Best ways of measuring success

When you’re starting something, a blog, a business or even a game, you want to become successful. But, how can you measure success? We’re only going to talk about blogs here, so here’s what i think are the best ways of measuring success:

1. Number of RSS Subscribers

If someone subscribes to my feed that means he finds what i write interesting. It means he wants to continue reading my stuff and that he appreciates me, so that’s why i really believe the number of RSS Subscribers is the best way to determine a site’s success. And is one of the first steps into creating a community.

That’s why you should place easy to spot RSS badges on your pages and should ask people to subscribe if they want to. Don’t be too intrusive though.

2. Quality of referring sites

I like it when other people link to my site. But i like it a lot better when big blogs do it, cause that means my posts are really worth it. Not to mention that when a big site links to you, you’ll get exposure and many other links from smaller sites too.

3. Distribution of traffic sources

I believe it’s very important to have a good distribution of traffic sources. They should come from the RSS feeds, Search Engines (Very Important!), referring sites, social marketing networks, direct, etc. Not depending on one of your traffic sources is crucial, as it would ensure your site will survive even if something happens to some of these sources (Like when you count heavily on Google and get banned…)

4. Raw number of readers

Well, everyone believes that the more readers you have, the better. I don’t really agree with that, because i prefer quality, but that doesn’t mean quantity is not important too. It will bring you exposure, and thus more subscribers, links, feeds, etc. But the raw traffic of a site tends to fluctuate a lot, as it can be influenced by spikes or various events.

5. Monthly earnings

I kept this for the end, cause I’m trying to make a point here. Don’t start a blog if your plan is to make money with it. Work on all the other aspects and money will come eventually. But remember, earnings are one of the last things you should look to when measuring you site’s success.

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