As a Blogger Are You Listening to Your Readers?

Right from the time I started blogging I have been of the mindset that you have to listen to your readers.  I can remember the first time I viewed my stats for my first blog and saw that someone actually stayed on my blog longer than 30 seconds.  That meant I had a reader, one interested enough in what I had to say to at least glance through my blog.  Blogging is very much about the blogger but if the blogger does not find some way to engage the reader the reader will move on.  So the key question becomes are you listening to your readers with the secondary question being why listen to them?

I have found that listening to my readers pays off on so many levels, from blog design to what they are interested in (aka blogfodder), to what function they would like to see, and even into exchanging knowledge and that's what it is all about.  Last year on my gardening blog I posted a picture of a plant that despite extensive research I could not find the answer as to whether the plant was a tulip or a lily.  The kicker was this plant was in with the lilies and looked like a lily but thanks to an observant, helpful reader it was identified as a tulip.   I routinely poll my readers to see if there is any interest in a particular topic especially on my cooking blog.  This saves me going off on a tangent that will draw little interest.  I think it was early in 2009 I got to know a rather nice reader who emailed me rather than commenting on my cooking blog.  I listened to the suggestion to tone down the pink a bit which I decided to try.  The suggestion worked and I gained a reader!  A couple of days ago I had a reply to a comment made on one of the forums I frequent.  The member wanted to know how to find recipes on my blog other than going through the archives so before answering I opened up my blog to take a good look.  I had a search this blog site box and below that was the WWW seach box and the archives in the sidebar.  I decided to do a bit to tinkering by adding a text explaining what each search box was for.  Then I added a label cloud in the sidebar under the archives.  Now when someone wants to know how to find a recipe on my cooking blog it is a lot clearer!  After doing this I replied back, told her what I had done and asked her opinion.  Basically what I did was listen to the reader, adress the issue, act on the concern, report back and engaged the member by asking her opinion.  More importantly I made a reader happy which means I've likely gained a reader just by the simple act of listening.  In addition to that because of listening to one member on this forum the changes made will make it clearer to other readers how to find the recipes on my blog meaning they will likely stay longer.  All around listening to readers is a win:win situation!

Garden Gnome
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