Site news—Less is more
It’s November, so we’re heading into the final stretch of the year. I also just celebrated my birthday, and summer part two is turning into fall here in Memphis. So it seems like a good time to take stock and make a few changes with eclecticmisc.org.
What do site visitors view most? The top page views for every month are blog posts, so I’m definitely going to keep up with the blog posts, with the rest TBD.
What types of posts do site visitors view most? Drum roll, please…
The $50 donation poll (top 4 posts) — announcing the month’s new poll or the results of the previous month’s poll. These were the top posts for 4 months this year. This is excellent news, because the main reason I wanted to do the site was to support and raise awareness for progressive charities, causes, and organizations who need money to help people and fight against the establishment.
Take-away: I’m going to keep promoting and talking about the donation poll, and the organizations in each month’s poll. It’s a way for me to give to progressive causes, and also raises awareness about them so other people can support them, too (see #2).Promotion of progressive organizations/sites/shows — Posts introducing or talking about progressive organizations and shows were the top viewed for 3 months this year. I also think that’s great news, since progressive shows and organizations aren’t as well publicized and can hopefully use a boost in visibility (even if it’s a fairly small one).
Take-away: I’m going to start promoting organizations and other people’s content more regularly. This way, people who are visiting for the $50 donation can also find out about other news sources and causes they may want to support.Posts about Twitter polls — For two months, the top post was about a Twitter post, specially ones with polls in them. One was more serious (who would cave: Pelosi, Sinema, or progressives) and the other silly (a collection of Twitter polls that I promoted as being “worse than Nate Silver”).
Take-away: I’m going to keep doing Twitter polls and posting about them on here. It’s a fun way to engage with other people, it brings more people to the site, and it doesn’t take a lot of time to do, so it’s win-win-win!TYT-related content — The first month that my site was live (Jan. 2021), the top post was saying who the best TYT host was — Cenk, Ana, or John. It makes sense that that’d be the top post that month, because most people who visit my blog probably heard of Eclectic Miscellanea through TYT, although I do have a growing number of non-TYT followers!
Take-away: Extended posts about details of TYT-dom don’t seem to be a big draw to my site. Other occasional posts like this haven’t gotten many views, either. My guess for this is, if you want to talk about TYT, you go to tyt.com, Discord, Twitch, Twitter… That’s what I do (maybe too much!), so there doesn’t really need to be another forum for that here.Serious analysis of the news — I’ve posted a lot of blog posts about my take on different news items. I haven’t done it as much in the past month or so, partly because they take a long time to do, and partly because eyeballing my stats, I could see that these aren’t as popular.
Take-away: I’m phasing out extended news analysis from my blog posts. Extended posts with my takes on the news aren’t bringing people to my site, and they take a ton of time to write. That doesn’t mean I won’t gripe about something from time to time, but multi-paragraph summaries reacting to, or pulling together info from, different sources is something that people are going elsewhere for.
What happens now? So the plan for now is more content focused on progressive organizations and causes from my $50 donation polls, more posts about other sites or shows with progressive content people may not be aware of, and sharing and talking about quick fun or serious polls from Twitter.
Less is more has become a cliché, but focusing on fewer, shorter posts on these topics really does seem like the way to go.
Hopefully these changes will bring more of what people are interested in. Thanks for visiting the site and hope to talk to you soon on Twitter or in the comments!
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The results for the October poll to help decide which progressive-friendly org will be announced on Friday. Thanks!
