BlogRush: Lessons Learned
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BlogRush shuts down after a little over a year, and while promises of a rush of web site traffic did not materialize for a lot of site owners, we are still thankful for the 0.1% to 0.8% clickthrough traffic that BlogRush did send to a number of sites, plus the online earnings it also helped generate. But what we are more grateful for, are the lessons learned from using John Reese's BlogRush widget...
Lesson 1: Nothing Automated Lasts Forever. There are natural ways of gaining traffic, and "forced" or contrived methods of sending visitors to your blog. The easy and automated systems will work, but it will not last that long. If we're looking for quick fixes, let's be prepared for the inevitable day when... Well, come to think of it, nothing really lasts forever, right?
Lesson 2: Focus Is Essential. When we try and put our widgets in any and every place we can find online, our efforts become diffused and wasted. Many BR widget users were able to rack up hundreds of thousands of Impression Credits, but these were not completely served, what with the shutdown of BlogRush. Those who tightly focused their BR marketing campaigns were able to get higher ROIs, though.
Lesson 3: Fairness Works. Numerous site owners placed the widget in rather inaccessible places on their web pages. These people ended up getting minimal traffic. Perhaps you can call it some kind of karmic SEO failure. Those who gave back more to the BR system ended up reaping more rewards. On the web, you need to give first before you can receive.
Here are some earlier posts about BR:
- BlogRush Traffic Ramps Up (March 21, 2008)
Do you remember BlogRush? Well, after sticking with it for quite some time, my friends have been asking whether it has finally brought in a flood of traffic. With clickthrough rates still below 1 percent, the short answer is No, we haven't seen a gush of web traffic. With TrafficJam coming into the picture, however, the old clickthrough rates we experienced previously have increased by as much as 2.8 times. Here's why it happened... - BlogRush 2008 Traffic (January 12, 2008)
If you recall an earlier post, I hinted that you shouldn't give up on BlogRush. Here are some early January 2008 stats about the traffic that this site received via the BR widget. - BlogRush Resurrected (November 20, 2007)
You've probably read about John Reese's BlogRush widget, the promise of high traffic to your blogs, the disappointment, the disillusion, and the eventual removal of the BR widget. If you're thinking about doing the same, please don't be too hasty. Yes, BlogRush has resurrected! - BlogRush Analysis (September 20, 2007)
Several people have gotten disillusioned with BlogRush and have removed the widget box from their sites because of lack of traffic and other reasons. Here's my analysis on why BlogRush can still work and help bring in more traffic for your site. - Secret BlogRush Strategy... Revealed! (September 18, 2007)
After trying BlogRush for a few days, here are some observations and tips you can use in creating your third party web traffic strategy. - A Blog Rush of Visitors (September 15, 2007)
Would you like a rush of visitors to your sites? What about visitors who are not only readers, but are also bloggers themselves? And what if those other bloggers will end up helping you get even more traffic? Here are the details...
Well, it's been quite a ride.
So thank you again, BlogRush. With your help, our affiliate marketing campaigns are less automated and more humane, and are also more focused and fair. And no, John and the entire BlogRush team: Your efforts were not in vain.
To the hundreds of site owners who installed the BR widget, thank you for your help and support. There are still a lot of other opportunities in the future, and I look forward to hearing about your continued success. Just keep your eyes open, persevere, and never stop experimenting.
Here's wishing everyone more targeted traffic that converts!
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"BlogRush: Lessons Learned"
First Posted: November 1, 2008 | Filed in: Web Traffic
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Yes, I heard about the death about BlogRush and it did not surprised me. I even thought it was a bit delayed. I used the widget for quite a time on my blogspot blogs when I was just starting to blog, but did not get anything.
Anyway, I see that you have been monitoring the site very well through your older posts. Actually, my analysis is that BR has put more focus on top blogs instead of the low-profile ones. Furthermore, I think they lack support to newbies like me.
On the other hand, Entrecard was born to save their day. Unfortunately, it is now being abused by some users which is I think also the main factor why BR was buried.
Hopefully, another promotional technique site will be born to replaced BR. But I hope they will learn the lessons from BlogRush.
Thanks!
In one experiment, the BR widget was displayed about 280 times, and in exchange, BlogRush sent 54 visitors via the widgets displayed in other sites. Of the 54 visitors, 10 generated affiliate commissions for the low-profile blog. At that time, the blog was receiving something like 30 visitors a day (not from BlogRush).
In terms of support, low-profile bloggers were getting help from high profile bloggers. Those public blog posts about BR yielded several clues and tactics which the original BR team did not disseminate to BR widget users. Perhaps this was the case because the tactics were the complete opposite of the content found in the BR help files.
For example, in the BR help files you were supposed to indicate your blog's RSS feed. So if your WordPress blog's RSS feed was set-up to show the latest 10 posts, any one of those 10 posts was going to get rotated in the different BR widgets. That lack of focus pretty much guaranteed little or no BR traffic at all.
In the high profile blogger's post, he wrote about manually creating an RSS feed customized just for the BlogRush system. In that RSS feed, there was only one item. That type of focus resulted in high traffic from BR.
Also, the BR widget was not displayed in all blog posts. It was displayed only on the blog post that was going to receive BR traffic. It's only fair, right? You're promoting only one post of yours, so display the BR widget only on that same post's webpage.
Lesson learned from BR: Focus, focus, focus.
I also tried Entrecard, but my sked was quite full so I wasn't able to participate that well in the whole business of dropping cards.
Disappointing news. BlogRush was a valuable service for bloggers looking to get a kickstart. As the owner of Publicity Wheel, I'll do my best to avoid the same issues so we don't suffer the same fate.
Well, I guess the death of BlogRush has something to do with the newer social networking sites too. Younger crowds like me ^_^ would prefer to advertise my new entries on twitter or plurk.
BlogRush death too shows that even the content syndication network have some stiff competitions nowadays.