English: Screenshot of the blogging system WordPress using the theme "Twenty Ten". (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Why?
People ask me why I blog. Those who don’t, and probably don’t read other people’s blogs ask that question, usually followed with “I don’t know how you find the time”.
I am not the first to talk about the raison d’etre of blogging. You will find many posts about this on the web, and there are many different driving forces, but they are all about the writers sharing information. In the case of a business blog like this, I share my personal views on business issues and based on my own experience. That experience may not be the same as others; in fact of course it won’t be.
Observation
The honest and obvious answer as to why On Our Bikes came about is as a way of marketing my business, or, I suppose, my businesses. I share what I know and hope people find it useful and even entertaining at times. After all, what I write about is what I have observed, what I have done, and of course what has happened to me even when I did not plan or want it to.
Without focussed marketing a business is lost, so of course I find the time to write.
Does it work? Yes, I get traffic to this blog and it channels hits on my other websites, which leads to business.
Engagement
Do I expect dozens of comments? Well, I like comments because people have engaged with what I write if they do take the trouble to post, but comments are not a measure of success of a blog in terms of whether it works for the writer. After all, a well-known blogger has 54,000 subscribers to get his posts by email and presumably is read by many more, yet even he seems to average less than 50 comments. Yes, I would love 50 comments, but as they say, do the math. OK, I’ll do it for you. That is a response rate of 0.09% even on the 54,000. So comments are not a measure. And this blogger writes great stuff.
Results
Blogging is not about gaming Google either. I don’t even know how to do that though I get found very easily directly through Bikes or through the sidebar links to my sites elsewhere. What I do know is that it has at least three functions for me:
- Marketing my businesses
- Meeting more people on-line, which may lead to off-line meetings
- Relaxation which sharpens my business thinking.
What do you get out from blogging?
