Let me start by saying that, while I do like speaking, I don’t consider myself to be a good writer. This is the reason that my posts are largely bullet points or PowerPoint posts and tend to be mostly of a technical nature. Fortunately, blogs in the technical arena gain readerships according to the market they target.
As my blogs are targeted in a small niche of ACT! users who want to improve their technical understanding of the product, I don’t chase the volume hits of more professional bloggers. To put this in perspective, I have been typically achieving about 2000 hits per month on this blog (about the same as I get on the main GL Computing web site.
I try to post at least a couple of times a month and my posts do have a fair degree of text contact, which the search engines love to index.
I do promote my posts via Social Media:
- Twitterfeed automatically sends a Tweet on Twitter very soon after an update
- New posts are automatically added to the News section in the LinkedIN ACT! Fanatics Group
- Networkblogs automatically posts them to the GL Computing Facebook page and to the streams of those who follow either the blog page or are fans of the GL page.
- I also find other similar blog posts and, where applicable, add a comment referencing my post
- Additionally, I use links to the posts when answering forum questions where I have covered the topic in a post.
Currently, about 50% of hits to the blog are from referring sites (mainly forums I post to and the social media links) and only 35% from search engines.
However, last week, I posted about Why I prefer Blackberry over iPhone for Businesses. This was picked up by a couple of journalists and professional bloggers like Neerav Bhatt on his blog: Introduction to RIM Blackberry Mobile Phones: Pros and Cons
Not only did this article receive a lot of nice comments, but it was highly re-tweeted and has so far received about 1000 hits in less than 2 weeks (500 in the first day).
This raises some questions that I’d like to pose to you:
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What would you like to see me blog about?
While I intend to keep targeting the ACT! user base, should I keep the focus on product technical posts? Or would you like to see more posts on other topics that might be of interest, such as: mobile computing, social media, general CRM, general sales/marketing or general IT? -
Would it detract from the site if I added some Google Ads or sponsorships?
As I provide the content of this blog for free, do you think it would be a problem to go down this path? Previously, I had not considered the hit rate to be high enough to make this worth-while and also reasoned that the technical people who read the site wouldn’t be interested in this.
To add one more thing – While I don’t sell to end-users, if anyone wishes to utilise my services for any work related to ACT! or IT, you just need to have your reseller contact me to book some time. I can be available remotely for work at any time of the day as we support (via our resellers) in all time-zones.
Please let me know via a comment to this article, a comment in the ACT! Fanatics Group or privately via our Web Site Contact Page if you have any thoughts on what you’d like to see articles on or if there’s anything I can assist you with.
6 comments:
Mike, let me be the first to say that I find your blog to be very much worth reading.
Personally, I would like to read more posts on some of the topics you have suggested to compliment your technical posts. Issues such as mobility, social media, general IT trends take on special meaning in the context of an ACT! user. Your research, ideas and recommendations in these areas would be of interest.
I don't think that the Google Ads present much of a problem from a readers point of view. Adsense is on a lot of sites these days.
I would also suggest some posts that cover issues that relate to your wider range of products. E.g. SMS/Fax broadcasting, ACT! for Lotus Notes, Integration of ACT! with external data sources using It.service and it.imort/export etc.
Thanks Darren. I haven't done much on the add-ons (except for new releases), having not wanted to make it to make it to self-promotional. The product info is on the main site.
If there's any specific add-on ot tool (or function of them) you'd like to see in a post, let me know.
I'll look at doing something on the items you mention... what would you like to know about ACT! for Lotus Notes?
Mike, I take your point about not wanting to promote too heavily the products that you resell on your main site. However, they are an interesting range of products and they tie into the issues faced by ACT! users that are needing functionality beyond what ACT! delivers out of the box. I wouldn't concentrate on them as product reviews but discuss the business issues that they fit into.
With regard to ACT! for Notes, I don't know a lot about it and may well not have a need for it, but the Notes platform is still widely used in larger corporates and it would be interesting to know about the history of this product, paricularly with it not being owned by Sage. Also, what it does and doesn't have with regard to functionality compared with the current versions of ACT!. It would also be good to have some short video demos if possible too.
No rush on this, but you did ask ;)
Mike,
Your post on the Iphone was so comprehensive I can understand why it got so much attention. Very impressive.
As for Google ads, I think they're a bit of a distraction but ultimately it's your call.
Keep up the good work!
Dave
Mike,
Your post on the Iphone was so comprehensive I can understand why it got so much attention. Very impressive.
As for Google ads, I think they're a bit of a distraction but ultimately it's your call.
Keep up the good work!
Dave
Mike, I take your point about not wanting to promote too heavily the products that you resell on your main site. However, they are an interesting range of products and they tie into the issues faced by ACT! users that are needing functionality beyond what ACT! delivers out of the box. I wouldn't concentrate on them as product reviews but discuss the business issues that they fit into.
With regard to ACT! for Notes, I don't know a lot about it and may well not have a need for it, but the Notes platform is still widely used in larger corporates and it would be interesting to know about the history of this product, paricularly with it not being owned by Sage. Also, what it does and doesn't have with regard to functionality compared with the current versions of ACT!. It would also be good to have some short video demos if possible too.
No rush on this, but you did ask ;)
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