Taking Stock
So, my short
piece on the Beneteau First 21 prompted six comments earlier this week – a record!
And speaking of records, you might be interested to know that this little piece
of blogspace averages over 50 readers per day with 1,586 visitors in July and 4,609
since the first post in May. Largest daily visitor record was 98.
Another interesting and somewhat more worrying
record however, is that the most popular entries are those concerned with particular
vessels. My piece about the Hardy Motorsailer for example has attracted 50
readers so far and the piece about the Cape Cutter has attracted 73 to date,
whereas, my piece about piecing my nose with a fish-hook was of little interest
to anyone but me. In effect, people here like to read about types of boats
rather than other aspects of boating life.
My good friend
Michael predicted this some months ago and suggested that readership would
dwindle once I had chosen and bought my low cost cruiser. Hope he’s wrong
because I’ll be relying more and more on your advice to bring the old tub back
to a safe and comfortable state – time will tell.
Anyway, this is
all a very longwinded way of saying thank you to all the Simple Sailing Low
Cost Cruising friends, supporters and contributors. Is the site achieving its
aims? I think so, in that it seems to help bring like minded people together,
it promotes discussion and helps disseminate information and opinion. In truth,
if I hadn’t been so technologically inept I would have developed a site which
isn’t a blog (too much of me – not enough of us and you). The ultimate goal was
a kind of information and support vehicle with a facility where like minded
souls could share thoughts and ideas about cruising. The kind of perfect
clubhouse where you kick off your seaboots, pour a liberal quantity of a
suitable seaman’s tipple and enjoy the company.
So, how are we
doing?– so far so good I guess, but there is always room for improvement,
technically, and with regard to content and editorial. Should we add more
pages? Is a blog piece twice a week about right? Would you prefer more or less
frequent blogs? Are there topics which deserve greater depth? Are there
functions that could be added – a forum for example? Any ideas or thoughts
would be really appreciated.
Meanwhile
Michael, some time ago suggested a trimaran as a possible low cost cruiser,
fast, stable, roomy, light with little draft, easily driven. There is one for sale here so guess what I’ll
be doing this weekend? Get back to you in a couple of days
Seaward
Hi David
ReplyDeleteThose are very interesting stats, 4600 reads is an amazing amount of coverage.
Sorry about predicting a fall off in readership following your boat purchase. I don’t think this will be the case at all. Johns blog has evolved from a boat history piece through a travelogue to get his boat home, then a super interesting account of the development of his DIY skills as he updated his boat and it is now entering a new phase.
There is no reason why your blog should not evolve along similar lines and be equally entertaining, as boat purchase is really a small part of the boat ownership story. Somewere to keep it (as I whinged about recently), insurance, days out are all topics of interest to people interested in boats.
Your analysis of the pros and cons of different models of boats that you have been interested in have been entertaining and informative. But I have actually enjoyed equally some of the more personal pieces, my favourites being the account of your day trip up the river on your kayak, and the comedy bits of your early entry into boating.
I think that you shouldn’t pressure yourself into providing 2 pieces per week as this is a lot of work, but just write something when you have got something that you want to put across otherwise I could see this being a chore. Johns blog is not a weekly thing and does not suffer for this.
I don’t know how easy it would be or whether people would send in suggestions or not, but I would be interested to see links to other good blogs, along with a description of why the person liked them. Similarly a section on enjoyable sailing books would be interesting to me. Being as yours is a low cost sailing forum, it would be good to have a section on problems that have been solved in a cheap fashion. Or even items that are good value. I read on another blog recently that the boating industry likes to promote sailing jackets and salopettes that can cost upwards of £350 each but that deep sea fishermen on some of these offshore crab boats use $40 oilskins which offer equal protection. This sort of thing.
I don’t understand the principles really behind blogging so I dont know if these things are easy to do or not, I’m not even able to add my own photo to my profile despite trying to several times.
I look forward to reading about your trip to see the trimaran, I’m deeply jealous about this
!!
I’m on holiday this coming week and had planned to see 2 boats a 26ft snapdragon (owner is too ill to arrange a viewing …bizarre), and a 28 ft colvic searover which I’m going to view in Plymouth tomorrow. Neither boat looks to have that wow factor but I need to get something to get me on the water. I visited a sailing club near to me last week and have found somewere to keep a boat locally. It was an interesting and amusing experience but that’s another story...
Keep up the good work
Michael
Buy the boat that flips *your* buttons; write the blog you'd like to read.
ReplyDeleteDavid,
ReplyDeleteIf one of your goals is to generate new traffic for your site, reviewing and commenting regularly on other people's blogs is a good strategy. It makes you a part of the online community, and makes people with similar interests aware of you who otherwise might not find you. For example, I found your site because you left a comment on a post at Mitch Zeissler's site, Bone In Its Teeth, which I happened to visit for the first time on a search for shoal-draft boat discussions.
Your blog's name aligns pretty tightly with the concerns my wife and I have as we, both in our late forties and without any significant history of sailing in our backgrounds, prepare to see what a long-term commitment to life on a sailboat has to offer.
So I may be back once in a while to see how you're doing. Meanwhile, good luck.
Regards,
Mike W.
Ithaca, NY
USA