How Do I Measure My Posts’ Success
Hello everyone and welcome to our place! 😀
Today I had to think a little bit of what I was going to write… It’s those kinds of days where I have a few ideas to pick from, but then my writing skills are not the best. This way, I decided to share with you how I measure if a post is doing good or not! I mean… It should be easy for me to write how I see if I’m doing good or not… Right?
Without further ado, let’s jump on it!
– Views, Likes & Followers –
To be honest, these 3 are not things I really care when it comes to how a singular post is doing. Are they important? Of course, they show how my blog is growing. This way, these stats are more for how is my blog doing overall and not a single post. Here’s why:
Views:Â Views are good and all. However, your blog may be getting more views than usual and the post you just shared is underperforming. Moreover, views is that kind of thing that you never really know how is going to be. There are many things outside your grasp which mess with your post views. This way, you can put out a really good post and watch it not having as many views. Let’s say for example, on that certain day people just didn’t go to WordPress as much, or there was some kind of bug and your post is not showing in the Reader. That doesn’t mean your post is bad, it just means you got unlucky.
Moreover, you also have those Google Views! These ones take more time to come and it’s more of a, are you doing a blog Google friendly or not.
Likes:Â Likes are important, of course. But, there are certain times that you will just get likes from people you know that didn’t read your post. Heck, there are times where people put a like without even opening your post! Nevertheless, it’s still a good way to show that there are people out there who are crazy busy at the moment, but still want to say to you “I like your blog and I want to support it in any way I can”. So, likes for me are more of a “is my blog being good enough for people to like it or not” and not something towards a certain post.
Followers:Â Well, this one I think it’s a giver. It really doesn’t make much sense to think of the number of followers you are getting versus a specific post you have published! Followers can come from many different posts. And, let’s not forget the ones that follow you just to see if you follow back. Nevertheless, if you find growing in followers it means you are doing a good job overall… I mean, people had to find you some way, right? So, this means that you are able to put your posts in the eyes of people who were still not following you.
– Comments –
Now it gets real! For me, comments are the most important thing to say if I wrote a good post or not. Not the number of comments, but the view/comment ratio. Engaging other people to take time of their lives to fully read your post and then make a comment about it is the utmost reward, in my opinion.
For someone to comment means that:
- People have read your post – this means, your post was engaging and not boring.
- People felt somewhat relatable to the post – Meaning you are able to get inside of their hearts
- People saw your opinion and felt I gave them openness to comment their own opinion – Meaning, you are going to get a nice conversation going on, being the comment the same or a different opinion as yours.
This way, comments are what make me feel I really did a good job! If I go and get a lot of views/likes and no comments, I just can’t stop myself from feeling that the post was not good enough.
However, of course, the number of comments will depend (a lot) on the type of post you are writing. That’s why I’m trying to get away from reviews and enter in more personal posts regarding Anime and Gaming.
– Be Featured in Other People’s Platforms –
Ok, this is the one that really makes me see that there were people that liked my posts to the point of talking about them on their own platforms. There are many bloggers out there who take the time to shot out other people’s work (thank you so much, you are awesome and deserve everything in this world).
Now, I don’t really think about getting more visibility, views, followers, etc. with this. I mean, yeah it does make that to happen, but that’s not why I feel so excited when people mention my posts. In reality, I get happy because I see that someone out there, took the time to read my post and liking it so much that they decided to share it with other people.
It may in their own blog or social media. It really doesn’t make a difference, it just makes me feel so happy and fuzzy inside. Here, I actually feel, yeah this time I did a good job!
To be honest, there are times when I’m writing a post and think “Ok, is this good enough to the point of Karandi, Neko, Mel, and so on to feature in their own platforms?”. This kind of thought process makes me try to do even better. I mean, I really don’t want to post something that the people who love my work to feel underwhelmed with what they just ended up reading from me. You may see it this like a lot of pressure, but I do work best when I’m under pressure, so there’s no problem.
When I do not get featured in their posts is also not really that big of a deal, to be honest. It just means that we are inside a community where a lot of you are GREAT writers and therefore it’s just normal that I’m not going to be able to write such good content all the time…
– Conclusion –
Well, first of all, I hope I didn’t sound conceited during the post… As you know, honesty is one of the main foundations of my blog and I’m just being honest. I mean, who doesn’t like/want to be featured in other people’s platforms? It’s something that clearly says we did a good job!
Second, it’s been a long trip until I got here. Some months ago I would be focusing on views and new followers. Things that we just don’t have a lot of control. When I’m sitting now is something which I feel that I have full control! Meaning, with this, I can see more clearly if I’m doing a good job or not. For example, having a lower comment/view ratio means that my post was not the best and I need to understand what I did wrong and how to improve later. Does that make sense?
What about you? How do you measure your success? Or, do you measure success at all? Comment down below!
Well at the moment I don’t really measure my success but seeing people that follow and comment on my posts makes me happy and glad that people are actually interested in what I post in!
It really is a great feeling, as you say!! 🙂
Completely with you! 😀 It always blows my mind that there are people out there who find my content interesting enough to come back xD
Comments are indeed nice ? I like that you always respond to yours. You’d be surprised how many blogs I read and comment on without any acknowledgement from the blogger. And I don’t mean checking mine out (I’m not into the ‘like for like’ approach). I mean they don’t even reply to my comment on THEIR post or even throw a like on it. If I could digitally shrug at them… I would ? Engagement is the key to happiness I think, not stats and numbers but seeing if people actually want to engage with you. We all just gotta listen to Captain Picard ?
Really? That just seems somewhat rude! I mean, the reader took his time to write something, the least you can do is answer them xD Unless you of course are a HUGE blogger who gets thousands of comments and therefor it’s impossible to anwer them all, you should always answer…
Good write up. I’m a little blog, I do LOVE when people like and comment but if they don’t I’m still good. I finally have figured out where I can respond to comments on my tablet. I try really hard to interact as much as I can – but sometimes I miss things. It’s good that you can separate things out and don’t take it personal. ^_^
Thank you~! Ahahahin the beginning is always like that! Figuring out how to work with WordPress.
Maybe you this could help. The way I make sure I don’t skip any comment is by going to notifications and just read the comments tabs. That’s the only way where I’m sure I’m able to see everyones’ posts eheh
Found what you were talking about and yeah this should help TONS ^_^
Honestly…I think I have already sit this once, but I hardly look at my stats at all. Sure..I love it when the follower count goes up, and a post gets likes and best of all comments. But if they don’t I’m cool with that too (unless nobody reads my blog anymore, there are of course certain lines lol ??). But I can definitely understand what you are saying here…and of course to be featured in someone else’s post, especially when it’s a highly respected blogger, is a very high reward to achieve indeed.
And….well…you totally know already that your blog is awesome…and so was this post. But you don’t need stats to prove that: you just are! ?
Yeah Raistlin, but you are a different and special kind of person where you literally are more concerned with others growth than yours xD That’s what makes you awesome and one of the most loved people here on our community xD
Ooooh thank you so much! <3 Not going to blush today because I think I just paid you back just right in the last paragraph muahahah 😀
Okay…seriously…my face is so red right now, that it might explode. You do know I will pay you back for this eventually right ??…And yes..my revenge will be sweet…..???
Seriously though: thank you so much, this was really kind of you to say ??
I don’t tend to look at individual posts except when looking back over a long period of time. Mostly because there are a lot of factors that impact on an individual posts views etc and I know some of my feature posts only get twenty or thirty views on the day it gets published but over the weekend more people take the time to read it, and then over the next few weeks it will get more traffic. Same with my top 5 lists. Both of these end up accounting for the majority of my most viewed, liked and commented posts but its more of a long term thing rather than a right now thing. Then again, announcing I hit a milestone usually makes for a sudden surge of traffic and the most commented post ever and yet that’s hardly the best written post ever (still great fun to celebrate with everyone).
So yeah, I don’t think I can really measure an individual posts’ success. I think I just tend to look at how the blog as a whole is going. I don’t think I ever write a post thinking will this get a lot of views. I think I just try to write the best post I can at the time. I know a lot of my episode reviews will get very few views but that’s fine. Series reviews get varying mileage depending on the timing of the review and the series.
Ultimately, I just want my blog as a whole to have content on it people are interested in, and I want to talk with people about anime. That’s the most important factor.
Well, in my point of view, you are in a league of your own Karandi xD
I think when you get so many views (especially from Google) and when you get to a point where you are posting more than once a day, it just doesn’t make sense to continue and still think on a specific post 😛
I’m still a baby blog but I do think I’d rather have comments and not that many views than lots of views but no comments. It’s nice to engage with other people! 🙂
Emma / http://www.magickbox.co.uk
Completely agree with you! I think small, or huge, we all want to have engagement when we have a blog 🙂
Hey! Great article!
I agree, comments are really the ultimate thing that bring a smile to your face. Especially when someones tells you how much they agree with you.
To me, what has been the ultimate reward, after writing the most thoughtful comments on blogs is to be invited as an author to fairly big blog and write for them once a week. There I really felt my dopamine go up! 😀
Thanks for sharing! Keep it up! 🙂
Hey there! Thank you for liking it eheh
That’s really awesome! 😀 Now that I think about it, comments ARE an awesome way to open some doors. Most of my collabs and friendships came from comments 😀
A good eye opener. Thanks for sharing!
Thank you! Glad you liked it ^^
You are welcome!
I measure success by level of interaction. That said, I care more about comments than number of likes and views. I still think that views, follower count and likes are important because more traffic usually means that something is going right (to me). However, when people leave comments, I know that they’ve read my post and I am thankful for that. 😀
Yeah, I understand what you mean. However, I think when you put a lot of weight in the views, follower count and so on, might bring you negative thoughts instead of good ones. Sometimes the viewer/follower count just decays with no reason whatsoever and you don’t really have a hand in it xD That’s why I think comments are the best eheh
Hm, I don’t think I’ve experienced a decline in viewer count for no reason. For me it’s because I posted less or because I’ve engaged with other bloggers less. Just my experience though
Comments are the most valuable for me, even if I do just like them and forget to reply to them later…you can artificially inflate likes (as you’ve said), followers (as you’ve said) and views, but not comments (except where spam is involved). Definitely going to echo Karandi’s sentiments that interesting content is the best, but I use views as the main indicator for the Showcase.
*- the exception is using views as one of the main indicators for the Showcase, because the Showcase is about putting previous content and your name out there, rather than getting success with a new post.
Yeah I understand the showcase thing xD Since I don’t do that, I don’t really have to think about it xD
Yeah, spam does change things ahah But, most of the spam is picked by WordPress filter… Thank god! XD
When it comes to not forgetting in replying comments I just read them when they pop up in my phone but never like them. That way, when I finally get to have some time to answer comments (as now) I can understand where I left off last time and where I need to start answering comments xD
Re comments: That’s a good way of doing things. I’ve tried it but it only works a few times before I start having to filter out likes and comments I’ve replied to from comments I need to get back to, then I start getting all the notifications out of the way regardless of whether I need to comment to them or not…I could just use the comments tab of notifications as a way to sift through, but it tends to be neglected when I’m cleaning them out…
This really is a great post! I’m thoroughly impressed!
Oh thank you so much 😀 You just made my day <3