Traffic spikes on the blog

http://blog.indextank.com/1136/traffic-spikes-on-the-blog/

by zohaibr • 15 years ago

8 4 15 years ago

blog.indextank.com

ColinWright2• 15 years ago

I have 5 minutes while I wait for something to compile, so let me give you some comments on this post. I'll take excerpts and make comments.

  Traffic spikes on the blog

What blog?

  In the last few weeks, we have seen huge traffic spikes
  on our blog,

No graphic? Pictures are good.

  ... the traffic has not converted well to our main site.

Were you expecting it to? Is that the purpose of your blog? Why do people read the blog? What is your main site about? As yet I have no idea ...

  The traffic has been almost ten-folds since the beginning
  of July,

Graph?

  ... after looking at the analytics, we saw a mere 10%
  conversion to the IndexTank home page.

Who is IndexTank? Why isn't that a link?

  Diving deep into this issue, we realized that there are
  only two links referring back to IndexTank.com and one
  was of them was linked to the “Get Started” page.

You've made that observation, and yet your mention of IndexTank - two mentions - aren't linked?

  Considering the amount of user-generated content that
  exists in this day and age, most people's attention span
  is limited.

You've just insulted me. My attention span is fine, my time is limited - ditto my patience.

  If after scanning a page, if a user can’t find who wrote
  the blog and why they are expert on this particular   topic,
  they move on to the next article on their list.

And yet I have no idea who you are, or why I should bother about what you've written so far.

  We hope to educate people with our blog,

So what is this item trying to teach me?

  ... we also hope to generate buzz for IndexTank.

And again you haven't linked to it.

  We were able to accomplish the first part but we failed
  on the second.

  I have couple of theories on why it did not convert well.

To be honest - I don't care.

  Firstly, since we only had two tiny links on our page,
  there was no direct connection to IndexTank,

and there pretty much still isn't.

  unless someone Googles IndexTank, they won’t be able to
  find out who we are and what we do.

And you still haven't told me.

  Secondly, the content of the blog have been very general
  and people interested in the content might not necessarily
  be interested in search technology.

Good content will pull people to read, and refer others. Not everyone will be interested in your technology, but I'll bet the more readers you get, the more will be interested. Your conclusion is faulty.

  Links to the home page are important

Yes - have you provided any within the article? No ...

  because they are designed to inform incoming new users
  about the company and its features,

and you still haven't told me anything I need or want.

  and convert those leads into sign ups.  Sine we already

Typo - "since"

  ... made the mistake, we are currently in the process of
  redesigning our blog, we want to capture our audience
  that come to our blog and help them learn about IndexTank.

Still no link.

  Driving blog traffic from sites such as Reddit and other
  feeds helps in rerouting traffic to the company site. But
  not all is lost if the conversion is not to your liking.
  You as a blogger did gain more audience and if they liked
  what you wrote, efforts will be made to find out more
  about you and what you do.

What? Why are you talking about me as a blogger - I'm your reader, your audience, not a blogger.

  IndexTank is a hosted search service that provides
  Full-Text Search, Real time indexing and much more.

Hah - finally! But it's too late - if I were a casual reader I would never have got this far.

  Check us out http://www.indextank.com

Still no link.

  If you like the post, please follow me on twitter @zohaibr

You haven't told me anything useful - it's been a narcissistic ramble. Don't blather about your navel gazing - make it focused on your reader and what your reader can do.

OK - that's all come across as pretty aggressive, but I felt you just wasted 5 minutes of my time, and I hope that by giving this feedback you stop wasting people's time and start doing something useful.

zohaibr2• 15 years ago

I appreciate your feedback.

ColinWright2• 15 years ago

I've been pretty harsh, I know, but it feels to me that you've really missed the point about why the traffic comes to the blog and no further, and you need to re-focus your efforts. The points I've made won't all be right, and they will probably all be hard to take, but they are genuinely intended to help.

I was disappointed that it's taken this long for you to respond. We're all busy, but I've taken time to give you a critique, and I thought you'd be checking back for responses. It's not too late for me to engage further because now I really do have other things to do.

Not sure that you'd want much more from me anyway - I expect you're feeling a bit battered. For that I apologise, but I didn't have time to be more diplomatic.

Good luck.

Traffic spikes on the blog

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