It was interesting to watch as hundreds of hits accumulated, sent from this forum. The hits would generally be single page views with an occassional view of my 'About' page and a prompt exit. I spoke with the sales manager later in the week and was glad that my honest opinion of the wines may have helped drive some sales, but the experience made me think about a few facts regarding new wine blogs.
- This one reference drove WAY more traffic to my blog than any mentions for my WBC or Bust win, or guest blogging on other sites.
- While the blog has increased in traffic every week since its inception in late January, most of this repeat traffic is a small group of folks who are specifically interested in ongoing wine discussion.
- This type of traffic was really from consumers and the patterns of their usage of the blog were very different from my average hits.
So there really isn't much to say about this other than I find it very interesting to realize that wine blogs as a 'daily read' are probably not of interest to the vast majority of the public. Case in point I can infer that today's post will probably not get hit by even the most innocent Google search, or casual reader. In defining the purpose of each post, whether to entertain or inform your regular readers or drive even more traffic to your blog (egotistical much?) the only way to get on most consumer's radar is to talk about a specific topic (pairing, glassware) or wine (Perrin et Fils Gigondas) and wait for the hits. And you do never know when something you write on here might pop back up and have a true impact on the sale of the blood and sweat from someone you've never met.
Other bloggers - what posts have you seen get a surprising amount of traffic?
Blog readers - what types of posts actually engage you versus get a quick glance?
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