What Went Wrong With This Blog

This blog came into existence in March, 2007. Over time, it has evolved in appearance and contents. This blog is now enjoying its highest ever amount of RSS subscribers - which is one of my yardsticks for the popularity of a blog. If I could start over again, I would actually have begun differently. Stick around and let me give you a critical account of what went wrong with this blog and what I would have done if I could start this blog afresh.

The Intent

The original intent for this blog was to review blogs. Hence the name Blogsreview.Net. I did review some blogs in the initial months but later, I realised that my reviews were not as indepth as other blog reviewers. I then started to review other non-blog stuffs and this blog became a junkyard of some sort. After that, I started blogging about blogging - which is the current focus of this blog. As you can see, the shifting of intent from time to time does not help at all in the branding of a blog. Readers get confused and the likelihood of them staying longer is far lesser than a more focused blog. Lesson No. 1 is therefore to seriously think of what you want to blog about and stick with it. Else it might be better to just delete the blog and start afresh.

The Look

Admittedly, I was greedy when I first started this blog. I went for maximum Google Adsense publishing as well as countless ads. It did not help that I was using a theme which was focused on ads rather than contents. My site probably looked spammy and might have turned off many new readers then. After changing the look of this blog to something more minimalistic and with less ads, I received some encouraging feedback. Lesson No. 2 = It is important to choose a theme which pleases your readers. Too much of advertising will turn readers away.

The Contents

The earlier posts were quite shallow by recent weeks’ standards. There was little content to be of use to readers. It is therefore not surprising that nobody stumbled any of the earlier posts. Not in recent weeks though. In recent weeks, as I put in more effort into thinking and writing more posts which I think are useful, the number of spontaneous stumbles from StumbleUpon users increased. I also found out that blogging is not unlike a full time job. You get rewarded and receive positive feedbacks after putting in lots of hardwork. Lesson No. 3 = You reap what you sow as far as contents are concerned.

The Slap

This blog had a PR4 by Google’s standards in the early stages. I indulged in paid posts. I enabled DoFollow for comments left on this blog. In what must have been a rebuke by Google, this blog has been slapped and dunked into a PR0 blog. Well, I stopped doing paid posts prior to the slap but it didn’t matter anymore as the damage was done. Will I be doing paid posts here again? Probably not because it would not blend with the current focus of contents of this blog. Moreover, having a PR0 drives the advertisers away. As for the DoFollow, I still have it here. It makes no difference as I have no google juice to share. Lesson No. 4 = Watch what you blog about and what you do if you are particular about your blog’s PR.

The FullStop

Last but not least, I’d better stop here before you realise that you are reading a useless piece of blog. But seriously, I have been thinking about the following options for this blog come the new year 2008 and I would like to hear your opinion on the options. Shall I:-

Not renew the domain come March, 2008 and bid adieu for this blog since it did not start on the right footing?
Renew the domain and continue blogging but remove the earlier posts which are not connected with the current focus i.e. remove all posts which are not about blogging
Renew the domain and continue blogging as if nothing went wrong.

You are my reader. Tell me what you want me to do. And while you are at it, did you also commit the same mistakes that I did?

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. 21 Dec 07 | About Blogging

Costa | December 21st, 2007 at 3:26 pm
my opinion if you want it. buy a pre-owned domain which already has some PR and with an nearly appropriate domain name, import all your good post over and say bye bye to this one.

but then,getting a new domain and getting back your PR is not that difficult what. max, 3 or 4 months got PR ledi.

Blog Gigs got PR3 in less than 3 months because I imported all my post from another domain that I did not like, so it looks like a 6 month old blog, but actually only half that age.
helen_H | December 21st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
I am not an expert like costa, but to me, trying to salvage your PR is harder than starting afresh.

I’ll just start a new blog afresh and get PR. Hopefully by the time SocialSpark rolls out, things would be different. BUt then with SS, PR is still important.

I might be wrong, PR is easier to get than traffic. If PR is a factor, it should not be much of an issue. Like Costa said, a few months doing nothing also you’ll get PR.
Wayne Liew | December 22nd, 2007 at 12:09 am
Well, with you realizing the direction that you want to move on next with this blog, it is not a problem if you renew your domain, delete the non-related stuffs and continue blogging.

With the quality of articles that you have written recently, it will be a waste, at least for me, if you ditch this blog.

Page Rank shouldn’t be a factor here I guess. Traffic and the number of subscribers will be the best measurement for a blog. Anyway, all the best to the making of your decision!
pablopabla | December 22nd, 2007 at 10:58 pm
Costa : Staring all over again is quite a drag…It’s not really a PR issue. It’s the jumbled up topics etc issue which is paramount.

Helen : I don’t feel like doing paid posts here at the moment. It just doesn’t blend into the stuffs I am writing about now.

Wayne : That’s a good suggestion. I may very well do that trimming exercise instead
ParisB | December 23rd, 2007 at 5:50 pm
I’d keep the blog and just trim off the bits you don’t like. Readers would have identified themselves with you on this site and on this domain so it would be a waste to alienate those readers. Just my 2 sen
pablopabla | December 27th, 2007 at 11:21 am
ParisB : The trimming has begun! And may the new year bring a more focused Blogsreview to its readers
mumsgather | December 27th, 2007 at 12:04 pm
I seem to see your focus change from reviewing blogs to giving blogging tips. But either way, I think your content is great. Happy New Year my blogging friend. Cheers!
Mike Huang | December 28th, 2007 at 3:22 am
Hey, great blog you have here. I was just stumbling through my blogcatalog account and I noticed this blog under the “similar blogs” heading. Well, at first I thought it would be reviews here and I wanted to take a look at what you do. The reason for this is because I run a blog that just opened over 1.5months ago and I review blogs 3-4times a week with 3-4 ramblings a week too. I guess you could really lose focus and I completely understand. In the beginning I didn’t think my blog could do any good and my rss subscriber counter wasn’t jumping much, but a little more focus changed all of that. My blog is now running a huge reader community and I guess staying focus is the way to go I mean I still lose confidence when there are no comments or viewers drop, but I still try my best

-Mike
pablopabla | December 28th, 2007 at 10:33 am
mumsgather : Yeah, I wasn’t too good a reviewer, I think. And I was not coping well with the requests that came in. Now, I have complete freedom Happy New Year to you too!

Mike : You’ve got a colourful looking site there. I agree with you that it is important to have a focus before and during blogging so that the intent of the blog is conveyed to the readers correctly and expectantly. Happy New Year!