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Recently I have been thinking about this, a lot – as have a lot of other bloggers judging by my Twitter feed. Why do I blog?
Every month, thousands of bloggers await excitedly (and me, nervously) to see where they have ranked in the Tots100 chart. Out of around 8,000 blogs, to rank in the top 500 is great, but to be ranked in the top 100, well, that’s just amazing. Or is it?
The whole Tots chart, it feels like a competition to a lot of bloggers. Well it is really, just like getting to the top of any chart. But what does being in the top 100 really say? That you have a lot of readers & traffic, obviously. But, in the grand scheme, it’s just a number. Yes, sometimes it does present you with amazing opportunities, but is that the be all & end all?
As well as quality, personal, from the heart, content – giveaways, linkies, and the like are great for traffic, but it has also got me starting to think about why did I start blogging in the first place? Did I care about numbers? I was happy if I only had 1 reader, never mind 1, 000!
My first ever post was when I was undergoing fertility investigations and it was just my space to get my feelings down, and let my frustration, anger, and upset out as my head wasn’t in the right place. That was 3 and a half years ago now. Unfortunately that post received a bit of mocking so after that my blog was actually private for a while, and I hadn’t a clue about rankings or charts.
Since then it has evolved so much. Through fertility treatment, pregnancy, depression, miscarriage, and now I focus mainly on parenting and my family (with the odd food post thrown in!). I think it’s when J arrived that I actually got sucked in to the Tots100. When I really started thinking about taking my blog to the next level, about gaining those numbers. Though I like to think many of my loyal regular readers have been here since pretty much the beginning, and any gained since then, well, great! Thank you.
So now I have started thinking about where I want to go with my blog. I get so held up on my Tots ranking, that I have kind of digressed from why I started. I need to get back there. To go back to not caring about what chart position I am. To care about giving my readers content that they wish to read, that they have previously enjoyed from me. To care about keeping memories of my little family. To care more about me, not numbers.
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The chart position is meaningless IMO I too got caught up in stats but basically you have to host a successful linky to really make it work, as a lot of the weighting is on link backs. Also there's so much manipulation that goes on to get ranks higher, it isn't a measure of how good a blogger you are, it's how good you are at playing the game.
Sound content, from the heart, that makes YOU happy and your loyal readers happy that is what matters. Not numbers. Fuck the numbers (sorry) I have seen too many bloggers get so upset about it, that it's really awful.
Blogging is a fun hobby it should not be stressful.
I think first and foremost you have to blog for yourself. My blog is a personal space on the internet to write about anything I want to and if someone else enjoys the content that makes me very happy indeed. I've never been hung up on stats, it's not why I write.