So what are people reading? By far the most popular article was Deadly Maladies, a post that someone stumbled. That generated over 1000 hits in two days, so I view that as something of an anomaly. The next most popular articles were a post noting the availability of Diaspora, an article on critical and fumble charts, my TiddlyWiki tutorial (part one), and an old dungeon map I scanned a while back.
Notice anything there? Not one of those posts actually fits the stated purpose of the blog. Hmm. I might treat it as a fluke if the trend didn't continue, but the next 20 articles are about the same. Pretty much every fluff, advice, or opinion piece I've written has received more views than the regularly featured items, creatures and encounters posts. Even the lame filler post with the scanned image of my original Armory dice crayons made the top 25% of posts. Apparently I should stick to opinion pieces and posting scans of the ancient maps in my files. Heck I bet this article hits the top ten within a few days.
Looking at it from the other end, let's take a look at some of the worse performing articles. Now some of these were written before I started running Analytics, so the results are certainly skewed. Some also predate my joining the RPG Bloggers Network, which pushed up readership significantly. Nevertheless, the bottom performing articles are all items, encounters, creatures or treasures. Removing all the archive and keyword links the bottom five articles are:
- Curse of the Mistaken Face
- Sigil of Death Defied
- Indomitable Banner
- Chalice of Storms
- Mishta's Mischievous Mouse
It's a bit depressing.
The next thing to look at is where people are coming from. I expected to see most hits coming from RPG Bloggers, but surprisingly they ranked 5th in the list. The number one source was Feedburner, which implies a lot of people subscribe in an RSS reader, something supported by the 100+ subscribers Feedburner says it has. Direct links and Google searches come up next, indicating people using bookmarks or hitting links seen elsewhere. In 4th place, hats off to Jeffs Gameblog for sending me a big chunk of hits, beating out RPG Bloggers by a narrow margin (Thanks Jeff!)
The next couple entries are Google, Blogger itself, and Stumbleupon (that stumble I mentioned earlier). Sword+1 gets honorable mention for making the top 10 sources, one of only two blogs in that group. The 10th entry is the forums at rpg.net, which I'm sure is mostly people hitting the link in my signature.
Geographically the mix isn't that surprising. The USA is the biggest source of readers, with 10 times the hits as the next biggest source, Canada. The UK, Brazil, and Germany round out the top five. In the USA I've managed to garner at least one hit in every state, with California, Virginia and Texas having the highest numbers (discounting the many hits from me in Indiana).
So what's all this mean? Well, I'm not sure yet. It's clear from the numbers that most people really aren't interested in one-off ideas for campaign material. The dismal performance of that category of articles relative to opinion, advice or fluff pieces is significant. Maybe I could raise interest by using a specific system (D&D 4e I'm looking at you!), but I'm not sure that's a tack I'd like to take. Maybe I just need to alter my focus and broaden my writing to include the more appealing fluff, advice and opinion articles on a regular basis. Maybe I need to go bigger and start developing a larger product to frame some of the stuff I've already written here. Maybe I should reboot with a new format. Maybe people just think my writing sucks.
There's definitely some thinking ahead for me. I'm certainly not in this solely for the hit counter, if that were the case I'd have been gone a while ago, but the feeling of talking to an empty room definitely wears on me. That said, I'd like to take a moment to say two things. First THANKS to those of you that read and comment here. It really brightens my day when I see a comment pop up in my RSS reader. Second, no matter what, this content won't vanish. Even if I decide to reboot, this blog will remain available until Blogger decides to wipe it. Rest easy, my awesome chili recipe will be online forever!
15 comments:
Any chance you could remove the restriction on your blog posts showing up in Reader? Getting the first few lines is maddening.
Um.
Please.don't.change.for.the.masses.
I really dig your critters (I still need to give you the green-light on the critter), your items, and your scenarios.
I can grok how to convert from FUDGE to the system of my preference.
--I'm certain others are capable of it as well.
In any case, keep up the good work. :D
I love your posts on items. It's a great resource that I really appreciate. Doesn't mean I'm getting much use out of it *at this moment*, but I know where they live and will raid them for goodies at *some* point in the near future (like when I start running more fantasy games).
@PatrickWR - I'll take a look at that. I *had* some reason for using short format RSS, but I can't remember what it was.
@Timeshadows & Risus - Thanks for the words of support. I think part of the reason for the grumbling tone of the post is my current case of "It's nice out, why am I inside writing?" :)
I noticed that while I loved blogs that had lots of items, monsters, and spells, I rarely read them in my feed reader. I think I'd like to have these pages at my finger tips (printed!) while preparing another session. But reading them as part of my daily blog reading routine? It's good info at the wrong time, I think.
My suggestion: Keep posting them to gauge interest (see previous comments), and collect them into a PDF document of some sort after a while (once a year?).
Another option is to put them somewhere, and then post summary blog posts with a suggested spell book to find, linking to five or ten thematically linked spells you posted previously. That puts them in context. Or post some dwarven items, and then end the series with the description of a dwarven tomb and the items you placed there.
Other than that, I like blogs that speak in their own voice. So I'd say don't change it. Write about the stuff you like, the way you like it.
Also consider the systematic influences: Controversial opinion pieces will be discussed and linked to from elsewhere. Who links to an item, a spell, or a monster? Only people who use them in actual play. There's just going to be more reasons for these posts to get less link-love and thus less hits. That also suggests you don't need to take the numbers as an indication of unpopularity.
Also, generic descriptions in plain English work better for me than any system. Plain English is not only better than 4E stats, it's also better than Fudge terminology.
Fight on! :)
Oh, and I also prefer to not leave my feed reader unless I want to comment. Full articles in the feed! :)
@Alex - Thanks for the feedback! I think you've hit the nail on the head so far as blog vs. content. People don't seem drawn to content so much as opinion, and those that do read it, don't talk about it.
I've considered doing a free/low cost PDF publication with collected articles. Maybe I need to revisit that.
The index tag in the tag cloud links to a bunch of summary articles I did at the beginning of the year listing articles of various types (weapons, armor, spells, etc.)
I understand the attraction of plain English descriptions. I find that using some standardized descriptors helps me in my thinking, establishing power level and theme.
Finally -- I reset the blog to post full articles to the feed, so that problem should be solved. I'm not even sure why I turned it down at this point.
Thanks again for the feedback!
Pictures always draw crowds. <- that is fact based on my own blogging and from experience working in online news. [If you want depressing realize that for just about every US newspaper website their pictures/video galleries generate more traffic than actual news.]
They also generally make a big or not so big blog post full of words easier and more fun to read. <- more of my opinion and observation.
It's some work, but I try to find pictures that enhance/represent what I'm talking about in blog.
As is typical, Timeshadows is a font of wisdom. FUDGE terms are great, don't change for wrong reasons, keep up good work.
I'll add. To write what you enjoy, write the blog for you, not for us. There may only be a small niche of people who enjoy reading what you write. Be fine with that. Quality and originality are just as valid as quantity.
Being all zen like that is hard, I'm a total whore for readers :) So Although, I bet you have more than me here's a tip. Comment on and link to everything (that you find worthwhile). Spread the love and the love will be returned to you.
"(Thanks Jeff!)"
All I did was put you in my blogroll. It was the constant stream of neat new stuff that kept people clicking on through.
I found you through a Google search for "NPC names" (I was wanting a quick table or list for a game session), which took me to the pbegames page, thence to RPG Dumping Ground.
I very much appreciate the high quality of your work and that you are not OD&D-centric. Always something great here that I can use.
@Norman - Yeah pix are good, but my art talents are limited, and finding images to match up with what I write is tough, especially stuff I can actually use.
WRT readers, I'm not really a reader-whore. If I were I'd be writing a whole lot differently. :) I do need to make a bigger effort to do more linking and commenting though. Good reminder!
@Jeff - I figure at least half those clicks are you coming to read an article :-D
@Dave - I've gotten several readers that came from pbegames, including a couple of my long-term gaming group. Glad you're finding the blog useful.
I find your blog very useful. It is particularly the items, magic and critters that I like.
And for it what it's worth, I don't go thru a reader to get your posts. I cruise to the blog itself on a regular basis, but on my own schedule.
For those using RSS readers, today's post should have come through in full. If you see that it didn't, let me know!
When I go to http://rpgdump.blogspot.com/ and read stuff, I assume that no specific article gets tagged?
@John - Articles are listed newest to oldest, so if you're going to the base URL you're seeing the most recent post.
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