Darren Rowse of Problogger asked his readers why they would unsubscribe to a blog. To us, that’s the same as grim death, since subscribers are your faithful readers. If they leave you, who’s left? After more than a 100 comments, Darren cataloged and published 34 reasons. All the comments can be read here. Interestingly, Robert Scoble commented saying he has 100,000 subscribers and doesn’t buy it. He admits to giving his readers all 34 reasons. (Maybe he’d have 200,000) Darren says he’d drop a feed because of content relevancy and quality, along with blogger ego. Here are the top ten reasons:
1. Too many posts
2. Infrequent postings
3. Partial excerpt feeds
4. Blog changes focus
5. Too many posts seen elsewhere (redundant, repeated or recylced news)
6. Uninteresting content
7. Irrelevant content
8. The blogger’s ego (too much self-promotion)
9. Low quality content
10. Too many posts that are too long.
Do you agree? Why would you unsubscribe or stop reading a blog?
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Technorati Tags: Problogger, blogging, advice
All of the above. There is no “one reason” that I would unsubscribe, but typically it is a combination of many of the 10. Perhaps the most irritating are the partial feeds.
Actually, I’m working on getting a Sellsius feed installed directly into my brain via microchip….it would be pretty hard to unsubscribe from that….
I agree with most of the top ten if not all. The biggest thing is to find a balance between too many, too few, too long, too short.
I’ve read Problogger in my early days of blogging and learned tips from there. However, I never followed it. We all have our own style in writing. He was giving tips more on prefessional blogging. I’m not one. Ha!
However, as I’ve mentioned before, it depends on what kind of blog you’re reading. FOCUS is very important he mentioned. True. But it depends on what kind of blog it is. Personal blogs can discuss variety of topics. But those writing professional blogs say you’re a tech blog and suddenly you post on politics is a big no.
I asked about #5 in another tech blog months ago. At that time, the most popular topic over at Technorati was about the Web 2.0 conference. There were more than 20K blog entries and it swelled through the week. I asked if it’s considered a re-post. High ranking top sites and the like were all posting about it. So I asked, isn’t that a re-post? It was never answered.
Conclusion: I mind my own business. If I can attrack readers, fine. I have my own reason why I blog. I dont want to teach people how to write their posts. Criteria in good writing is seldom seen in the blogosphere. It’s more on self-expression. Some prefer short, others long. If I’m going to follow rules, I’ll die before I can post.
Sorry for the rant.
We feel the same way ipanema. Go your own way and the readers who like you will follow. Blogging, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.
Your rants are always welcome
Sorry for the wrong spelling : professional, attract.
Thanks JF.
No blog “personality” I think just puts me in sleep mode. I have 60+ RE blogs on in my RSS reader, and it’s overwhelming at times. I need pictures too. Crammed text is the devil.
All in all though I think lack of a “voice” is the issue. People don’t “unsubscribe” I think, they just fade away and then unsubscribe.
I agree with you Athol. It’s a gradual withdrawal. I had upwards of 200 feeds and have been slowly culling them down for any number of personal taste reasons. Funny thing about RSS though—you read the post in the feed and not at the blog (that’s a future post). When the feeder fills up with posts from a prolific blog, it’s just easier to erase them all and start fresh. I don’t unsubscribe because of a lot of posts, I just don’t read them all. -jf
I haven’t even figured out how to use RSS yet…so I will withold comment. Wait, dammit, I just commented. Sorry Dudie, I can’t stop myself.
I think it comes down to the fact that there are only so many blogs that one person can keep up with. Since there are always new blogs popping up there are always new things grabbing your attention away from other blogs you used to read.
I personally find that i go in cycles. I’ll be really into a few blogs. As i finder newer, different blogs, i start reading less of the blogs i started with. Then something may happen that reminds me of an older blog i used to read and i’ll go back and catch up. The cycle seems to repeat itself.
If people start trying to police their own posts then the content becomes less real. The blogger may not say what he or she really wants to. They may force themselves to say something they don’t want to. It should not be a formula.
Having said all that, i think infrequent posts are what really kill blogs. I’ve seen it happen to one of my blogs. But i just didn’t have the time to keep posting. What can ya do?
That’s an interesting comment Ross. Tastes do change and I find myself falling into a cyclical pattern too. I’m always looking for the new and improved but also like the comfort of a blog you can count on.
Posting on a somewhat regular basis requires time and if you’re busy, it’s hard to find that time. And yeah, it’s a killa.
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I’m sorry for little off-topic, but I want to ask you about design of this site.
Did you make this template yourself or got from any templates website?
Looks pretty cool for me. Wonderful well this reading.
This is Techno blue from wordpress.