Being pretty new to the whole blogging thing, I will say that I have been fortunate. I am now a regular contributor on Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim which carries some serious clout in internet marketing circles. Thank you, Andy, for allowing me to come on board. I also may have an opportunity to work with another well known search marketing expert as a regular contributor but I am not at liberty to discuss just yet. I’ll let you know how that goes.

“So what?” you ask? That’s a good question. What I mean is that despite this new found “success”, my personal blog is kinda clunking along. Traffic comes and traffic goes. Up one day down the next. My traffic generally does better when I post on MP. That’s one of the great reasons to do a guest post. Signups for my feed have been a bit disappointing but I have to guess that anyone in the search marketing industry has MORE than enough to read already. In addition, the truth is that one person can only take so many opinions / educated guesses or whatever else you want to call them relating to one industry anyway.

What was that? Oh yea….so what? Well, here’s my thinking on this. What does it take for you (yes, you in particular) to post a comment on my blog? Why would you take the extra minute or two to write down how you feel about the subject matter or my take on it?

I am hopeful that Frank Thinking becomes a place where ideas are exchanged and people can learn something. At this point, however, I am not even sure if the content is working for my visitors or not. I would like to see feed numbers go up but that is not a guarantee of someone even reading my posts. I think the real measure of a blog is the level of involvement the reader has and comments are the best way to measure that. If you look at the history of comments on this blog I gotta suspect one of the following is happening:

1.    My content sucks so bad that no one even cares
2.    While interesting, my posts don’t require or elicit a response
3.    I cover the subject matter so well that there is no need to add to perfection

I suspect #2 is going to be the most common reason followed very closely by #3 with #1 showing a goose egg (Relax! I’m kidding here…..). This is the fascinating and frustrating part of this whole blogging thing. How do you know its working? If you blog in the wilderness but no one responds have you really blogged? Maybe that kind of sentence is a reason why people aren’t responding? I don’t have a stinkin’ clue!

Here’s my request. I f you have made it to this point in the post, leave me a comment. I use a plug in that gives your last post a plug (if you are a blogger yourself) as long as you leave your blog as the website in your comment info. I am just curious about how I am doing! If I suck, say so (but be gentle and keep the profanity to a minimum please). I am not sure how much the blog will change unless I am getting feedback that consistently points me in another direction. I guess I am looking to start a conversation or two. I am sure you know something that I don’t. Maybe we can help each other.

Well, I hope to hear from you!

SMB Takeaway – Blogging is best when it is a conversation of sorts. Just writing for the sake of writing has its limitations.

Thanks and have a great day!