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Industry News    Competitive Intelligence    Page Views - Why I stopped worrying about them,...

Page Views - Why I stopped worrying about them, at least in an absolute sense


Print - FPinfomart - Newstex Blogs - Tuesday March 25th, 2008
Unless our goal is to attract and keep advertisers or prepare our blogs for sale, maybe we shouldn't worry so much about page views, at least not in the absolute sense. That's the conclusion I reached last Monday when a prospect became a client. The organization had heard of my ability to use blogging as a tool of influence, getting attention on the cheap for messages, brands, products, services, and fundraising. It wanted me to do that for their re-branding by setting up and ghostwriting about five blogs. My average number of page views on this and my other blog never came up in our negotiations.

Of course, page views are important. But not in any absolute way. It's irrelevant, for example, that mine are just a fraction of those of DailyKos.com.

How page views figure into the blogging picture is as a diagnostic tool. They tell me what subject is receiving attention, what starts to attract clicks once I change the headline and simplify the content, and what topics to avoid. In addition, the electronic footprint left by those taking those views can be a free source of intelligence, including competitive intelligence.

For me what matters is that my posts bring in the right eyeballs, that is, those who have the need and budget to buy my services. When I'm handling client blogging assignments, what matters to them is not big page view numbers but results reaching their goal. That goal usually is concrete evidence that their message is getting out. Such evidence usually comes through contacts from readers, industry buzz, other media's picking up the posts, and emerging controversy.

Weblogs as instruments of influence are too powerful to misuse or abuse them - e.g. over-the-top sensationalistic content - in order to inflate page views. That could drive away the kinds of readers we want to reach. When I toned down the content on my legal blog, a better quality reader started reading me regularly.

This article and summary was retrieved from online electronic sources using keywords setup within dna13's media and market monitoring software. dna13 offers on-demand, communications and stakeholder management software designed to help PR professionals manage, monitor and measure their outreach, relationships and corporate reputation. The web-based solution helps you organize your communications workflow around the campaigns and issues you.re tracking, for synchronized management 24/7 and around the globe. The automated media monitoring function lets you define unlimited search terms as it scans the largest collection of TV, print, Internet and blog media content available electronically, bringing full text and video direct to your desktop. No more ordering broadcast clips. Instead, click a button and watch a clip stream on your computer. Real time alerts on breaking news, and comparative keyword analysis of markets, mediums and outlets . even competitor coverage, puts you in a position for agile reaction. Create campaign outreach and media analysis reports with our integrated Clip Book publishing wizard and share electronically with your stakeholders and team members in multiple formats.

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