Is my blog just a waste of time?

Hi Everyone,
Since I'm going on vacation again tomorrow, and will have limited internet access, so I figured I'd ask this question now...
I have a blog, doesn't get much traffic, hasn't generated one sale for my website, but had kept it with the idea of getting some of my supplemental product pages indexed, and having links to my website and certain product pages. Originally, I had seen some pages come out of supps as a result of my blog, but then they went back in. (I got ripped off by a "nice lady" that was going to write descriptions for me, btw, that's a whole different story...).
Anyway, I've been working real hard on my website, SEO, marketing, etc, and have neglected my blog, which was originally intended for "busy mamas", although I later had a "fine art Friday" thing...The point is, and please be kind, is my blog just a waste of my time, or is it something I should keep for indexing, linking to my pages purposes? Thanks so much for your feedback!

Faith

btw, the blog is bizimama dot com, it might load slowly, I had used a lot of animated clipart.

I am not familiar with aspx but you should be able to pull the blog entry titles into the actual page title. Currently all your titles are the same.
You may also want to add to your robots.txt file;

User-agent: *
Disallow: /*?view=
Disallow: /comments
Disallow: /categories

And add anyother pages you may not think important and place "nofollow" on all those affiliate ads.

Hi Faith,

Blogging is one of the main reasons we draw the traffic we do on our ASC sites. Using a platform such as WordPress Master has a lot of things built into it to get you noticed by the search engines. It is also a great way to help drive traffic to affiliate programs, or if you have your own product site to drive traffic that way also. If your blog is not generating much traffic it is more than likely it is not being syndicated and marketed, and does not have enough fresh content. Make sure you take full advantage of the training, videos and other material here at ASC before making any decision. Our blogs, our authority sites are a tool we use to get traffic.

I am not sure I really answered your questions, but without more detail as to what your other site is and what your plans our at ASC I cannot advise one way or another. Given the ASC tools I can see potential in your blog, but I think it may need a little more focus.

Hope this helps a little.

Thanks,
My other site is a Christian art website.

Faith

What is Wordpress master and how is it different to wordpress 2.2 please ?

Here are the basic points that can help you decide if it is worth your while.....


1) Does your blog produce direct income?

2) Are you blogging on topics that have search volume?
- pick your topics carefully, no sense blogging if nobody cares

3) Are you blogging on a theme that attracts qualified buyers?
- if you sell paintings and blog about fishing lures there are probably few buyers in your readers

4) Are your blog posts so educational, humorous or compelling that they attract links?
- if you don't attract links then links from your blog to your site are worth almost nothing

5) Is your blog a service or entertainment to your website's visitors?
- if your blog is not on your website then this does not apply

6) Do you enjoy doing it?

"Do you enjoy doing it" is the main question. It's about more than just search rankings. If you enjoy it it adds depth and credibility to your website. If your blog software has "digg it" type tools people will start passing it around. Ultimately, if you write good stuff, it shows passion about what you are doing. Passion for what you do is worth more than any amount of marketing bucks. I submit that the reason older companies (whether it's Chrysler, or the major Hollywood studios, or MS) lose their way is because the founders are gone and the passion for what they do is gone, and no amount of marketing can fix that.

You guys have brought up some very good points, Egol's checklist was very useful. I am not making any sales as a result of my blog, and the traffic is very minimal at most. If I wasn't spending so much time building my Christian art business, maybe I would have more time and energy for more humorous, intelligent and compelling blogs, but as I said, it has become sadly neglected...I do have passion, for my Christian art business, building it up, and Lord willing, making it a full time income. I guess I've just answered my own question, am about 90% sure I'll stop blogging, at least for now anyway.


Faith

An excellent checklist put up by EGOL.

My 2 cents on your blog:

1. The blog looks nice and neat. However, even with a 2 mbps broadband connection my PC hung twice while opening it. Too heavy friend, cut down a bit by allowing no more than 5-7 posts on the home page and putting the rest in archive.

2. It seemed that you're only linking to YOUR site from the blog. That way it might be considered as a SPLOG in the near future. Be natural and link to other related online resources as well. This way your blog and your links will look natural, authoritative and hence the probability of your links getting devalued will be somewhat less.

3. You may consider inviting other bloggers who can write on your topic to contribute at your blog. You don't always need to pay them for that - just allow them to link to their site from the blog. Since you have a nice blog and decent PR they won't decline. Also linking out helps, other sites and bloggers may find out that you're linking to them voluntarily and might reciprocate.

4. Promote your blog in blog directories, technorati and social media sites.

Good luck and have a great vacation

I have a blog that consumes about 25% of my time yet it earns less than 1% of my income. It does not contain any links to any of the items that I sell. It does not link to other sites that I own. I spend at least 2 hours per day on it every day. Most would tell me to stop doing it immediately and I have even considered stopping it on the investment vs return basis.

I continue doing it because I enjoy it. More importantly it is one of the most successful things on my website. Each day people type in my domain, land on my homepage and click to the blog, each day people enter the site or the blog through bookmarks - then spend time reading the posts. None of the posts link to commercial products on my site. None of them link to other sites that I own. They all link to information that my readers might appreciate. A very small number link to articles on the same website.

I've been blogging for two years on this domain. It started out deep in the SERPs but now holds top positions for its main KWs. During that time the blog has received a few links. I have asked for none, paid for none, traded for none. A few links does not sound like a lot for two years work but I am willing to bet that some of the links that hit my homepage were given in part because of the blog - and these drive a lot of my rankings and are the real return from the blog.

Here's is something to think about related to your site....

If you really know art, and can write about it with enthusiasm and verve, start blogging about important works, important events, what is sold at auction, what price is paid, why items are bought, art materials, doing art, viewing art, stories about lost paintings, the intersections of art and religion, forgeries, art museums, what has appreciated, artist biographies, preservation, restoration, conservation.

Cut the chit chat, the affiliate programs and the self promotional links - if you do a great job at bloging people will pay little attention to your ads or care about the chit chat.

Instead, blog what art professors teach about, what art curators think about, and what artists dream about. Some of these people have websites. They are the linkerati for your field - give them a gift... become their source of information, enlightenment and news... and they will give you links and exposure.

Dont skim on the research. They will link to you only if you impress them, they will not waste time on you if you are sloppy. Make your work convince them that you are enthusiastic and inspired. Some of them blog, visit their sites, read their posts, communicate with them... not about trival matters but about the substance of their postings. Give them ideas freely.

If you can do these things you will earn their respect and their links. They might also support you and your work in other important ways.

If you write for self promotional links they will be your only reward. If you write for the people who love your theme then your return will expand in proportion to what you give and the talent that you apply.

I think it's almost coming to the point where blogs are becoming the spam link pages that we all so hated. Alot of them have a paragraph of text, then adwords, another paragraph, more adwords. Of course all of this surrounded by other types of ads. It may even get to the point where people searching for information are going to avoid blogs instead of being attracted to them.

We started a blog when they first started but abandoned it. I think blogs in theory, like communism, is a perfect system. I think the bottomline on blogs, like communism, is a system destined to fail, i.e. self-focused, too many, too loose, too commercial, and too egotistical.

Since I started a blog about a month ago, it has really started attracting traffic. I work on web technology all the time and I need to keep notes on what I'm doing, so the next time I have to figure out some tricky config problem it will be easier. I just turned those notes into a blog. This helps me and draws traffic. It took me half a day to figure out why network scanning with saned wasn't working on Ubuntu. I figured it out, posted it, and now I'll have details next time I need to do it (which is pretty often) and I'm getting traffic from it.

A year from now this traffic will start a cycle of expansion, where people find the blog, decide they like it, link to it, and so on.

Thanks so much guys, first, let me say, believe it or not, I'm staying at a timeshare that doesn't even have dial up! (completely unacceptable in this day and age!) (I am now at an internet cafe, with hubby, daughter and dog waiting outside, LOL). Egol, I really like what you said, and honestly, since I'm going back to my full time teaching job in 5 weeks, and am working sooooooooooooo hard at making my website a full time income, I really don't have time to blog, so when I return home to NY, I think I'll just cancel it. Perhaps in the future, I'll be able to start a more relevant (to my website) blog, but for now, my business, family, etc, will keep me busy enough. BTW, I really miss reading the forums again, although I am having a great vacation. "See you soon",

Faith