A reader just asked me about my thoughts on the BlogHer community. I run their banner and I also used to post over there. She was curious as to why I’d stopped, what I thought of participation, there, etc.
So….I think the BlogHer community is a great example of a blog/message board hybrid center. You can easily find the most-recent posts on your topic, you can meet others with similar interests, you can easily host your own blog without so many of the common hassles.
It’s an automatic community, which is excellent!
I probably stopped posting there because of inertia. As this blog has grown, it’s taken up more and more of my available time. It’s hard to come up with new content for BlogHer. Which meant that I would just repost my posts. I tried to repost my good ones.
Nothing necessarily wrong with that, but it felt kind of like an exercise in redundancy. I then heard that Google might penalize blogs with duplicate content — uh oh! That made me feel even less inclined to repost. And even less time to consider writing even more original content.
I could always post teasers for real posts on my blog. But when I considered it, I felt a little dishonest. Like I should actually contribute if I’m going to be there. If I’m going to do it, I should do it right!
I still visit over there and read (though I’m not always logged in). But I’ve let the blogging part slide for now. I hope my account won’t close, since there’s always a chance I might revive it. Plus, I sometimes log in to leave comments on really good posts.
And I love BlogHer’s ad network. The ads are so tasteful, they’re artistic, and they’re often PSAs for good causes which I’d want to support anyway. Sure PSAs don’t earn money, but it’s nice to automatically advertise causes I like. Plus, unlike AdSense, they don’t have a bazillion campaigns going on at once. If I don’t like one, I can opt out and not have something similar show up the next day.
My two cents. I think a blogger who had time to write a unique, women-centered (not that they have to be, but if you have women-focused ideas that you don’t post on your regular blog, this would be a good place to do it) post 2-4 times per week and time to read and comment periodically could get a lot out of BlogHer. I don’t know about reader conversions, potential for money, but for contact, networking, friendship, and learning…they could definitely get something from it.
And I’d recommend it to women who want to blog but aren’t interested in running their own site.
Any BlogHerians around? I’d love to hear your thoughts!
photo by ingorrr
Print Friendly
{ 7 comments }
I think the ads are great! I love the message the ads represent, and the colors and layout blend well with most sites. I think they are much better than AdSense and other ads… and I’d love to have them on my site. 😉
Thanks for the info. I was also wondering about BlogHer. This helped a lot in deciding if I should do anything with it or not!
Hi Mrs. Micah! Thanks for sharing your thoughts.
I’d just like to point out something you might not know: At BlogHer one of the elements of our mission is to create opportunities for more exposure for women bloggers and their work.
So, posting teasers about your great blogging and encouraging people to come visit you here is not at all dishonest, it’s part of what we’re there for.
Also: We would never delete your account based on how active you are on the site!
Finally, you bring up a really interesting question about Google and duplicate content. I thought that applied to having multiple URLs like blogher.org vs. blogher.com with the same content (and we’ve been gong through a big SEO project to try to get all our content redirecting to just the .com) but I never thought that would apply to two totally different domains. You’ve made me curious, and I’m going to ask our SEO person about it next week!
Thanks again for your comments.
Hi Mrs M – I signed up after seeing BlogHer on your blog, but I’ve not really done anything with it yet. I’m just finding it really hard to keep up with all these different networks.
I will log onto Twitter sometime this weekend as promised and I will check out BlogHer soon. I suppose it’s a good way to write about stuff you’re interested in that’s off the main topic of your blog.
It’s likely a better use of your time to build your own business than to build someone else’s, but you likely know that. 😉
I have Blogher on two of my blogs. I L-O-V-E having the ads on my site and it’s been a very positive experience.
thanks so much for this, very interesting!
I’m new to blogging and was about to re-post a heap of my blogs on blogher. I’m currently hosted by wordpress and started to blog because I love writing. I’m now hooked and would love to monetise it in some way. just trying to work out what to do. so many platforms it’s mind boggling!
Comments on this entry are closed.