I Can Finally See How Valuable BlogRush Is!

posted on 10/31/07 at 08:30:34 pm by Joel Ross

So after signing up for BlogRush over a month ago, they rolled out a new dashboard and reports. I can finally get some insight into what I've gotten out of it. I can finally see some reports, and I have an idea of exactly how many visitors I've received by having the widget on every page of my site:

0.

Yup, that's right. Not one single visitor:

BlogRush

All of those dashes under "READERS"? That means no traffic has come from being in the BlogRush network. The next step for me is to figure out why this is. There's really two possibilities:

  • BlogRush doesn't really drive the traffic they promise.
  • My headlines aren't catchy enough.

My guess is that it's a combo of the two. I'm not really good at flashy headlines, and don't always think of it anyway when I'm writing a post. Most of the time, I write the headline first, and then quickly move on to writing the post. In reality, I should write the post first and then write the headline afterwards. So, from that standpoint, I can't place all of the blame on BlogRush.

Now from BlogRush's side. Even their own demo video shows a click through percentage of .17% to .07%. I'm sure their answer would be referrals - you can refer people and when they sign up, you get credits for their impressions as well as your own. Your referrals can go 10 levels deep, so if you built a nice pyramid under you, you could generate quite a few credits and get a lot of headlines. But there's two issues with signing up referrals.

First, you have to have something compelling enough to keep people signed up. A lot of people will try something, but they need to see some return quickly or they're going to bail. When I was younger, a few of my friends got into selling long distance. This was back when long distance was still pretty expensive, and virtually no one was offering unlimited pricing. The price they offered was compelling, and people signed up. But they didn't stick around long enough for my friends to make any money. It's the same thing here, except with credits for impressions. People have to stick around, and for them to do that, you have to be the best option out there.

Second, I have to a compelling reason to want to sign up others. I have a few friends who blog, who, if this drove actual, real traffic, would be willing to sign up. But how can I justify wanting to sign others up? I've had over 4,000 impressions, had a widget on my blog for a month and a half, and have gotten exactly nothing in return.

I've removed the widget. I'm looking for something to put in it's place - that either earns money or drives traffic to the site.  Any ideas?

Update: While sitting on this post, I noticed at least one other blogger seeing the same thing.

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Categories: Blogging, Software