Blogging: Evolution Is The Way Forwards

It’s fair to say that after more than four years this blog has gone beyond the creation stage. It has a firm and relatively stable place on the Internet, frequent and regular visitors and a relatively good ranking against other, similar sites. With creation completed, it is once again time to look at how it should evolve further, how the small niche can be expanded and the contents made more interesting. This is, of course, not something which only affects me, every single blog which survives the first three months or longer needs to be constantly looked at, constantly improved and advanced. Getting into a rut later on in blogging life is just as bad as giving up in the first few weeks because there have been no visitors. A blog, the same as any other web site, needs to evolve to retain interest, to farm new markets, to gain new readers.

Photo Credit: Skley – Creative Commons

It’s not that I have run out of things to write about, nor am I likely to in the near future, but perhaps a little concentration on one or two areas might be good, perhaps the introduction of something new too. To be honest a reader might gain the impression I write about far too many things: Social Media; Sex, Lesbian Culture; Travel; Politics; Religion; Europe; Germany; Photography; Books, Writing and Publishing; Life in general. There is no real concentration on one specific area or, to put it another way, there is no single subject area which really stands out as being the strong point, the stable of the whole. Perhaps, in some ways, this is a good thing, but a little introspection, a little thought about the future is always a good thing. No one wants to stagnate, not on the Internet, not in real life. But what exactly is the way forward? What can be done to evolve this blog even further?

Some companies hire themselves a marketing firm to do all the hard work for them: they allow all the facts and figures, the statistics and rankings as much as the content to be examined; they look at the strong and weak points of the entire package. This is beyond my capabilities as a private person, as with most others. This blog isn’t designed to make money as such, it isn’t out there to make my pension plan grow or add to my pocket-money each month with advertising, with banners and paid links. And yet it still needs to be marketed, still needs to be presented before an ever-increasing readership who, faced with millions of alternatives, need to be convinced that this is the place for them or, at the very least, this is one of the places they will wish to come back to again and again.

Photo Credit: Thomas Hawk – Creative Commons

So I have been doing a little thinking in between all the other things that I do during my normal day. Believe it or not, there is always time to think, to plan for the future, near and far.

So I have done my own little marketing survey and come up with a few surprising – or perhaps not quite so surprising – results. Sex sells, of that there is no doubt whatsoever. Funnily enough, scams sell too. Politics, book reviews, well, yes, they are in there too but very short-lived commodities. When I write a review it will gain interest for that day, perhaps into the next, and then it disappears from view completely. Politics is such a massive area that no matter what you write, someone else has covered it too, and the situation changes from hour to hour if not quicker. Not that I am planing on leaving wither of these two areas out of my blog, certainly not: I’m interested in them and this is, after all, my blog with my personal stamp upon it.

But sex sells, and I did start this off as something of an adult work in the beginning, once I had found my footing over here. So perhaps, despite the drawbacks as far as sponsorship is concerned, I will return to this area once again, concentrate on it a touch more than I have been. Not that this will suddenly become a sex site with an entrance portal where everyone has to confirm that they are adult, over eighteen or twenty-one and in full command of the faculties! I think more in the direction of erotica coupled with photography and commentary. Not exclusively, but perhaps a little more. It’s not a niche market, there are tens of thousands of blogs and web sites which concentrate on sex, on erotica, on adult themes, but it is something which works for me too and, obviously, for my readership.

And perhaps, in a few months or even a few years, I will reassess and find a new way to evolve. Better that than stagnate.

Love & Kisses, Viki.

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