I’m starting to wonder if bl0gging is just a waste of my time. I don’t mean bl0gging itself. I enjoy writing. It’s all the other stuff that’s making me feel this way.
I’m spending so much time surfing to earn credits that I’m not getting much else done. What am I earning credits for? So that people can look at my site for 20 to 30 seconds? Are they reading it? Some are, but probably most aren’t.
I’m also spending time looking for places to “buy space” from. In the past three days I’ve put in an amazing 29 bids to buy space on other sites for a week for this site and my other site – Odd Planet. Of those 29 bids, perhaps 22 bids were for this site. I managed to secure 2 spots. Neither of them for Tricia’s Musings.
The whole point of “buying space” on someones site is so that your own bl0g can get a few more visitors. Ones who actually mean to come and visit so that they can see what your site is about. So I spend some time checking on the sites that I bid on.
- I check their history.
- Did the other sites that they rented to get any hits?
- Did the site owner at least mention your site once?
- How does the amount of credits they are charging to rent their space compare to the amount of visits their renter got?
There is no way that I’m giving someone 50 of my hard earned credits if they have a past history of their renter only getting one or two hits for the whole week. Especially if they didn’t even mention their renters site at least in passing to try to get their visitors to see the site. If I like a site, and it gets at least 5 visitors for every 20 credits they charge to rent space, and has at least a one line mention of their renters site I’ll put a bid in.
So, as you can see, to have put 29 bids on sites in the past three days takes me some time because I really check each site out carefully. Then to not even get one bid accepted for this site, well, that makes me feel like I’m wasting my time.
This also makes me feel like my bl0g isn’t good enough. I know that’s probably not the case. The sites I’m bidding on are getting more than just one bid, and unfortunately Tricia’s Musings just isn’t being chosen. 22 times in a row. Still it does make me wonder if there is something wrong about this blog that I’m just not picking up on yet.
To add to this feeling I’ve had a run of bad luck on the Battle of the Bl0gs lately too. When I first changed this sites theme a week or so ago I started winning battles for the first time. Strange isn’t it? The content didn’t change but look did and suddenly my site was a winner. However my luck changed again. I’ve been putting both my sites in battles the last two or three days and I think I’ve only won twice.
Between losing my bids and battles, and spending a very large chunk of time surfing to earn more and more credits, I’m starting to ask myself just what am I doing.
Is it worth it? Am I getting any regular readers by doing all of this?
Perhaps I’ll just sit on my nice big pile of credits and stop trying to give them away to other sites for a small piece of their bl0g.
Does anyone else feel this way from time to time?
Blogging is worth it.It’s a game of patience.Your blog is special – you put alot of thought into it and regular readers enjoy it – but a person on BlogMad would hardly read anything – however,my blog is a photo blog so as soon as it loads they have to use less of their brain power and just look at a picture – if they like it,they come back – if they don’t,onto the next blog.My blog is a week old so far and I have had some good luck – I hooked up with other photo blogs and we all promote each other all the time – really helps me.I hope you don’t stop blogging – it can be sad for your readers (one being me) and you as well – you will miss it alot.Eventually you will get noticed and people will come it’s just a game of patience.I surf BlogMad,it got me some loyal readers but more than that I have listed my blog on every single directory that has ever been created – about 200 or so.Don’t give up,things will happen.By seeing the amount of buttons here,I know you try really hard – that used to by my attitude – but now I have 0 buttons except PhotoBlogs and photoblogring which actually get me traffic (Opera,Gtalk and other buttons are personal – I like to promote them).So check if all this stuff actually gets you traffic if not get rid of it.
Wishing you all the best,
Azhar (The Daily Sunrise)
[Sorry to take up so much of the comment space :-P]
Tricia says – well the buttons are on the site- near the bottom of the column – in the hopes that I might pick up a few referals from them. If I do I can earn some bonus credits and perhaps won’t have to surf quite as much. No plans to remove them just yet because I have in fact received some refferals, but they will never hold a prominant place on my site.
Hi
just a quick note to let you know that I was on for more than 20-30 sec. I like your blog and I’ve already book marked ya. I’ll be back 🙂
Tricia says- Thanks a lot Wendi. BTW I like your site too!Â
Thanks for the link. How does the “buying space” work? I didn’t understand it.
Tricia says- yes I suppose if you aren’t familiar with Blogexplosion you wouldn’t understand “Buying Space’. :) On Blogexplosion you can sell space on your site (the small thumbnail picture of another persons blog near the top of the left column on my site) for whatever amount of surfing credits you decide you want. In return the persons site is featured on your site for one week. Half decent landlords at least mention their “renters” site once during the rental period in an effort to push some traffic toward that persons site.  Buying space is what the current “renter did”, or what I’m trying to do when I put bids in to rent space on someone elses site through blogexplosions “rent my site” feature.  It’s usually not too hard to rent space on your site to other bloggers, especially if the price is right, but because of competion it can be hard to secure a spot on another persons site. Hence some of my frustration in this post.Â
I’ve been feeling the same way. So far, I’ve only joined BlogMad, but I’m really wondering if all this credit-earning is just wasted time. From my perspective, I’ve got a mastery of English grammar, a layout that doesn’t break in IE or Firefox, and absolutely nothing set to auto-play, but still, I’m earning 1’s (and the like) on varb, getting only a comment or two, and getting almost exclusively 25 second visitors. I enjoy writing, but if I’m not going to have any readers, I can certainly find other outlets for my time and creativity.
For what it’s worth, I like your writing and your layout, and I hope things start looking up for you soon!
Tricia says- Thanks for the comment. I went and visited your site and left a comment there too. Your site is very specific in it’s focus so it might take more time to find a group of regular readers. Mine is a general mish mash of topics and while not everyone will be interested in each post, there is a good chance that I have a post or two that will relate to each individual reader. I hope! Don’t worry about Varb, some evil person was apparently going around on Varb and marking all sites with low ratings. Varb will come up.
Don’t ever trust Varb,people rate without reading.Keep your spirits up.You mist ask yourself – would you blog if you had one reader who visited everyday?I would.
what you’re saying isn’t directly linked to blogging itself but the peripheral services provided to bloggers. i dunno, to me it seems putting the cart before the horse.
normally i just surf for credits, cuz during the surf i would discover interesting new reads which worth more than 20-30 secs of my time like this one 😉
keep it up girl. you blog for yourself and your readers, not credits~!
Tricia says- that’s exactly what I was saying. I am/was frustrated with the peripheral side of blogging. I have two sites so I have to surf twice as much in order to build up enough credits for my sites to keep running through the various traffic engines.  I have no intention of quiting blogging at this time because I am blogging for myself, but it is nice to know that I have some readers. I have discovered some great sites while surfing and that is one of the pro’s of “having” to surf for credits.Â
To answer your question – yes, I feel EXACTLY the same way about BE and BM sometimes. But I do want new readers, so maybe it’s worth it. I wish we could invest our credits, so they grew if we hung onto them.
Also – I’m SO VERY HAPPY to be your new renter. Thanks! I’m not accepted as a renter very much either, so it made me really happy when you accepted my bid, since (after finding your site through BM or BE, I don’t rememeber) I’ve been reading it every day.
Tricia says – you know what I was just thinking? It would be nice if there was some kind of credit bank where we could transfer our built up credits and then distribute then through the various traffic exchanges in whatever manner we wanted in order to get some traffic from all the sites we are members of. I think I like Blogmad and blogexplosion the best because they both have forums, other ways to earn credits, and shoutboxes and give a bit more of a community feel compared to some of the other blog traffic exchanges that I belong to. It would be nice to be able to spend most of my time building up credits at the sites that I really enjoy using and then be able to distribute some of those credits to the other sites that I use.
  I enjoy having you as a renter Erin. You’ve got a great site and I’d be happy to rent to you again in the future. You are also having a very good campaign. Lots of visitors travelling from my site to yours. 🙂
I relate to this post a lot today for many reasons that lead me to be in a spacey philosophical mood today (it’s the philosophical part that makes today different from other days)… I ask myself, on days like today, what the point of all the reaching out on the net in oh so many ways… I mean, nothing changes in the world I see around me and am I just filling the empty space with imaginary friends who write kind words to me (when we’re really strangers in most ways)… so I pause in my manic surfing for credits to say hello and thank you for the thoughts to ponder…
don’t mean to slide into morose, morose is not where I usually live… time for chocolate 🙂
Tricia says- oh isn’t it always a good time for chocolate? 🙂 I appreciate your comments, you’ve actually graced both of my sites with your thoughts, thank you. As you probably realize I was feeling a little down when I wrote this post, and your comment is similar to the thoughts going through my head as I wrote it. I was trying to decide if there was a point behind this mad surfing. Judging by the comments that I’ve received I have decide that it is possible to get some results from surfing and found that people are in fact reading my site.
I like your blog. I wouldn’t give it up. I do participate in the blog exchanges but not enough to get frustrated with them. I do them for fun and to earn a few extra credits. Try building up some referrals so you can spend some points that were easily earned rather then the points earned surfing. I am also doing the Rent a blog on BE and bidding on the low bid blogs.
Tricia says- everyone seems to think I was talking about giving up blogging. Not at all. I enjoy it too much to give up on it, and receiving comments from people passing by while surfing or from people who have become regular readers is a bonus that I enjoy. Blogging might not be as enjoyable without getting a comment now and then to let me know that people are reading but I think I would still do it.Â
I know how you feel ..but just hang in there. I get rejected all the time when bidding to rent a blog. I do have a few loyal readers though and that is awesome to me. I am sure you have more daily readers then you think. Some people love to lurk but are to shy to comment.
Tricia Says- LOL I see you wrote a post with a similar sentiment as my own on your site. :) I’m still finding surfing to be very time consuming but I am getting some results from it. I left a comment on your post about my slightly changed feelings on this topic.Â
I want you to know first off, that I love your blog. I think you have a great blog going here, and it looks terrific. Keep up the good work, and try to stop worrying. You’ve got a good thing going on over here.
Tricia says -Â LOL thank you Tracey, I needed that. 🙂 I enjoy your site too. :)Â
I’ve been finding blogs I LOVE through surfing – and I’ve gotten some nice comments on my blog from people finding me through blogmad/blogexplosion. I guess it all depends on if it’s worth it to find a “few” new loyal readers.
Tricia says: It’s definitely worth finding some new readers. I guess I just got frustrated because I have not one blog- but two, so to keep them both running through the traffic engines so that the occasional person might stop and enjoy the site I have to surf twice as much.
I blog because I like writing, and am too cheap to self-publish my stuff and too busy to try and find an editor.
Tricia says- Thank you for your comments. I visited your site and you are a very good writer. :)Â
I hear you. I came here through blogmad, which I kind of surf through while I am doing other things. So do other people do the same? Probably. My blog is kind of specific, so I wonder if the people who come through blogmad really care about it. Hmmmm. On the other hand it is kind of like an arms race — everyone else is doing it so you have to do it too. What to do…what to do?
Tricia says- your site is very specific so you might not get as many comments as other bloggers do, but I can see your site getting traffic from google and the other search engines when people are looking up specific wine types or even wine makers. Your site will do well. :)Â
I felt that way when I first signed up this week. Especially seeing that 97% of the blogmad views of my blog were less than a minute. I commented in about 12 journals and received 2-3 comments back. So I was wondering if it was worth it.
But then I realized if I just learn from what I am reading or get one or two more online friends, then it is worth it.
I look forward to reading your blog more, since my favorite blogger and “blogmentor” Jodi shows up in your profile. If she likes you, I know that I will!
Chris
My Blog
Tricia says- I like your blog too Chris. :) I had to go looking and see who Jodi was and yes I enjoy her blog as well. I was a bit frustrated when I wrote this post- but there are positive sides to being involved in a blog traffic engine. I guess we should look at it as more of a network. We can find other sites that we like easier, since we are viewing so many of them, and through commenting on other peoples sites we can get to know our fellow bloggers and sometimes gain a reader. I’ve also been learning what I like about others writing styles and site design – seeing what works well and what doesn’t. In the end there is probably more positive than negative regarding blog traffic engines. Plus I’ve also met some very nice people in the shoutbox.Â
I think your blog is great. Who designed your layout? I would rent to you in a minute. I also had trouble renting, but found mor success renting from one specific category and the friends I devloped.
Tricia says- the layout is a slightly modified version of Ego1 or egosconnesso. I like it too, obviously. I’m hoping it’s not too bright, as I’ve seen some people complaining on other sites that they don’t like really brightly coloured pages. Oh well, I like it.
Oh, see I am always afraid of this when I decline people. Although when I get declined, I feel a little pinch too. There is nothing wrong with your site. Don’t take it personally. I have found so many reasons why people don’t pick you and none are your site content. For instance, last week, when you bid on my site? Someone who bid on my site, who I like but had to decline on the last try got the spot. Trust me, don’t take it personally. If you do find places you’d like to rent from in the future try visiting them and leaving a comment or two. That always perks people up!
Tricia says- Thanks for the comment Deb. don’t worry I don’t take being “rejected” personally. 🙂 If I did, I think I would have quit blogging the day I wrote this post. I know that “renters” can only pick one blog, it was just the fact that I had bid on soooo many sites over the course of a few days, it was starting to become unbelievable. 🙂