A Review of My First Year of Blogging

1. 2,436,117 page views for an average of approximately 6,200/day.

2. 262 posts generated 6,961 comments and 1,937 trackbacks. That’s 25 comments/post and 7 trackbacks/post.

3. 21,000 people receive RSS feeds via Feedburner and 1,457 receive emails via FeedBlitz.

4. Total advertising revenue: approximately $3,350 = $1.39 cpm. (This assumes that I can get Google to pay me. I’ve tried several times during the year to get my snail mail PIN so that I can get paid, but I’ve never received it. I don’t mind Google getting the float...)

   Update: the product manager of Adsense, Rob Kniaz, read this in my blog and got my account squared away. This happened in approximately fourteen hours from the time I first posted mentioned the problem on a national holiday. Life is good...

5. Most linked-to posting (953): The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint.

6. Can’t-understand-why-more people-(11)-haven’t-linked-to posting: Ten Questions With Aziza Mohmmand. What a shame because this is the purest story of entrepreneurship that I covered.

7. Ending Technorati ranking: #45. Highest ranking during the year: #35 or so. One interpretation of this self-judged lack of success is that the blogosphere prefers news and gossip to essays although my buddy Seth Godin disproves this theory.

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8. Primary blogging tools: MarsEdit (Dear Ranchero hands, MarsEdit needs the ability to schedule postings), ImageScale, and iStockphoto.

9. Most disappointing realization: After a week, most postings are “gone.” Perhaps people’s expectations of blogs are so low that they don’t consider them reference sources. Hence, I have to write another book. My challenge is that I have three tasks: answering email, blogging, and writing a book, and I can only do two. :-)

10. Speaking of books: my request for ideas generated approximately 125 suggestions. Thanks, guys! I’m leaning towards writing a book called How to Change the World: A Practical Book for Impractical People. I just have to figure out how to make it a curve-jump ahead of, as opposed to repackaging of, The Art of the Start. If you’d like to help, please click here for a wiki for this idea. The password is “kickbutt.”

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Comments

[Steve Weber]

I earned a bit more ad revenue in '06 with one-tenth your page views. I learned early on to make AdSense the last priority.

[Jack]

I am amazed by the number of comments which focus on revenue.
This gives me my idea of the day:
That people who read blogs often write blogs and many would like to make some money (a living!) from writing their blog.
Either that or are all focused on "high web stats mean you ARE making money, AREN'T you?".
Who knows.
I am also reminded that I need to subscribe to your RSS.
Gracias,

[Joe Hunkins]

You can't live on $3350 a year? Budget man, budget!

See, you *should* have taken that Yahoo CEO job back in the 90's you turned down.

[Des Traynor]

Guy, I really like your blog, it's been some of the real good stuff this year. My favourite entry here was Hindsights.

Can I just ask 2 quick ones?

1) I don't see any google ads, did you give up on them?

2) Where the Google ads here all year?

Many thanks

Des

[Trader Mike]

I wouldn't come to any broad conclusions based off of Guy's ad revenue. My blog is currently ranked 6,306 in Technorati and I had just over 1.8 million pageviews in 2006. My monthly ad revenue is just about what Guy made for the whole year.

[David Carlson]

Guy, are you working on any changes of your blog to make older posts more available? Maybe a new post necessarily doesn't need to come up on the top?

[Shakespeare’s Fool]

Guy,
I agree completely with Tim McClintock | January 01, 2007 at 09:22 PM.
Post when you have something you are passionate about.
John

[Kimber]

Guy,
Sorry, can't help you.
Don't know where you were bragging either.
(But then, I might not be the best judge. I just landed a gig by stating that I was the best.)

My comment was merely a generic one on managing envy.

[Lani]

Hi Guy,

Your highest Technorati rating was #18 the day after your PubCon KeyNote. I remember this, because I tagged you that evening and woke up to check the rating.

************

Really? I had no idea. Success, like fame, is fleeting, I guess. I wish you had a screenshot of my 15 seconds of fame!

Guy

[Mike G]

$1.39 CPM? That barely pays for ice time for the year. You should tell that to the folks at sequoia - half of their web2 companies have Adsense as a big part of the revenue model...

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Mike,

When Sequoia talks, I listen. I do't talk. :-)

Guy

[Ken]

I found your blog over the summer, read every post, sometimes commented and told lots of people to read. I think you're very right about posts disappearing after a week. Writing a book is a great solution; after blogging for seven months or so myself I'm starting to see the thoughts and ideas focus (ok, not always).

In terms of Technorati: The rankings have been very odd recently. I've seen a few sites I do get links counted that shouldn't and a few links we should have not get counted. I'm not losing sleep over it any more because once I fall asleep, they'll come up with a new way to do the ranking.

Thanks for the interesting reading this past year. I hope to keep reading your stuff, here and in print.

[Eric Schmoyer]

If you don't mind sharing, how much time (hours) would you say you spent on the blog in 2007?

***********
I spend about 3-5 hours on each "significant" posting. My hourly wage from the blog is therefore about $1-2. :-)
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On a straight revenue to effort model it seems like a losing proposition. Obviously there are exposure, research and other benefits.

Tossing out a random comparison I have a site that has 6-10 year old content. It is never updated, the design, layout, style are all dated (think late 1990s).

We don't touch it or update it. The content is not dated so it doesn't go stale, it's more reference.

For 2006 we had 2,283,306 page views and $2,722.78 in revenue.

For 2005 we had 2,065,888 page view and $3,007.80 in revenue.

For 2004 (5 May-31 Dec) we had 1,175,715 page views and $2,096.86 in revenue.

Recently internally we've thought that spending time to update, redesign and add to the content may raise the revenues. Based on Guy's numbers, I don't think so. We don't really have any other side benefits except show it again in our design portfolio.

--eric
eric [ at ] schmoyer [dot ] com

[Pamela Slim]

Happy New Year Guy:

I concur with #9 "after a week, most postings are gone." I often assume that frequent blog readers remember my posts, but very often they seem forgotten as soon as they disappear off my front page. I have a totally sucky category list right now (I will fix it by end of Jan, come hell or high water - even I can't find my own posts in it!), but I did see a neat twist today in Joan Stewart's (The Publicity Hound)newsletter: Create a "best of blog" compilation each year as a downloadable PDF. That way you can choose from the posts you feel best represent the content you generated in a year, and you can organize them any way you like.

I imagine you are always getting new readers ... people will appreciate getting a taste of your best work to really get to know you and your topic.

Just a thought ... and knowing you are very busy, it would be a great thing to ask your devoted readers to take a stab at the "best of list" for you. Either that, or get yourself a sharp tack Virtual Assistant. You really shouldn't be answering all your own emails anyway. :)

-Pam

[Chris Baskind]

Guy raises an interesting issue here: how do we bloggers offer our best work to our readers? On most blogs, articles slip off the front page in days or weeks. Sure, there are category and chronological archives, but these are pretty user-unfriendly ways of presenting stories.

I sometimes think blogging has fallen to deeply into its own conventions.

[James from rainy Wales (UK)!]

I want to make 2007 a good blogging year for myself. I have played for a few months, but having been inspired by people like 'Amanda Congdon' I want to write and publish videoblogs this year.

And how did I discover 'Guy Kawasaki'? I don't hear you ask!

Well I was lucky enough to meet the page when I pressed the 'next blog' random blog button at the top of my blog page. How lucky was I?

OK, I know you think Guy is equally lucky to have some person from Wales commenting on his blog. (I can hear you now!)

The world is a much smaller place on here (the internet silly!), and knowledge and use of these new technologies really is power.

Anyway, I also want to say what a nice person Guy is. I imagine life is pretty busy for him, but he has taken time to send a quick message now and again. It is greatly appreciated.

Guy, when you are in Wales, pop in for a cup of tea and a 'Welsh cake'. Seriously.

Happy New Year everyone!

[Richard]

Congratulations Guy! I found your blog some time this year and I never let a new post go unread for long.

I'm not sure what you mean in your 9th point, but it reminds me of another blog I read, www.stevepavlina.com. You probably don't need most of his advice about blogging, but I believe a lot of people do go back to his older posts (I know I frequently do when he links to them). You might be able to find some good ideas there that would help people find the parts of your archive that are important to them.

[Decio]

About #7: speaking of Essayists vs. gossipers worth mentioning Joel Spolsky and Paul Graham:

Joel, currently Technorati #42, write mostly about technology and programming, in a very insightful way.

Paul, currently Technorati #208, is the best non-asian-american essayist :-) but his long (and deep) essays are hard to sell, and his site could hardly be considered a blog.

I read your blog not because you write about entrepreneurship, but even if you write about entrepreneurship. Maybe, next year, the question will be "Godin who?"

[Kimber]

"Bragging about it may not be such a good thing."

Todd, I find envy a great indicator that I'm not doing all I can to accomplish my own goals. It's my brain telling my butt to get moving. Very healthy.

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Kimber,

I still don't know where I was bragging. I'm not particularly proud of the fact that I can't get higher than #45 in Technorati. 2.4 million page views over a year? That's not that great.

These are "just facts." When I brag, it will be very, very obvious. :-)

Guy

[Kimber]

"My challenge is that I have three tasks: answering email, blogging, and writing a book, and I can only do two."

So compile a book from blog posts.
I prefer short little chapters anyway (like Jeffrey J. Fox's writing - I gobble up all his stuff). Don't worry about people not buying just because the info is posted on your blog. Look at Seth Godin. He gives away free eBook versions of his books and it helps sales rather than hurts them.

[Todd]

Guy.... I like reading most of what you write, and I think you have a lot to offer the business (particularly the start-up) world. Your honest and experienced insights are valuable to so many of us... thank you!

A little more humility wouldn't hurt, though. Being great at what you do, and being proud of your skills, talents, abilities, contributions, and accomplishments is a good thing. Bragging about it may not be such a good thing. It takes a little bit away from ones admiration of all those qualities.

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Todd,

Thanks for the feedback. What do you consider bragging in my blog?

Guy

[Steve Tylock]

I appreciate your letting us see your numbers - that's a great summary. It doesn't show the "whole" picture on the monetary benefit though - any comments as to the effect of the blog on other activities like book sales?-)

If you're looking for feedback on blogging, as an avid RSS reader, the #1 thing I would ask for is if you could stop re-feeding edited articles. With no indication as to what has changed (typo corrected, line inserted, etc), I'm not inclined to reread the entire article to find a minor correction.

What I have started doing, is looking at every RSS entry and thinking about whether that is a republished article, or a new one - instead of thinking about how that article might interest me...

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Steve,

I wish I knew how I could do this. I will be constantly changing postings as I find errors, etc. I don't know if there is a way to stop re-feeding. If there is, I will do it.

Guy, relentlessly pursuing grammatical perfection...

[marc]

Guy, the Aziza Mohmmand post was your best, IMHO. I encourage you to interview more interesting people like her.

[Thomas Wenzl]

"After a week, most postings are “gone.”" - that's a real problem with blogs. Although your blog is one of the better ones because of tools like "Top 10 Postings", "Recent Posts", etc. That helps digging deeper. In a Web 1.0 world you would have launched a website called change-the-world.com where you post your articles to various sections (similar to your categories) and no one would care about when those articles were released. I think this is caused by so many blogs that just write about today's news.

When you go to a major news site you mainly read the recent news, too - you usually wouldn't care about news on a company having problems with their balance sheets if this company didn't exist anymore. :-)

But since you provide enough value I think many people are digging deeper into the various categories (I occassionally do). I second another commenter's suggestion on using something like "related posts" - what works for Amazon.com could work for a blog like this, too.

Some blogs are already using this gadget and I often find myself clicking on the follow-up links provided at the end of a posting.

Good luck for your blog year 2007! I hope you will find time for e-mail, blog and your book ;-)

[ggwfung]

Hi Guy, regards content disappearing into the void, a lot of blogs use the Related Posts feature, and have a list of 3 or 4 articles at the bottom of post.

It allows people to dig a bit deeper. It's a standard plugin for Wordpress, but I don't know what's available for Typepad. But it's something that's manually doable.

Cheers, and BTW, a top 50 blog in THE WORLD is a huge achievement!

[Michael Chui]

I linked that interview in two different places!