I often wonder if other bloggers have a post that has kind of gone what we will call "viral" on their blog. What is that post about? I do think some of the hits on my Disney posts come from Pinterest. Where people could possibly just been clicking for the picture itself. I try to find ways to entice these readers to go to other places on my blog. I have read blogger tips that say to look at your most popular posts and use those posts to get people to stay on your blog.
What do you do on posts to keep people around? Do you do anything special for this? Of course getting people to your blog is easy, but getting them to follow and stick around is a whole different ball game. I am using linkwithin (which looks funny now as I get a blog makeover), I link up to links that I think are relevant to the post, I do try to get people to bounce around. What do you think? Oh and I just had to throw some Archer gifs in this post ... they have nothing to do with anything!
I have one post that has a crazy number of views and it isn't even one of my better ones. My Green Lanten Corps Vol 1 has 1086 views which is huge compared to the rest. The next most views is only 162 views. I need to work on doing something to get readers to bounce around like on yours.
ReplyDeleteJust thought I'd share.
I haven't figured out how to get others following my blog, but I'm so new, I'm not worried about it. I do the weekly posts to get some exposure, but it's rare anyone sticks around. I think that it's a few things, there's just so much out there that many get lost and it'll always be like that. But on the flip side, I think it has to do with what the reader gets from the blog. I have checked out many over the past few weeks, and I'm sure there's great blogs out there that I'm not following, I tend to stick with bloggers who read similar books, or have similar thoughts on things.
ReplyDeleteI have this one review for a book that I didn't really like and it's not one of my best reviews either, IMO, but it has almost 2 thousand views. I'm pretty proud of that!
ReplyDeleteI just switched from blogger to wordpress this past week, and just added google analytics to my new blog, so up until now I haven't been tracking. I'm curious to see what my post's stats will be from here on out!
ReplyDeleteHah, I do love Archer. I don't look at what posts get the most views too often...I just try and mix up content on my blog and make it the best I can make it. I do tell people that I comment back, so that hopefully gets other BLOGGERS to stick around and check out other posts, but it can be difficult.
ReplyDeleteLauren from www.shootingstarsmag.blogspot.com
I have some that get way more views than others and with the way things are set up have separate followers for different things I do. Some just come for cooking posts, some just for the animal posts, some for a little of everything. Works for me.
ReplyDeletePost wise I have one with almost 3500 views O.o that was a man candy post. Then a handful in the 1000 range. Either recipes or reviews or interviews. Then it starts to drop off to normal viewage. Sharing things helps a lot. Tagging authors when the post is about them and such.
I think the best advice I've heard and what I strive for is to just be...you. Embrace your own personal voice and to not be afraid to do something new or different. It's worked for me. I try to have most of my posts unique to my blog and not stuff that's going to be a copy paste on dozens of others. Or do things that feel forced, ya know? And to just have fun with it and try not to worry too much.
My post with the most views is about a bookish game, Bookopoly. I don't know why, but month after month this post is still number 1!
ReplyDeleteI have one post that went as close to viral as I'll ever likely get thanks to a retweet by Douglas Coupland (and God bless ya, Mr. Coupland - in case anyone wants to see it, here it is: http://mcmolo.blogspot.com/2013/10/captains-blog-supplemental-douglas.html ) but most hover around the same amount of hits. I never do much for promotion or what not and have no idea about that side of it, alas. I should probably pay more attention to that stuff.
ReplyDeleteI love both of these Archer gifs!
Oh Archer. There's no reason NOT to have them.
ReplyDeleteThe all time most popular single post was an after dark review for me but my Bedtime Stories seem to get the most traffic, and it is usually from google with people searching for a story.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what it is about some posts going "viral". I mean 1086 views on one post!! Wow. I don't know where these readers of mine are going to go when Project Disney is over. I need a new Project apparently! I think you have a great blog and write really thought out reviews. It really is just networking and I think blog events that get people to the blog to start with. Keeping them there is a whole different ball game.
ReplyDeleteI tend to gravitate more to bloggers who interact with their readers. I used to follow blogs that really only had the same interests as me but then I discovered that really if they never tried to get their readers participating and interacting it wasn't really for me. I too love to pop around the blogs and discover new ones I haven't visited yet. So fun!
ReplyDeleteHow crazy!! My highest viewed post is for the book "How to Tell if Your Cat is trying to Kill You" by the Oatmeal. People view that post soooooo much. I have no idea why and it's not one of my best reviews either since it was one of the first ones I did.
ReplyDeleteOh you did switch??? I would love to see a post about how the switch went for you. I have thought about doing it for years now.
ReplyDeleteWhat is difficult is when the people who come to this certain post "Disney" probably aren't readers. So I need to figure out a way to get Disney to translate over to books some how and keep people around. With all the view those Disney posts get there aren't a lot of comments either.
ReplyDeleteDid you do anything to that post with 3500 to get people to go to other posts? Or did you just leave it alone and let things happen the way they will. I do keep myself in my blog, I do what is fun to me so I agree with you in all of that. I am wondering though how much the views will drop on my blog when Project Disney is over. There just aren't enough Disney movies to keep that feature up forever! Damn you Disney!
ReplyDeleteLOL! That is exactly what happens to me. I just have this ONE post that is always number 1. I just can't get anything to top it.
ReplyDeleteOK how cool is it that Coupland retweeted it? I need to start tweeting more of my posts to the authors involved in it. I would love for them to give me a retweet! YES YES! OK so now I am going to check out that post too!
ReplyDeleteDANGER ZONE!
ReplyDeleteThat is great then that you are being found on Google. That is one of my top goals is to get google to find me. Really that is going to be great for your blog!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for the kind words. I love your blog and I think you have great posts. I need to look into more pop to draw readers to browse around more.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty happy with my blog even if I only have a few repeat readers.
I definitely like the ones that interact as well. Similar interests grab me but interaction and lots of activity keep me going back. :)
ReplyDeleteI love the project disney posts too but you have plenty of other great content. I have no idea what will grab some people's interest. I know a lot of newer bloggers like reading the blog tips posts that some more veteran bloggers do. Personally I started a fan art feature that I thought would be fun. Really I did it for myself because I wanted to encourage myself to do more art and I figured I I made it. Weekly thing I would have to give myself time each week to do it. So far it is doing nicely and this past Thursday I had my first two people link up to it! I was so excited.
ReplyDeleteI think having a mix of content is key. I am like you i only reliably follow people that will interact with me as well. If they don't why should I bother to keep coming back? Oh goodness pssst i started to fall asleep as I closed my eyes to think about new ideas for us both lol....must be a sign my comment is getting out of hand.
Ill put on the thinking cap while I sleep.
For me sometimes a post gets RT'd and the views shoot up, but I don't usually think of ways to make people stay or follow, I just figure if people visit and like my blog, they'll hopefully return/follow, and if not then maybe my blog is just not for them ;)
ReplyDeleteMands @ The Bookish Manicurist
Yes! It's so weird to me which posts get all the traction. My Girl of Fire and Thorns dream cast list gets a lot of hits, which I'm happy about, and my review of Ruby Red by Kerstin Gier gets a lot of hits too, which is weird to me since it's kind of old and not my best written review, in my opinion. I'll take it, but it does kind of make me scratch my head.
ReplyDeleteLOL!!! Hilarious.. I will think of new content. I love your art project!! I have been meaning to join. Mine are going to just be bad drawings... which is what I will call them. Bad drawings of books! But I love love art so I think it will still be fun.
ReplyDeleteHere to say YES to the Archer gifs. Haha, my old Xbox name is MasInMancy. :)
ReplyDeleteSo I was curious about which post had the most views, at 36,450 views, the post I did about TV Guides pick of the nastoliest villains was beating the rest hands down. The next post only had 15,096 in comparison.
ReplyDeleteOK... that is a sweet Gamertag!!
ReplyDeleteOh wow... that one post like smokes your other posts. I find it interesting that in most of the comments here we all have just this one post that just gets all the hits. I think it's crazy!
ReplyDeleteI agree... keep writing post that people love, but I must find something for after Disney. I too think it's hard to keep readers coming back who are looking for something specific (like Arnold). If that's not the main topic of your blog it is almost impossible to keep them around. I suppose if my blog was all about Disney I would be in!!! LOL.. but it's about books and I think the people who are coming to the blog aren't really looking for books but for Disney specifically.
ReplyDeleteIts around the same with me, anything with Disney or an animated films gets lots of views. and I do think most of them are for photos. But I always get a chuckle when I check my stats.... higgest search key words are usual like "[insert actress name] feet". I'm pretty sure I've never discussed feet on my blog. I know Quentin Tarantino has a foot fetish but it can be just him landing on my blog now can it... haha
ReplyDeleteOh man... how cool would that be?? I saw Tarantino speak a few years ago at comic con San Diego. That man knows his movies. I will tell you... my Disney posts get sooo many hits a day. But like you said... I am pretty sure it is for the pictures. The reason I like google analytics is unlike blogger statistics it doesn't count when people click on your image at google, it only counts the hits that actually come to your blog.
ReplyDeleteI do not check my stats very often, but I'm often surprised that some of My Week in Books (a feature I haven't done for a while) and Looking for Alaska or Divergent review are often on the list of popular posts. It seems more people are noticing my blog, but still not that many are sticking around to comment or follow.
ReplyDeleteI try not to check stats too often. But I will check them after a post goes up that I have worked hard on. That's when I start looking around. I really want to get more comments going... to get a conversation. I am surprised more people don't actually stop and comment on the Disney posts.
ReplyDeleteOk, beginners question: How do you check Google Analytics? I'm not sure if I would come up on a google search unless my blog name gets entered specifically? I know I can check the page views on the blogger overview page and I've done this a few times, and as quite a new blog, the biggest hits are on the meme posts, but I expected that to be honest :)
ReplyDeleteI haven't really thought of this before, but I know a lot of the views I get go on reviews, discussions (with weird titles) and giveaways. This is an awesome post, and I'll have to keep my eyes open to see what posts get the most views!
ReplyDeleteLisa
www.turningpages94.blogspot.com
My "Outside Plumbing" was getting ridiculous hits but no one was following the link to the book. Tons of them were from Australia. I figured out it was people in the plumbing industry and changed the name of the book. Now a blog called Truth gets the most and it's not book related. Usually they look at two or three other posts, so that's good, but no effect on sales that I can see. I think tweeting a blog URL brings the most activity, more than the followers.
ReplyDeleteI wasn't clear. Twitter brings hits to my blog when I post a blog url on twitter. Sorry.
ReplyDeleteI've had a few posts that have done this and it's always weird ones that make no sense other than it being a Google result for an image or something along those lines. And I doubt that these random people appearing actually stay very long other than to see the one post, which saddens me.
ReplyDeleteBut now... I'm off to see what your Project Disney is all about, it sounds interesting to me. :)
It makes no sense to me either! LOL... it can be the most RANDOM things ever. I love when people do posts about funny key words that brought people to their blog. They can be soooo odd.
ReplyDeleteThat's true. I'm going to go see what RANDOMs I have... might make a good post on a day that I'm stumped. ;)
ReplyDeleteInteresting question! The post with the biggest number of views on my blog is one about the (potential) Discovery of Witches movie. Somehow, I posted it shortly after Deborah Harkness posted about the movie being in the works (as yet, it's just in the screenwriting phase AFAIK), so it went really high on the Google search results. I've gotten huge numbers of hits and comments on that one post, mostly people leaving their casting suggestions. I don't know if people bounce from there to other posts, but I'll start thinking about things I might do to entice them to stay.
ReplyDeleteI did a little since it was part of an event we were doing it had the previous posts from the event linked at the bottom of the post. Some may have bopped around but really no idea. I really don't worry too much about that though I tend to link a couple posts at the bottom of all of mine. I don't use the widgets that auto add ones they think fit. I just create my own links to other posts about the author I've done or recipes,etc.
ReplyDeleteMaybe an offshoot meme once Project Disney is over?
Oh I bet that is a good post. What is the link to it?? I want to read it and comment on it also!! LOL! Harkness is coming to my local book store for a book signing. I might go to it.. haven't decided yet.
ReplyDeleteOmigosh, I'm so jealous! I would love to go to a Deborah Harkness signing!
ReplyDeleteHere's
the link to the Discovery
of Witches movie post. The really funny thing is there's not all that much there - but it sparked a lot of replies about who should play which part. (Richard Armitage seems to be a favorite for Matthew.) The post does now have links to my two reviews of the books, which I'm actually pretty proud of. (Is it vain to be proud of a review? I worked really hard on those two.)