9:58 AM
Chaviva Gordon-Bennett
I stumbled upon a post by Jack yesterday while browsing my Google Reader feeds, and it got me thinking: Should I have guest bloggers? Do interviews of other bloggers? Says Jack: "Do you find yourself racking your brain or scouring the web for that one perfect topic to blog about? Do you find yourself cursing out loud because you discoved that the topic you wish to discuss has already been covered by 6,354 other bloggers, and at least six of them did a better job than you." And oddly enough, my answer to this is sometimes (perhaps once a week) YES!
You see, for some reason my page views and hits have gone up, nearly tripled in the past month. I credit this to having branched out in my blog viewing, tossing on such big names as Frum Satire, a psuedo superstar of the Jewish blogging world. (Note: If you get a big WARNING when you click on that link, it's because he got hacked and Google hasn't rekindled its love for Frum Satire just yet; don't worry, it's safe.) I've found that, if I comment elsewhere, or end up on the Blog Roll of some e-Jew superstar, I'm more likely to get hits. But it feels really self-serving and almost, well, dirty.
But with new frequent readers and commenters, I find myself, as Jack said, racking my brain for the perfect topic to post on. I mean, I have about a dozen posts in the works -- that is, in my head, but not finding their way to my fingers fast enough -- but I feel like I need to blog at least once a day (hence the random, and pointless Wordle yesterday).
With this mindset, though, comes the question of quality versus quantity. I could post something every day and never get a comment, and it would be a waste of my time and that of the reader. I want to have a blog where every post ends up like my Torah blog post the other day -- where there is conversation, questioning, discussion, and thought.
I suppose it's all about balance, but I think Jack brings up an interesting issue. And it's got me thinking. I read so many other blogs, many of them by people who have a mass e-following and some who have even made a career out of blogging (which, in all honesty, I'd kill to do). So in the not-so-distant future, you might find me interviewing someone of significant importance, perhaps on how they got so big, how being Jewish has affected their blog output, etc. I'm intrigued, and though I'm no reporter (read: I'm a trained copy editor who just likes to write), I think I'm pretty sound with the questioning.
4 comments:
Do you seek blog satisfaction?
I try not to worry about readership in terms of pure numbers. I'm more concerned with finding a few readers who comment with constructive criticism on my ideas.
That said, recently starting a purely Jewish blog away from my more eclectic Livejournal was a deliberate measure to try to increase my Jewish readership.
Back in Poland I used to post once, often twice (and on occasions three) times a day. When I was traveling to Lithuania for Pesach then, I was worried about internet access and time -and thus decided to ask a few other bloggers to write guest posts for me . . . I asked a ASJ, and he wisely told me that "Perhaps it might be good to go a week without blogging in order to make your readers hunger to return."
I don't post every day anymore, but find the response to those posts I do put up to be better. (Just don't disappear for too long, then readership will drop off)
As to networking . . . go for it -as long as you aren't deliberately selling your blog, it's fine -and a good way to make bogging friends . . . in fact, it's how I found this blog :-)
Thanks for the comments, Daniel.
Mottel: I think ASJ is pretty wise, and that's good advice. From Aug. 13-20, I'm more or less going to be traveling, so chances are my web presence will be light (I say this now, but my addiction is strong! Ha!). So maybe that'll be a chance for me to collect a week's worth of thoughts and do something worthwhile with it.
Thanks for the link and your kind words in the comments, Chaviva :)
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