2900 - I'm Shooting High

2014-09-26

  1. Good.

On the other hand, for the first time in an eternity I saw my Statcounter stats this morning, and it was, well, discouraging. I’ve just confirmed it now on Google Analytics: At the moment, and this moment seems to have lasted for at least a year, my blog draws around 20 to 50 visitors per day. Even over the last year there was a slow decline.

I remember when I did a few Photoshpo tutorials in between and when I was among the first who had a Nikon D300 review online, 250 per day was low traffic. Good posts, that I actively promoted, drew a few thousand visits the first day, and they constantly brought traffic over years.

I don’t do all that any more. I don’t even write daily. What you get these days is canned content, posted on a regular schedule. That of course makes it impossible to write about current news, because how should I know what will be current two weeks ahead?

Anyway, I don’t complain, I am interested, thus a question to those who may still read this: Most of you are bloggers and I suppose you use Google Analytics, Statcounter or something like that, just as I do. Do you see a similar decline? Is this only a result of my lack of effort promoting the blog or go blogs out of fashion? Have they already done so and it’s only I who has not recognized?

Not that it makes much of a difference. I’m stubborn 🙂

The Song of the Day is “I’m Shooting High” by Nat King Cole. Hear it on YouTube.

There are 5 comments

Elvis Rowe   (2014-09-26)

I definitely think that photoblogs are going out of style. With sites such as 500px, Flickr, Facebook, Google+, and DeviantArt there is less and less a need for a photoblog. On my photography Facebook page I used to share links to my blog page to promote my images. My audience interaction was abysmal. Then I started uploading directly to Facebook with links back to my blog and my interactions, relatively speaking, increased dramatically. I hate the fact that I have to upload directly to Facebook due to their EULA, but if I don't I don't get any response. Additionally, I rarely visit your blog proper. I've subscribed to your blog via RSS along with several other photographers, so don't discount that audience because I'm not sure if those are included in those Google Analytics numbers.

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Cedric Canard   (2014-09-26)

Are blogs going out of favour? That's a tough question. I suspect some people are doing that kind of research and I'm sure there would be some stats somewhere. I still read blogs but I will admit I have not introduced a new blog to my list in years. And if all the bloggers I follow were to stop, I would not go looking for new blogs. Why? Well I'm not sure. I do find myself less and less on the web these days. I tend to use the Internet purely when I have a specific question in mind or some specific task I need to do. Blogs for me are a casual read, a way of keeping up with the lives of virtual friends I've never met. My own blog is far too hit-and-miss in terms of postings and I've never had more than a dozen visitors a day but then again I've never pushed it either. I only use the stats given by WordPress; I don't know how accurate those are. If I look at my kids (19 and 15) however, they do not read blogs at all. Unless you count Tumblr. What they do follow are YouTube channels. This is purely anecdotal of course but maybe it's an indication. When I asked my son if any of his friends followed blogs, he said no. They too follow YouTube channels or Facebook pages.

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oneowner   (2014-09-28)

I'm pretty much in the same boat as Cedric as far as blogging goes, although I am constantly seeking new photos blogs for inspiration. I admit I don't understand how the blog-o-sphere works these days. I have over 250 followers yet I'm lucky to get 20-20 visitors per post. I look at at least 30 different blogs each day and I find myself wondering why sometimes. Many photoblogs have turned into personal journals not at all related to photography at all. It's not the reason I subscribed. So I look and analyze the photographs, scan for keywords in the content and then decide if I want to read the rest. There are only so many hours in a day and life takes up a lot of them.

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Chuck Clark   (2014-09-28)

I'm not a blogger. I do look at your stuff on flickr. I *do* come here to follow up on what you post on flickr as your writing is interesting. I loathe the black background, first thing I do is changed it to white! Deep, huh? CWC

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Markus   (2014-09-29)

Same dwindling visitor numbers here on my blog, too (and piwik is more pessimistic than analytics). But are 500px, flickr and the like a real alternative. For me, not so much, too many one word comments or prefabricated badges around. And f***book - I just post thumbnails there, but I do not use it actively any more. Their business model and assumed relationship with certain surveillance agencies is nothing I'd like to feed. And what's the value of 1/10s glances on my images there? I guess it's not much different from snapchat. Stubbornness is probably my explanation too, why I still blog. My own website, my blog gives me a platform to show my images to people who are really interested. For that and them, I care.

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