, I don't do them often, and they are my form of advertising; I occasionally subject you to my real life views in exchange for providing you with interesting (and I am sure at least occasionally boring) WoW commentary.
I know that my blog has inspired goblins out there; My glyph making process series took someone who was already OK at gold making and turned lose a dominating scribe on another server. While I have every reason to believe he would have done well regardless of my posts, he had the benefit of experience crystallised in just a few posts. The same applies for my reading other blogs: I am sure I could work it out; but it is faster/cheaper/easier to read other blogs to see what worked or didn't work.
In terms of numbers; my best post had over 5000 page views; a very good post will pull over 1000, many will pull 600-900, and even when I pull out an entirely uninspiring post, I still get 100-200 page views. In contrast Tobold apparently pulls 2000 views per day (down from his peak of 3000). There are also 240 google based RSS feeds readers to my site; and are likely to be more not using google reader.
Many readers use RSS feeds to read the first part of a post to determine if they will open the full post. Personally, I read most blogs via these feeds; making it easy to catch up with my reading lists whether on my work pc; home pc or phone. Readers who don't open an article, and don't use google reader won't show up in any of my stats; nor will readers who block javascript (I tend to do that too).
In terms of sources of readers; 9% is direct traffic; 14% from search engines (often searching for 'fow wow' or other similar terms) and 77% is referrals.
Of the referral sources; in order; the following sites send traffic my way:
- theunderminejournal.com / eu.theunderminejournal.com By far the biggest driver of traffic
- Google (This seems to be in addition to the search traffic. I assume from google reader but I am not sure.)
- criticalgoblin.blogspot.com
- nerffaids.blogspot.com
- kujasgoldmine.blogspot.com
- csahf.blogspot.com
One day I will most likely stop playing WoW. That will come when I stop improving. When that happens, this blog will most likely stop as well. That day is not today. I subscribed to the annual pass; I'm a sucker for the guaranteed beta invite.
While WoW still has challenges I want to solve (I'm 4/7 normal not 7/7 hard), I will still be playing. I will most likely be posting (sometimes in a rush; other times sporadically) my commentary on WoW, with what grabs my interest.
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I used to blog under Player Vs Auction House, and am actually already on your blogroll under that name, but I didn't want to get typecasted as strictly AH talk. So, I made In An Age.
ReplyDeleteGoing on month #3 without WoW, but I still talk about it relatively frequently; MoP and/or the annual pass might bring me back depending on time frames. Up to you whether that is enough to qualify me as a WoW blog. :P
I've always thought you were a good writer, but the blog itself needs a visual makeover. Too plain.
ReplyDeleteI could understand it when Bree just pooped on my method because I was new to the blog scene. I see it all the time "im right cos ima pro and your wrong cos your a noob" so no surprises there. What surprised me was you always allowed me to defend myself, and then later encouraged and helped me build my own blog.
ReplyDeleteI donno if i will be around forever like Tobold but thanks for the push buddy. You're a good guy, even if you are an aussie. jk =)
Great post Foo. It's an interesting read for us newer bloggers.
ReplyDeleteA few things I've noticed on my own blog that others might find interesting.
1. A mention in an article on a major wow news site with a link included can really increase page hits over the short term. Roughly half my total traffic since my blog's inception came over a period of a few days after a link on wowinsider to my Last Chance for Epic Gems post. I wound up getting something like 6000 hits in a few days.
2. For all time referrals, my 3 biggest referrers in order are wowinsider (by a long shot), Cold's and Faid's. The referrals from Faids all seem to come from a single comment with a link someone else made on her blog (Fluxdada IIRC).
3. Foo's site has become my blog's biggest referrer over the last few days. Pretty much all from comment crosslinks to/from my Abuse of the Economy post. Foo's is right behind Faid's now and will probably pass her site today.
Oh wait. Google is actually my second biggest referrer.
ReplyDeleteI really hate not being able to edit posts. I always remember something I wanted to say right after I hit post. ;)
ReplyDeleteOne other thing I meant to mention was I've noticed all of my most viewed posts are the ones that have been linked elsewhere, whether by myself or by someone else.
@Azuriel; I don't know what I want to do with my blogroll and wow blogs that are not gold related. However, you are now on my personal reading list.
ReplyDelete@Anonymous; Plain design is kinda how I roll. Thanks for the vote of approval of my writing.
@Critical; (A)Keep writing as long as the urge takes you. (B)Breevok really wasn't as bad as you felt he was; He was going to write a larger article based on our very protracted glyph war. However he bailed in order not to cause further offence. That said; their is often something of 'Glyphs; mine all mine my precious'.
@MoxNix; Glad I could send some traffic your way.
I enjoy reading your posts and insights and I thank you for your advice in getting me started in glyphs. It gave me a alternative way to gear my toon since I have the worst raid drop luck.
ReplyDeleteIn enjoy your blog. I like the plain look. Your thoughts tend to be rational and well thought out. Well worth coming back to read.
ReplyDeleteNow...I am lazy so I often dont set up sites I want to read. These days I use Undermine Journal to be my starting point. I like them as I can read part of an article before moving on. I always look for your updates and really should just set your page up as a default site to read.
At some point I thought I might like to blog....but the time is what throws me. Who wants to read what I write. Do I care what others think? Not really. I think for the time being I just prefer to comment on your blog, Faids and pick on Critical Goblin in a constructive fashion. I like Critical's style and appreciate that you have helped him stay in the blog world.
As an aside Critical says he knows everything so why should anyone else start to blog or continue blogging if Critical knows it all....jk.
Keep up the good work Foo....and get to Rag.
Ah ha! You cant say I dont want anyone else to blog i just did a How-To blog post!
ReplyDeletePersonally I think you (Brent) should blog. Mainly because you too like arguing about glyphs and I likey those sort of bloggers.
Blogging is quite fun, its like a wow mini game. Donno if other bloggers have a similar experience but I actually spend more time on blogging than playing wow! And tbh I would've quit wow by now if i wasnt blogging.
Now, the hard part is: Must. resist. submitting. blog. to. TUJ! The dark force is strong!
Yes; blogging takes time; lots of time.
ReplyDeleteIt's really inspiring and helpful to read blogging success stories like this, especially from such a staple in the gold blogging community.
ReplyDeleteI would greatly appreciate it if you could help a fledgling blogger out and add my blog to your feed! The Golden Crusade
Hey there Foo, glad to see that you're making progress with your blog. I know for someone like you, the passion of blogging is what makes you keep going, and that's also what brings in the pageviews. I believe that you are one of the few people who can repeat my own success with WoW blogging. Not necessarily for the money side (selling my blog for $50,000 isn't common), but defintely for traffic (5,000 - 10,000 pageviews every day).
ReplyDeleteFor starters, you need way more google traffic. May I make some recommendations to help you bring up that google % of incoming traffic?
#1. Change your title tag in html to:
"Foo's Wow Musings - WoW Gold Tips". If not "WoW Gold Tips" then something else that you want to rank for.
#2. Resubmit your articles to article marketing websites.
#3. Guest post on related websites (not just gold ones). This could be pve, pvp, class specific, etc.
#4. Get a post series going that links from post to post.
#5. Do a list post where you go through your top 10 posts and link to each in the article.
#6. Submit your RSS to google as a sitemap. That gets every post into google instantly.
#7. Be more active on forums related to WoW gold making.
#8. Do collaborative posts with other bloggers (like the blogging carnival I used to do but smaller).
#9. Run contests. Fame and links can be the reward.
#10. Get on social media.
If you need help, feel free to contact me at http://www.thetrafficblogger.com