The News Roundups here at the Blog have been a resounding…FAILURE!

FAILURE!

Yep, that is correct. I just checked my stats to see how the roundups have been performing. Well, here is a breakdown.

Searches:

Google is not indexing the news roundups. It is shuffling the roundup posts off to the Google no man’s land. This is probably because the titles I use are actually from the sites I am referencing. I did add my own commentary to the posts, but still, I was getting the good old Google content slap. This is not good for my traffic.

My original content posts and single news stories still get very good play in Google, however. Some of my posts from a couple of months back still get very good traffic from searches.

Readers:

Of all the daily traffic I get to the site, only 10% or less were reading the news roundups. My actual, content rich, posts are still getting all of the attention.

Hey, what is a blog without readers? This of course is linked to the Google slap on the posts in question as most of my traffic comes from the searches.

Subscribers:

Here things are a bit more murky. I have no direct feedback on the roundup posts, so I have no real data on whether the blog subscribers like the posts or not. If you are a subscriber and like the posts, let me know.

As of now, I am dropping the roundups from the rotation and getting back to my regular posting style. This is mainly because I need to get more current posts into the Google indexing. Plus, it is more fun, and believe it or not, less work, to do regular posts.

Another factor is that regular posts have legs. They are not as time sensitive. I mean, think about it, the news roundup is relevant for a day or two, then it is literally “old news.”

On a side note, for those out there wishing to make money from blogging, new media, online marketing, in other words, the way I make money, you need to keep testing your approaches and evaluate what is working and what is not. Experimenting and testing is the way you enhance your chances of success.

I used the word failure in this blog. The blog is not a failure, just that type of post. By testing and evaluating, I now know that I need to drop the roundups. It may be a cliche, but the way to success is paved with failure, as long as you use the failure to learn and make your project stronger.

Now, back to work!

Cheers,

Eban

P.S. Just to keep up with the recent theme, here is a blue TIT (I know, not what you expected, eh? )

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Photo Credits

Surprise? Horror? by karynsig

Blue Tit by Dave F