Is blogging worth it? What's the ROI?

Blogging is considered harmful?
Just saw this in the NYT: Some Brand-Name Bloggers Say Stress of Posting Is a Hazard to Their Health.

Obviously, blogging can be a high-stress thing if you are trying to do it on a regular basis, as a job, rather than I do, which is write whenever it strikes my fancy.

The stats
That said, I sometimes wonder if blogging is worth it from a purely ROI basis. After all, my stats are pretty measly, like so:

VISITS
	Total	49,639
	Average Per Day	443
	Average Visit Length	2:00
	Last Hour	8
	Today	221
	This Week	3,100
PAGE VIEWS
	Total	72,501
	Average Per Day	612
	Average Per Visit	1.4
	Last Hour	9
	Today	342
	This Week	4,285

As you might guess, some of my blog posts take upwards of an hour to write, and might have been percolating in my brain for days. (Compare this to the far more efficient "publisher" model, where you selectively post links throughout the day.)

But after week in and week out of this writing, the fact is, the average # of pageviews on a visit is 1.4. Which means the vast majority of folks come to the blog, read a page, and leave. Some might click once, then leave, but it all averages out.

Is there an opportunity cost?
Compare that to almost any website I might write using the same amount of time - it'd be a path to get to millions of pageviews, rather than a blog which seems like it'd be amazing to have more than a couple thousand per month.

Furthermore, the stuff I write on this blog is pretty inside-baseball. I'm actually amazed that according to the Feedburner stats I have, I actually have over 2000 readers. Strange.

The blogging ROI
These days, I mostly think of having a blog as the same as having a giant mailing list or CC: line on an e-mail that I might send out. In that way, 2000 people is actually a really big number. In addition, it's useful for a bunch of other random things, like:

• Helping me organize my own thoughts and ideas
• Keeping in touch with a large group of professional acquaintances and friends
• Meeting a small # of high-quality people

All of these things, especially when really interesting folks e-mail me, make blogging worthwhile. But sometimes, I still wonder ;-)

Comments

[kareem]

plus, you gotta ask yourself *who* those 2k people are. if it's schmoes on the street, it's prob. not worth it. if it's people who you can help achieve your goals (whether they're personal, professional, etc) and vice-versa, it's a completely different ROI calculation.

[Tom Reeves]

I think alot of people (like me) have similar statistics and wonder similarly.

I put a post on my blog that referenced this post. I liked it. This post also matches a related theme that includes the importance of end-to-end connection between blogger and audience. (pwnership.com).

But at the end, this is supposed to be a healthy activity.

[Neil Winton]

Don't know if this matters, but I hardly ever visit your site... I tend to read blogs in a reader and only visit when I want to leave a comment (like this!)...

Do your stats give you the number of RSS followers of your blog?

[Stanislav Shalunov]

Andrew,

I enjoy reading your blog and have it in my Google Reader. Whether having an audience is worth it for you depends on whether you value networking, which in turn is determined by what you plan to do.

-- Stas

P.S. What's with not having an email address -- or any means of contact -- on your blog? Doesn't this defeat the purpose of having web presence? Unless you want it entirely one-way, of course. But people catch on to that, don't they?

[Matt]

It is indeed worthwhile! I'm an extremely picky blog reader and, since I was referred to your blog by a friend a couple of months ago, I have to say that your blog is word-for-word, one of the best on the web. The quality of your outlook, experience and insights are truly impressive and a joy to read. I was actually amazed to read that you only have 2k readers! Posts like "MySpace is sooo ugly", "San Francisco echo-chamber" and "Are your SEO efforts working" are ones I reflect upon often and refer friends and coworkers to constantly.

For the benefit of your readers, keep up the great work!

[IdeaTagger]

I use my blog as an outlet for business ideas that would otherwise clog up my brain and prevent me from focusing on the ideas that I really want to pursue.

By the way Andrew, I find your posts well worth reading and have a couple of them bookmarked for future reference. If providing valuable content to others is what you set out to do, well, you are doing it.

[Kashif]

I have browsed through your site so if there is surge in pageviews today, thats me :)

I agree that blogging is really a stressful job. I do it for venting out my frustration and forming out posts really consumes lot of my time.