My online journal is making a profit for the first time. It's not a huge profit (it's tiny), but the revenue from advertising and a modest private sponsorship will not only make ends meet, but actually give me some money to invest in further improvements.
This year has seen a few changes. In July, I began to use TypePad instead of the self-made semi-manual publishing tool I had used so far. That meant the cost of running this journal doubled. It was worth it though. Publishing entries is much easier now, and the new platform made it possible to allow trackbacks and reader comments—although I have to admit these are fewer than I anticipated.
This is still a small blog compared even to some of the most successful Swedish ones. However, over the past twelve months, the number of visitors a day has more than doubled, and the number of RSS subscribers has nearly tripled. That's a success of sort. An interesting thing is that most new visitors live in the United States, Israel, and Britain. Only about 40 per cent of visitors live in Sweden. A year ago that figure was closer to 60 per cent.
Finally, I want to thank all readers who support this journal by clicking on the advertisements. Thank you!
"and the new platform made it possible to allow trackbacks and reader comments—although I have to admit these are fewer than I anticipated."
I think that the obvious reason for that is that you are quite lazy in answering comments.
And to point out, your topics are not uninteresting; the thing is that if a reader doesn't get any response they will stop posting new comments. Simple as that. If you want a heated debate in your blog, you must respond to all comments.
I think Louisep is a good example on how to create a big and fiery debates.
Tor,
I guess you're right. But to me reader comments are just that. I'm not really after heated debates, but I do read all comments and try to answer those that seem to demand it. In most cases I think people just want their say.
I'm just a bit surprised by how few the comments are. I ran this blog for four years without any possibility for readers to post comments, and during that time my readers complained a lot about it. Now that they can comment, few are doing it.
It doesn't bother me; I had just expected more comments when I moved to a new platform that allowed it.
Well I am doing my part with the comments. I think people just got into the habit before of going to your blog and NOT commenting for all that time, and now that you have comments, they don't want to change.
That used to be kind of the charm of your blog, in that you could go there, and just read your latest thoughts, and then not feel like you had to read the comments afterwards - so it was quick in and out. It was kind of a nice change from all the other blogs, because a lot of those blogs develop into juvenile school yard cliques, where the regulars band against the newcomers and everyone gets into silly fights. So people may be slow to adjust here.
One thing I think you should do more is go on some other blogs, such as some larger American blogs, and promote your blog there with a link, because otherwise they will never find out about this one. Which would be too bad if they didn't, because you do have very many interesting topics here and a variety that many other blogs don't have.
Oh and another reason I think you don't get as many comments is the delayed posting. I know you want to moderate, which is a good thing, but when peole comment they want the instant gratification of seeing their comment on your page. If you have to wait a while, it kind of takes some of the fun out of it. And you can't conduct a debate with others as easily. I still think you should let all comments in, and then go back and delete the bad ones as soon as you see them.
USAgal,
I think you're this blog's #1 commenter.
Truly appreciated, too.