Hello World! We have past 5.000 monthly views
“Hello world!” A well-know sentence for any WordPress user. It seems so irrelevant, since there is nothing to show at first. But right now, it starts to make sense to me. And I’d like to say “Hello world! Meet redridingboots.com. It is out there, for real”.
‘Hello World’ is the first thing the system shows you when you set your first steps in the big adventure of creating your own website. Whether it is a blog, online portfolio or webshop. And today is the moment I want to shout it to the world.
HELLO WORLD!
MEET REDRIDINGBOOTS.COM
Why now? Because redridingboots.com has hit the 5.000 pageviews marker. And over 1.200 unique, beautiful people visit this little website every month. And only now, I dare to say “It is out there, for real”, with a little bit of confidence. And when I think about it, that’s quite strange.
ALL ABOUT CONTENT
AND MARKETING
I’ve been a Marketing Manager for quite some time now. And before that, I’ve worked as a Content Manager for years. So I am more than familiar with content creation, and the online world. For everyone thinking that those roles are mainly creative ones, think again. Yes, they can be. But keeping a close eye on the statistics takes up more time than I’d like to admit. Almost every day, I open up Analytics related tools and analyse what’s in front of me.
I KNOW IT'S NOT THAT MUCH
BUT IT IS HEARTWARMING
It’s not just web traffic numbers like pageviews, unique visitors, sessions, bounce rates, entry and exit points, referrals and so on. Since I’m active in the E-commerce jungle, it’s also a lot about sales. Or actually, all about sales. And since the companies I’ve worked and work for are active in European and International territory, you can also add multiple countries to those statistics. Numbers everywhere, my friends.
Based on my experience and all the reports I read on a yearly basis, I am very aware that 5.000 pageviews per month is not that much at all in this huge, still fast growing online world. And that’s where it starts to cringe too. It actually isn’t the 5.000 pageviews per month-marker I am proud of. It’s the over 1.200 unique people who visit my little creative outburst every month. That’s what I am secretly really proud of. And above all, what I am very, very thankful for.
Put 1.200 people in a room, and it is a proper crowd. Scatter them online, and suddenly they hardly mean anything according to Marketing metrics. I know there are a lot of people active online. So those 1.200 people are just a small percentage of everyone who searches and reads online. But in my humble opinion, that should not take anything away from the fact that those 1.200 souls are reading my precious content and it makes me feel delighted.
BRING BACK THE SOUL IN CONTENT
HELLO WORLD MANTRA
Content creation has reached a certain point where most of us create content for the sake of it. Just so it is out there. Giving our best SEO ring to it, so every search engine out there can find us. Copywriters are everywhere. But what about the value of that content? I analyse lots and lots of websites, blogs and webshops. Not just for work, but also in my spare time. Because after all these years of analysing numbers, it became sort of a habit.
And I come across so many webshops, websites and blogs that just put content out there for the world to see, that doesn’t have a single thread of authenticity in it. Which – again in my humble opinion – is a waist of time. And for businesses; therefore a waste of money. Yes, I know you want to be found on certain keywords, even though the competition is high on them. But please add some meaning to it. Or at least give it some soul.
Anyone who knows me personally knows I’m a bit shy when it comes to redridingboots.com. I hardly promote it offline, or online for that matter. I only post something on my social media accounts about it every now and then. But only on rare occasions. I don’t advertise, since keeping the blog up and running costs me a decent amount of money every year already. So I fully rely on SEO to do the job for me. And since it is something I do on the side, it only gets attention when I’ve got some time left.
SALUTE!
Working like 45 hours a week (not including the time to commute) and having an active offline bike life, that leaves little time to spare. But I try to write in the evenings and weekends. I have so much creativity flowing through my veins, I just have to get it out there. And being a former entrepreneur – and still an active one in heart – I know things only grow when they get the time and attention they deserve. So I try to give it as much time as possible.
And to see more and more souls being able to find REDRIDINGBOOTS online warms my heart. So I kindly say “F- you, somehow normalized marketing metrics” and proudly shout “Hello world! redridingboots.com is out there. And it is here to stay.”
