Official 2011 Guest Blogging Contest Post #15
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If there’s one thing that’s extremely common about blogging, its bloggers believing that numbers play an important role in their overall success. You can’t go a day without some reminder that a fellow blogger has a higher RSS count, another touting their comment count or a post telling you the importance of doing X to get Y and Z.

For example…

A Ton of Traffic means You’re Doing it Right

Hate to burst your bubble but just because you have incredible traffic numbers doesn’t mean you’re doing it right. Sure, traffic can certainly help you achieve your blogging goals in terms of awareness and exposure but so does an extremely passionate community.

There are many bloggers that litter the web that pull in crazy traffic stats but have little or no influence within their niche. If a vapid post were to rank highly for a search term through hardcore SEO than it will receive a lot of traffic but if the community doesn’t find the content valuable than what good does the traffic have?

It’s less about the big numbers and more about the targeted traffic you receive. What if, instead of thousands of visitors that bounce in just seconds of landing on your blog, you had only a fraction of that amount but people interacted with you and your blog? What if you regularly received thank you emails for your hard work rather than another ‘tick’ on your analytics?

RSS Count means Awesome Interaction

Ever stumble across a blog with insane RSS subscriber count but then your brain goes haywire trying to figure out why the blog has such little community interaction? You know the question I’m talking about, “how can they have 30,000 RSS subscribers but only 20 comments?!” It’s truly an odd sight in itself and, in most cases it means that this number does not mean there will be a lot of interaction.

We, bloggers, often want to build our RSS subscribers into the thousands because we believe that’s the point where our blog can be truly defined as successful but what about all those that are in extremely small niche topics? What if, in reality, there may only be a couple hundred people, in the world, that is interested in what you have to offer? Even in this case, a large RSS count does not mean the community will be responsive because, after all, it’s easy to subscribe to an RSS feed and, quite frankly, many of us are lazy when it comes to unsubscribing even if we no longer feel the content is valuable to us.

So the numbers you see, in actuality, may just be a very large buffer of inactive subscribers; know what I’m saying?

Comments are the Ultimate Sign of Success

Well, then what about ecommerce websites? What about news portals? What about software and online tools? Comments don’t necessarily mean you’re a success but it does show that you have an active community.

There are countless blogs out there that receive hundreds of comments each post but then nothing may come from it. Our best laid plans, launches and strive for community to take action may fall flat despite our best efforts. Your post may receive a flurry of comments but people may never put your information into practice.

On the other end of the spectrum, blogs that receive just a handful of comments (or none) can sometimes be wildly successful and influential within their niche.

Social Media Shares mean Influence

Well, let’s think for a second behind the numbers we see in retweet buttons, Facebook likes, Stumbles, Diggs, whatever. Social shares are hard to trace and apply to actual influence. The amount of bots, multiple accounts, one-for-one trading and flat-out financial backing means that numbers we see on many social sharing buttons may not be as important as we believe.

Consider this: A rather dry post on Mashable that doesn’t add much detail will nearly always receive thousands of ReTweets. Why? Because people often use Mashable to fluff their feeds or to share content that ‘naturally fits’ into their niche.

On the flip side of this are the people that rarely make a social impact but have incredible influence within their niche communities. Not everyone will have a broad spectrum of influence on multiple platforms; some may do better in social media but lack in blogging where others rock at blogging but can’t get a retweet if their life depended on it.

Incredible Earnings must mean Success

Many people equate income to success; it’s hard to dodge this bullet when the many of us live in or regularly observe Capitalistic societies. However, what we rarely get to see is the amount of time and resources that are dumped into projects, products and ventures that earn fellow bloggers their income.

Sure, some bloggers take a transparent approach to detail the process and steps they have taken to reach their income but many income screenshots (especially in Internet Marketing products) don’t paint the real picture.

The question is ‘who is more successful’ in this scenario:

• A blogger that earns just $1,000 a month but works just 10 hours of each month
• A blogger that earns $5,000 a month but works nearly 18 hours a day

The later may have a greater amount of income but they’ve lost their time. Additionally, we may not see that the later blogger could be investing nearly $4,000 of their income to create the $5,000 number that we eventually see where as the former could be investing nothing at all to reach their earnings.

All-in-all: It’s Conversions

Conversions may be a term readily used in marketing and sales but remove those two terms for a second and apply conversion as any interaction your community has with you, your blog or social profile.

Answer this; would you rather:

• Have a post that’s shared 1,000 times but people don’t interact nor take action
• Have a post that barely makes a mark in numbers but creates an entire movement

My point is this: Don’t play the blogging “game” based on numbers; aim to create impact.

You will drive yourself mad trying to chase the never-ending dream of massive traffic, RSS subscribers, comments, social shares and monetary gain. Instead, distill a change in just one person a day because this is what builds the momentum to true success and brand awareness.

So, who’s with me with the idea of rejecting this “game” of numbers? Who’s ready to create incredible impact within our own communities rather than what others deem successful?