Surveys are like tests!
If you’re a blogger, it’s always great to know that people are reading what you’re posting. Most people, I would think, take pride in their writing – and like to know that it resonates with some people.
Of course not every blog will have a universal appeal to all audiences. Some readers prefer to connect with the blogger, and like to feel as if they’re getting to know the person a bit. Other readers don’t care about such things, and are primary interested in obtaining information that can help them. I compare it how some TV viewers prefer comedy shows, and others might prefer documentaries – or whatever continuum you might come up with.
Along those lines, personal finance blogs are probably no different. In addition to the dimensions to which I alluded above, there are also specific topics that some people prefer over others. For example, people might have different levels of interest in posts relating to debt, jobs, making money, saving money, extreme frugality, taxes, side hustles, investing, and so on. There are probably subcategories within each of these topics that are of particular interest. Within investing, as an example, some people might be interested in individual stocks, others in mutual funds, yet others in gold or silver, or maybe even real estate.
So, when we are writing posts, how do you we know how well our posts resonate with our readers? One way might be through comments. Another could be through people linking back to you. Yet another way might be through retweets. Maybe even analyzing visitors per post.
Aside from those metrics, another way to understand what’s working and what people would like to see would be to simply ask them. Using a survey to understand your reader preferences might actually help you on a go forward basis.
You could ask them what they like about your blog – and what they like least. You could ask them about topics that truly interest them in general, and which types of topics generate little interest. Actually, you could ask all kinds of questions that could help you out.
There are probably all kinds of survey and poll plug-ins that can be used. Personally, I’ve tried Survey Monkey. You can create a survey with a variety of different question types (set answers, open ended, etc). You can also have them rate, rank, answer multiple choice questions, and approach it other ways as well. Each on a question-by-question basis. Just put a link on your site, and then you can see the results when they come in. Then take the learnings and apply them!
If you’re purely doing this for fun, maybe adding a survey doesn’t matter to you. If you’re looking to grow a blog, and potentially make money with a blog, it couldn’t hurt to get such information. After all, companies spend time and money doing market research – so why can’t we do this as bloggers?
Readers, how do you learn about what your readers like about your blog? Or, about what they are interested in overall? Would you ever consider running a survey?
I usually ask a question in my post but haven’t tried surveys. I have a few points I want to discuss and probably having people just click yes or no will get a better turn out than asking them to fill the comment box.
Survey Monkey seems to work well, just have people click on a link that takes them to a survey. There you can ask questions in different ways beyond yes/no…such as rating, ranking, etc.
I’ve tried a few surveys in the past, but you really have to have traffic for them to be worthwhile. The last survey I had on my site got a wopping 1 response!
Edward – give it time, the traffic will come! You have a good blog.
I’m hesitant about adding surveys because I’d be a little embarrassed to only get one or two responses! I’d like to get to the point where I have a large, engaged blog audience to conduct surveys and get enough worthwhile responses, but for now I’ll stick to asking questions and hope to start a conversation via the comments section
First Million – no need to worry, your readers don’t have to know how many responses you get! The results and # of respondents can be kept private.
I rarely complete any so perhaps I am the party pooper here but it is always amusing to look at the surveys people construct and wonder how they can draw any meaningful conclusions from them!
I think the key is to figure out what information you want to know. Work backwards from what you goal is, and then ask questions in the way that can get you this information.
[...] Try adding a survey to your blog or website On Digital Personal Finance [...]
[...] Try adding a survey to your blog or website On Digital Personal Finance [...]
This is actually a really good idea – and one that I haven’t thought about! Perhaps if you made it simple enough (1 or 2 questions) then people would bother to complete it
Savvy Scot – I agree that simple is better. Maybe 3 or 4 simple questions would be good.
[...] even take the classes you thought you were paying for?DPF @ Digital Personal Finance writes Try Adding a Survey to Your Blog or Website – Learning about what interests customers is a part of market research that companies do all [...]