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Group Writing Projects are ace. Fact. Basically, bloggers all over the world write about something, and a big blogger shares them all with it’s readers in the hope that they stick around, become subscribers, and add to the blogs in question. I’m not sure of the exact benefit on bigger blogs, but they probably get a nice warm feeling in their tummy.
Anyway, one such Group Writing Project is the Problogger’s “31 Days Of Blog Tips”, which whilst not strictly a group writing project, does have elements of Group Writing in them.
What makes this one a little different is that people have been supplying a number of posts. I have supplied 3 – Three Rubbish Things New Bloggers Do, and Three Better Things To Do Instead (Post #1), Three Alternative Ways To Increase Your RSS Readers (Post #2) from this blog, and Sexy Reviews Bring Readers (Post #3) from the Fair Review Blog. I will compare them as best as I can.
Why am I doing this? The main reason for this was that to prove a little theory I had – does your position on the Group Writing Post List lead to more hits, more comments and more trackbacks?
Reason I ask this is that the last time I did this, I was rock bottom of the list.
Anyway, for this experiment, I am assuming the following:
- “Comments” and “Trackbacks” refer to the amount of comments/trackbacks received, after the trackback from the Problogger website.
- I’m only including hits from the day of the post on Problogger.
- I’m only including comments and trackbacks from the day of the post on Problogger
| Post #1 | Post #2 |
Post #3 |
|
| Position On List |
12th (of 97) | 2nd (of 72) | 7th (of 95) |
| Hits | 69 | 64 | 90 |
| Comments | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Trackbacks | 4 | 0 | 8 |
Conclusions To Make From This
- My theory was wrong – The lowest place article had the most hits. I believe that a strong title in Post #3 (it had the word “sex” in it, it was bound to get a more attention) lead to more people visiting it.
- Group Writing projects are a great way to get people interested in your blog.
- The Problogger Community are a humourless bunch who don’t appreciate the cheeky smut I peddle (kidding!).
- Certain numbers of my readers will find this post rather dull and boring. No matter, to keep them amused, here’s a video of kittens playing football.
Your Thoughts?
Have you participated in a group writing project? Have you ran a group writing project? What was the response from it for you?
Comments: 11 Comments
Rhys Wynne, the author of this blog, is a 20 something web designer from Colwyn Bay. 
I want a football kitten!
Yes, writing projects are great. I agree it’s the post title more than the position that counts. As a reader, I’ll skim a long list of links and only click on the ones with appealing titles.
[pregnant person mode]
.
Awww, look at the cutey-wootey ickle kittens
[/pregnant person mode]
Interesting conclusions too, though!
I have participated in a few Group writing projects . I have gained quite a few readers and RSS subscribers from this thing . But i have too noticed that you need a catchy title for your post if you want to get noticed .
I have participated in a writing contest and placed as a runner-up. I thought it was fun and did great. I gained a lot of subscribers and really did help boost my blog. I would think that from problogger there’d be more traffic/comments/trackbacks, but I guess since there were so darn many to choose from people had to pick and choose. The title probably did have a lot to do with the success of your third post.
I submitted my Web Stats Whore post to the problogger writing project. LOL I don’t know if he will post it or not, because your right they are SO humorless. Probably why I am not there that often, I need a good laugh like every 10 minutes.
I’ve participated in a few writing projects and they were an overall success for me personally.
I haven’t been doing the 31 days thing they are doing now because of time constraints, but it seems to be useful tips.
I had a number of posts featured over the 31 days and I did notice a few things, which probably say alot about the problogger community. Firstly, technical posts didn’t do that well. Secondly, strong headlines REALLY make a difference. The biggest difference though, mentioning profit, revenue and other money making tips. I’d guarantee that if you had the exact same post, with the exact same link text appearing on problogger, but appended “to increase your profits” to the end, the one mentioning the profits would get significantly more hits.
Interesting thoughts Simon. I do agree that a lot of these communities do like the lure of the dollar. Maybe I should shove the words “for profits” on the end of all my posts now. For profits