New and looking for advice

[rnningfool]

So I got my 15 posts and I can finally create a link to my blog and hope to get some constructive criticism. I've been blogging for close to a year with extremely low traffic. The only people who read it are my close friends. Any comments or suggestions are appreciated.

http://www.rnningfool.com

[BlueH Life]

I there, I get a look at ur blog, i think its very clear... not to much thing..

I like ur Girl top very nice :P

ahah

Congrats, and keep on the good work!

[Melody]

Okay here it goes:

1. You have no theme. It's a personal blog about your experiences and your likes. There's nothing wrong with that, but unless you're a celebrity with a fan club, that's not going to drive traffic.

If your traffic is low, and your concerned with that, maybe ask yourself why you're blogging at all?

2. I completely appreciate and like the fact that you have no ads. You focus on your content.

3. You obviously have a million copyright violations with those photos.

4. Mostly, your content is well-written in terms of grammar. But your content doesn't hold my interest. You and I are generations apart and I don't care about celebrity nipples, or looking at women with tight-bodies. My generation will click away from your page pretty fast.



What is your traffic like now that is too low for you, and what is it you want from your blog?

[workinghard]

Well I understand what you are trying to do but what I don't understand is why? I am not trying to be harsh maybe I just don't understand your theme. But blogging is about having fun and if you are having fun that is half of it.

[rnningfool]

Honestly, I think the guy above me nailed. I do this because I like it. I want people to read it and be entertained.

I'd like more input on this:
You have no theme. It's a personal blog about your experiences and your likes. There's nothing wrong with that, but unless you're a celebrity with a fan club, that's not going to drive traffic.

Maybe people will come to my blog because they like me for my thoughts and they don't care if it pertains to. I'm not going to stick to a certain topic because I'm adhering to a theme. I post this here because I want people to say, I like your style, here's a link to my blog, I'll post it on my site and vice versa. Networking.

[ChickenFreak]

I'm also the wrong generation for your blog to work for me, but that sort of thing never stopped me, so some comments.

- I'd suggest more, and more detailed, post categories. You have posts about celebrities, about etiquette (I suspect that you wouldn't call it that, but that's how I'd categorize them), about fast food, about blogging, about TV, about everyday activities like getting a haircut, and so on.

A reader may come along who likes the everyday activity posts but finds the celebrity posts to be a waste of time. More categories would help him to find the parts of your blog that he likes with a minimum of effort, and maximum reward with minimum effort is one key to keeping a reader.

- For the same reason, I'd break up the posts that seem to be about two or more major topics. If you shift from complaints about someone's behavior to showing a music video, I'd make that two different posts. If they seem relevant to each other, you can still link from one post to another.

- You might want to insert cuts for the long posts. Someone who isn't interested in the "celebs" post that's currently the first post in your blog has to do a lot of scrolling to escape it. Odds are that they'll just click away. If the posts were shorter, with a "click to read more" link, a reader could see several titles with just a little scrolling, and decide whether you have some material that interests him.

- I guess these are all saying more or less the same thing: You'll rarely get a reader who wants to read _every_ post in a multi-topic personal blog. So anything that you can do to help your readers find the ones they're interested in, and ignore the ones they're not, is likely to make for happier readers who are more likely to return.

- Also, if you find that your readers like one kind of post better than another, and it's not absolutely against your principles to cater to them, well, you could cater to them. If they enjoy celebrity posts, or TV snark posts, or whatever, you could try to post those more often. As a further example, if they enjoy TV snark posts, you could go post in relevant forums, like Television Without Pity, to try to attract more readers.

Now, that may ruin the whole point for you - maybe the whole point is to grow an audience for whatever's on your mind that day. But it's a thought.

[AndrewS]

what struck me were the colors ..too much black there.. and the way too long home page

[pembroke]

more a personal diary, hence the low exposure?

[mrtrolah]

Seems you may not know what to write? have a Break for a bit, brainstorm some ideas, surf the web, watching tv, read the newspapers, find something to give your opinion on

[drummer_412]

As far as content goes, it's not my cup of tea, but who cares, right? I would suggest adding more color somehow. It just seems boring because there's nothing going on color-wise.