Blogging Reality

I hope no-one assumed any bitterness in the previous post about BlogRush. Their site made promises that it can't keep.

So let's be scrupulously honest here for a second and talk about blogging and why we do it. There are three main reasons that people blog.

Reason One - To publicise a product or service

There are a lot of commercial blogs around these days, more because blogging is seen by some as "the next big thing" and "something for the kids". Some can be very entertaining, many less so. Chances are if you are behind one of these then you'll only be reading other blogs that mention your product.


Reason Two - To make money

Work from home! Free money! Accept sponsorship and adverts and make $1000 a week with minimal effort! There are one hell of a lot of these sites around, and to be honest they are up there with chain letters - for every one that makes money, there are hundreds that don't.

Ask yourself this - how many people are going to sit and look at your adverts? How many visitors are you going to need before you get enough click throughs to earn anything? Do you really believe that you will get money for nothing? Really? If you do then please pop by, click on a couple of my adverts and don't forget to tell your friends!


Reason Three - For Fun

Really this is the best reason for blogging (in my humble opinion). Most of us aren't going to get a lot of hits, in fact we'll be lucky if we hit double figures most days. So why bother?

In my case it is another creative outlet, something I enjoy doing. Blogging allows me to write something other than code or job reports (there are only so many times you can write about unlocking someones user account and still be interested in it).

If you are going to spend all your days staring at web stats for your personal blog then you'll probably end up disheartened and disappointed. Just in case you think I'm exaggerating about the sort of hit rate that most sites have then head on over to BlogToplist and have and check out the Unique Visitors for each site. Yes, there are some high flyers, but most sites are just like us, writing for whoever passes by.

We're currently riding high in the Video Games list at #122 (out of 300), and considering we've only been around for a month and a bit I don't really think I'm doing that badly.

By comparison, at present Dan's Remakes (my other site ) averages 150 unique visitors a day. I didn't think RetroVaders would generate so much interest. Once the interest drops off though then the number of visitors will drop down to the low double figures range again.

So again, why do it?

For me it is an easy answer: "Because I enjoy it!" And I hope that is the reason that you do too.