Sitemeter Talks

Yes, the sitemeter talks.

I am not a marketing expert or an advertising expert. But I feel that I have been able to work like a true marketer and an advertiser.

My experiment with blogs started somewhere in February 2005. I got the idea, vision, motive and confidence from the discussions on educationforum.ipbhost.com. I knew about the blogs before that. As I do not have knowledge about computers and working of internet, I did not give much attention to the concept of blogging. However, the people of education forum in their e-help and e-learning section were aggressively talking about using web sites and blogs for teaching purpose. It was there that I was made to think seriously and try my hand at putting up on the web my professional achievements. Finally, in the month of February, I was able to locate the Blogger.com and pressed their three step buttons. I learned that I could do that. However, they immediately asked me to make some entries, and I developed sumir-history and I got my first address on the web as www.sumir-history.blogspot.com. If I remember it right, it was February 14 or February 18, 2005 when this thing happened. (Well, it can be checked from the records on blogger.com itself.)

After that I stopped for two days. I thought and thought over my new discovery. I was really excited and wanted to use it as a teaching tool in my job. I did not have any idea how I would reach my students and what would I put in to use it as a tool for my teaching. Gradually I developed a picture about what actually I would do. In the meantime, I just posted one posting. I added some of my already written and published views. I borrowed them from my Email enrollment with H-Asia of H-Net. Somewhere, I thought that my readings and writings could be useful for civil services aspirants and UGC NET applicants. Therefore, before I had made my blogs for teaching purpose, I created three more accounts after browsing through the contents of Blog Knowledge links on the blogger.com. I had written manuscripts for TATA McGrow Hill which they had refused to accept after having encouraged me for sometime. I knew that I had a good idea behind that manuscript and I posted already written some material on civil services blog.

In the meantime, all my attention was diverted to the working of blogs. It was summer holidays in the university. Earlier I used to read some books in those days or write some material for my lectures or visit places. But I spent those days on blogging. I started visiting other blogs and looked into the contents. I was definitely impressed by the appearances of many blogs and envied those who had developed their blogs nicely. One thing which always increased my jealousy was sighting a meter wherein it was showed that how many hits that blog had received. Some how, I learned from the Blog Knowledge of Blogger.com that it was an add-on feature which I could also use. By that time, I had also developed my undergraduate and postgraduate blogs with a plan how to use them as my teaching tools. I got the site meters in all my blogs. It also gave me some confidence in fiddling with the template and HTML. Here again, education forum became handy. They had the suggestions and lessons for learning HTML. I did not learn whole of HTML. However, I had learned how to check the HTML page, what was css and what does HTML and body code or tags do.

I had desired that my first blog should have become popular. But, I soon learned that it was my civil services blog which was receiving hits. It was during those days that I also managed to register for the Adsense feature in my blogs. I had learned about the HTML codes and I had become confident and I was able to implant them nicely because I could read and locate the tags. The Adsense account also gave me reports that where the people were visiting me.

In those days, that was in the month of April and May 2005, the sitemeter was not all that elaborate as it is today. I think the person who is looking after it, is David. He is a true professional because if you email him, be sure, that you will get back a reply. However, the site meter contents showed me about the referring URLs and also the search terms which were used in search engines which had directed the net surfing people to my site.

It was May 13, 2005, when the civil services result was announced. Suddenly, the rush to my civil services blog increased. I checked into my site meter for civil services. I found that most of the visitor had visited me to check the result. I immediately visited the UPSC site and implanted the desired link on my site. On May 15, 2005, the prelim test took place. From May 16, 2005, the hits on my site suddenly increased. I checked into the site meter. I found that most of the visitors who visited me were seeking the answers to civil services prelims paper. As my address was civilservices-prelims.blogspot.com, the search engines were locating my site for the search query.

One of my relatives had cleared the civil services in the already announced result of the Civil services. I phoned him and asked me to procure the papers of Civil services especially of history and also of general studies. I was able to procure general studies papers for me. The paper reached me on May 23, 2005 and I started posting the questions from May 25, 2005 onwards. On May 25, 2005, the total hits to my generalstudiesupsc.blogspot.com were hardly 10. All those visits were made by me. By June 4, 2005, I had solved whole of the paper and posted it on the blog. I had posted some wrong answers. But the demand of the question and answer to them was so great that people joined in to correct the answers. Here, one engineer, Tripathi really played a big role. By June 10, 2005 the total hit to my General Studies blog had crossed three hundred.

Now after seven months, the total hits on civil service blog and general studies blog have crossed 1000 hits for each blog. On the other hand, the visits to other blogs which I cherished that they should have become more popular, have not crossed even 500 hits each. I was highly disappointed when I found that my students, who are so eager to show off their latest and costly gadgets, did not visit the blogs whereas I have given enough useful material on them. It was only when I posted their lecture statement on my blog that they started visiting the blog. But, that was not my aim. I wanted to use the blog as a teaching tool and to improve my own learning by exploring the net for information and then using that information on my blog to increase my knowledge and that of my students.

In between, I have stopped looking into the sitemeters. But, the onsite meter on civil services is showing that it is still receiving rush. I have stopped posting new material on it. But it has enough content on it that it is attracting the visitors. Now when the total count has suddenly crossed 1100 on civil services, I visited the site meter reports. I was astonished to see the people and their queries with which they had visited me. It really amused me. They were not only from India but from virtually all the continents except Africa. The maximum numbers are from America and Canada. Some of the details even fascinate me. There are many people in America who are interested in Civil services examination of India. Who are they? Secondly, many of them are interested in Ancient India. I have made a list of the query phrases. It has given me a great boost to work further on blogs.

Now two things come out of my experience of blogging for the last seven months.

First, if the contents of your blogs have some stuff in it, then you will definitely get the hits.

Secondly, You must know what actually is in demand. In case of general studies blog, the answers to the latest question paper was in demand. I learned about it from the site meter. I provided the material. My material was not correct. Even then I received the visitors and gradually appreciation also. Some of the people prefer to email you instead of placing the comments. Or they do not get the idea that they can reach the blogger by placing comment below the post. But they are prompted enough to search for the email address or email icon and send a message to you.

The second observation is more important. In order to remain popular, you must know what actually the seeker wants to know. If you have the right material and knowledge then provide it. You will start getting the visits. But, before that, you must know that what they want to know. You must know what is being sought out there. Here, site meter has really become very handy.