This second set of results focuses on the blogosphere. It includes both book bloggers and readers of book blogs.
About the Blogosphere (Blog Readers & Bloggers)
How many blogs do you subscribe to (and check regularly)?
I think I was a little bit surprised by these numbers, just because I personally have a really hard time subscribing to a ton of blogs. I think it’s because I subscribe to my favourite/regular blogs via email, but I really can’t handle getting a ton of emails every single day (on top of the ‘normal’ ones I get). I think I’d just have a hard time regularly checking over 20 blogs!
But I think it’s awesome that other people manage to subscribe to so many!
What are your favourite kinds of blog posts to read?
I think this is another interesting set of results, mostly because I don’t feel that my page view numbers reflect them. Reviews are winning, at 32%, and yet my reviews don’t get the most amount of page views; blog tips and discussions do.
As someone who comments on other blogs, what is your preferred commenting system?
For the most part, these numbers don’t surprise me. I do kind of find it interesting that people like the built-in Blogger system over Disqus.
What things annoy you about other blogs?
It’s no shock here that CAPTCHA takes the gold. But another big one is having a cluttered sidebar and a slow/laggy blog (which is usually a result of a cluttered sidebar!). So strip them down to the basics, people!
Also it’s comforting to know that not many people are bothered by a blogger who doesn’t post often enough. So don’t be afraid to take a break!
Do you enjoy reading positive or negative reviews more?
I always thought that negative reviews were more popular because it feels like they get more comments. Maybe people don’t have a preference when it comes to reading reviews, but they’re more inclined to comment on a negative one? What do you think?
What are the most important factors that make a blog worth subscribing to?
I ADORE these results! I love how they prove that people won’t subscribe to a blog just for giveaways. Hopefully these results will encourage bloggers to ease up on the giveaways and memes and just focus on great, original, high quality posts.
Agree / Disagree Section
This section consists of a series of statements that people could agree/disagree with.
You get jealous of the “big” blogs because of their success or amount of ARCs
The “big” blogs are cliquey
You avoid small/new blogs because they’re boring or unestablished
Woohoo, go new/small blogs!
You judge a blog by its design
Snarky/ranty reviews are more interesting than nice ones
Bloggers are too obsessed with ARCs
Advertisements on blogs are annoying
Do you use AdBlock on your browser?
So, interesting fact: if you sell advertisements on your blog they are not reaching about 36% of your readers!
I really liked the one with why people subscribe to a blog. =) And as always I seem to have the same opinion as a lot of other people! 😀
Interesting results. I think the first one (subscribe and check regularly) may be answered different based on how one interprets it. Like, I literally go through and check the blog posts of 100+ through my Feedly everyday. But, I don’t actually read them. I go through and pull out ones based on type of post or if it’s a book I’ve read or something similar, and then while I know what the others wrote about because I’ve read the post title I haven’t actually read the post. But, if you interpret it in a way where you actually read a blog’s post regularly no matter what the content… well, that number would drop. Plus, what is regularly? Obviously you know that all of these can factor into the results, but for some reason my brain has to point it out because in class they are forcing us to notice such things. Haha.
I think the reviews thing is interesting. I’m split on it. I do think many people only do reviews so their answer would likely be that they prefer reviews. Or because it’s such a huge part of the blogosphere they don’t want to allow reviews not to be a necessity. Or maybe they really just do like reading reviews. I don’t know. It’s a very weird subject. Maybe it comes down to why people come to your blogs. Maybe they come to you and me for our discussions, which is why our reviews seem like nothing. But, maybe for other blogs that focus on reviews they go to them for that. I do think sometimes I go to certain blogs for certain things, so maybe it’s the same here which is why we get confused. I don’t know, I’m rambling.
So last bit I’ll comment on, yes I think negative reviews probably spark more of a discussion because people either will have conflicting views or share their misery. But, then again that can happen with positive comments. Maybe we just pay more attention and remember the bad over the good?
I was also surprised by how many blogs people look at on a regular bases. Over 20 would be hard for me.
Yup, reviews usually get the lowest pageviews and comments for me, but I guess maybe people just don’t comment on them as much.
This was SO interesting. I’m hugely surprised to see reviews are highest “wants” for posts. I do 1 review a week and 4 original content posts, and the reviews get hardly any traffic/comments. So interesting! Thanks for posting this. 🙂
Wow, these stats are really interesting, captcha and laggy sites just don’t work for me, I don’t have all the time in the world to wait for a site to load or type some numbers/letters, sadly. I don’t get bothered about designs though, even though I’ll find it love it more if there is a great one. WordPress is definitely the best commenting system- love it.
Thanks for sharing, Ashley! <33
I find these results so interesting! I’m with you…my pageviews don’t reflect the reviews being as popular. The memes, giveaways, original content have the most pageviews typically. This always makes me sad since I spend so much time writing my reviews. For me, the negative reviews I write typically get less comments than my positive ones. I hope you do more of these surveys in the future!
Interesting that bloggers like reviews so much! I wasn’t expecting that, although I really like reading them 🙂 I also thought snarky ones would be more popular, but I think you are right. And yeay for subscribing for other things than giveaways!
Wow, I’m surprised that Reviews are winning in the preference category, too, because my numbers don’t reflect this either! Again, I’m disappointed that so many people prefer the Blogger commenting system; I can only assume that these people are Blogger users themselves.
Fascinating results — thank yo so much for sharing all of this, Ashley!
Thank you for sharing, Ashley! 🙂
I always read book reviews fully -from the first line until the last line of it- and I follow a book blog strongly based on its reviews too (not only from the design & contents) so I’m not that shocked to read this result. I’m more shocked by the comments above that said reviews hardly get any traffic. Really? And the amount of blog people subscribed, too. More than twenty? Wow. I follow and check many blogs regularly but I hardly subscribe to them. Maybe because I can’t stand having so much incoming emails in my inbox, heheh
Well I can’t speak for everyone else above, but I recently did an analysis of my posts which really shows that book reviews get some of the least amount of page views. The averages per post per category were like this:
Waiting on Wednesday: 61 page views
Stacking the Shelves: 126 page views
Reviews: 185 page views
Giveaways: 393 page views
Discussions: 398 page views
Bitchin’ Book Blog (blog tips): 957 page views
So when compared to blog tips and discussions, reviews don’t get a ton of page views.
I guess everyone’s blog and their statistics are a little different though. 🙂
I’m pleased that readers don’t write off new blogs immediately, and also that most of the readers are in it for the reviews. I admit, reviews are my main reason for visiting book blogs and it was nice to see this consolidated. I also found it interesting to have my own view confirmed of just how important looks are when judging a blog.
It’s surprising for me to see that more people prefer Blogger over Disqus! As a Blogger user myself, I absolutely hate their commenting system. So unhandy!
Interesting results! I love filling out surveys and finding out what other people think.
I have to wonder though – how accurate are page views when there are people like me who primarily read posts through a Feed Reader? I only click through when I want to comment or if it’s a super interesting post that only excerpts on the reader. I subscribe to nearly 200 book blogs in Feedly. I don’t read every post on every one, but I do look at them and scroll through to see what I want to read.
Aha! So happy that reviews are still getting the lead when it comes to favorite blog posts.Still, my statistical figures do not reflect the same thing. My memes always get the lot of views followed by discussion posts and lastly, by reviews. It’s comforting though because I am not that creative and energetic in terms of coming up with new contents. For now, I am contented with just doing a lot of reviews. My blog still has hope. 😀
I laughed at the captcha. It’s one of the most annoying things there is. It really makes me growl with frustration when I’m visiting a lot of blogs for memes and my commeting is hindered with the captcha.
And wow to the design. I personally do not care if the blog has the shabbiest design on the planet as long as I can still read posts clearly and I am not experiencing any lag. But this result makes me want to uhm, improve my blog design more which needs to focus on branding.
Thanks, Ashley, for this very helpful post. Awesome survey!
Very interesting! I’m pleased to see that ‘lots of giveaways’ was rather low, although sometimes it doesn’t feel like it.
I seriously need to work on commenting back >.<
I’m happy to see that I am not the only one who judge by design. And yes I am guilty of leaving a blog, not reading a blog or not subscribing a blog if the design is bad.
Also, I love that so many people appreciate a comment back. I need to work on this. Though the question remains. Do they mean a real “REPLY” or a comment back on their blog. Because that makes a difference:)
It seems likely that reviews are getting read in readers but they don’t get pageviews because people don’t click through to comment ya know? I know for myself that I read a lot of posts and enjoy a lot of posts in my RSS reader without clicking through, so the blogger has no evidence that I especially enjoyed that post D:
Wow! love these results! Captcha does not surprise me although a couple of my absolute favorite blogs STILL use it ~ I wonder if the NO CAPTCHA message gets to the right people!
And I love that people want to read good, honest reviews ~ that’s what we are here for. . .I think when I begin to get caught up in what mommy blogs and other female bloggers are out there doing I just need to remind myself that I like my niche ~ I got into book blogging because I LOVE it and the people who are within the niche. Fantastic survey Ashley! So validating!
The fact that people hate captcha isn’t surprising but there are an awful lot of people who still have it activated on their site. I actually don’t get very many review comments but the ones I do, tend to be for middle of the road or high rated reviews not the low ones.