This post won't really be about MTG in any way. I'm doing this relatively short post as compared to the rest as a review on what I have covered so far in my topics and where the direction of my blogging is heading to in the next month or so. Go ahead to read below to find out what is up for the next month or so!
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| Glimmervoid. Look far. I may get something eventually. |
Just in a short term of 4 months, I have achieved close to 2000 views! It's quite an achievement for the fact that this is my first public blog don't you think? Yes, there are some things here and there I have not done up properly, like my profile.
I haven't had time to do a full profile on my blogger profile, so I'll share a little about me.
- Name: Daryl
- Location: Singapore
- Birth Year: 1991 (I'm 22 as of writing, going 23 this year!)
- Gender: Male
- Occupation: Student. I've mentioned several times that I'm a student, but I have yet to mention that I am pursuing a degree in Chemical Engineering.
- Hobbies: MTG (duh...), Gaming (PC, PS3), Freestyle Inline Skater (Specifically a Slider)
So if you didn't know, I started out this blog as an online journal to keep track on the things I have learnt on MTG which can be applied to life and in my other areas. For instance, I started talking about goal setting and how I want to get there; I also did mention about investment and card trading which is actually a stepping stone for me to get up to the stock market some day. But, note that while the trade system is similar, stock market is completely different from MTG trading. I can get the basics of understanding speculation and how demand and supply affects the prices, but nowhere near to the actual investment in the stock Markets.)
I also tend to explore some other aspects of MTG like mindsets of mass booster opening, include analysis of particular aspects using outside fields like psychology and maths (I took a short module in psychology, which got me covered the very basics but enough for me to pull out some analysis in layman's terms.)
TL;DR.
I basically aim to provide a different approach in the analysis of various aspects of MTG, in and out of the game.
I am covering the following aspects in the past 4 months:
- Expansion Reviews (Analysis of the expansion. Notable cards in constructed and in limited.)
- Gameplay and finance analysis
(I haven't really cover gameplay analysis due to my lack of commitment to play in more events. I'd love to do more coverage and analysis in the modern Meta, but time does not permit.)
It'll be better to have lesser focus so I can take more time to do better posts. If I were to have a wide range of scope, I cannot specialize in giving more unique or creative content.
Well, I also did a quick review to see what post yield the best response to better improve my content and gear towards what the post have a more positive reach.
Highlighted in blue boxes are the posts that have achieved over 100 views. Most do have +1's but assuming they are more or less unique views, M15: First look and the next post, where I did a top 10 pick on what got me interested in the set gained the most views. Another post that gained a good amount of attention is my discussion that there are some monetary value in common and uncommons.
I have other posts which gained a fair amount of views (like... 50-70 views) which those includes other analysis posts but those were in much earlier months when I didn't have much reach with Google+ and Facebook. But, with analysis posts like "Khans of Tarkir, A new something?", "Breaking Doors" and well, M15: First look gaining close or more than 100 views, which it's a good reap!
Financial posts don't usually gain much attention as well... I'm in direct competition with every OTHER websites which does their finance updates by daily! I do read them and analyze, but I don't do daily updates. It doesn't make sense for me as a blogger.
Review posts for Born of the Gods, Journey into Nyx, Conspiracy and M15 Core Set expansions gained rather mediocre views and as I did mention, the amount of work and effort to generate a full review is too much! The amount of research, analysis and writing has eaten too much time. Take the M15 expansion for example; I didn't have time to do a full review in a single post, so I ended up splitting into 3 different posts which the latter 2, the reviews for common and uncommon is very low. Not very worth the time to do such posts if I am not going to attract you readers isn't it? (Put the ratio concept into practice! Do you think it's worth it? Side track, "Ratio" also achieved about 100 views!)
"Prep for Modern Madness" is a series which I explored various contents to see what suited to my writing style and what gained your attention. That didn't really do well but it gave me an idea on what to gear my content towards.
So why am I so keen in generating views? For a couple of reasons which includes Adsense or other monetary programs for blog (irrelevant for now!). However, my bigger objective for the blog is to generate reach to embark on the Project: Zer0 with me! Secondly, I'm in the Science field and writing will become part and parcel of anything I do. I am using this as practice to create content which is both intriguing as well as to bring my arguments across to the readers. Third, as I am already playing for around 3-4 years, I'm not keen in the professional levels of competition, and I am also not well funded to open a card shop, so what better way to make a result out from my learning experiences in MTG and gain more exposure and learning from it?
I average about 4-5 posts per month, which roughly translates to 1 post per week. To get a good reach, my targeted average per month view should increase by 400 - 500 views. No, my own page views do not count. I removed them from the counter so whatever views I'm looking at for each post is by a unique visitor or a recurring subscriber. In addition, irregardless on the number of times I share the post. If the content isn't interesting enough, the views wouldn't increase.
Now that I have looked at the response and views, It becomes quite clear in what kind of posts I should gear towards for the coming months. I'll gear towards more analysis-based contents and avoid doing expansion reviews altogether. Doing something similar like discussing what cards are interesting, etc is fine, but a full review will be avoided. In fact, Many websites are doing it, so why am I joining them? If my content is to be unique, I have to explore new grounds to talk about or grounds that exist but taking a unique or new point of views to discuss. Finance-based contents will be kept to the minimum as my opportunities to trade has decreased in the next few months. (I didn't have much chance to trade this year to begin with!)
The past 4 months have been really interesting for me. What's even more exciting is what will the coming months bring.
Oh! Lastly, I have a special point to mention. I'm trying out coverage for card shops to bring more exposure and advertising. What I aim to cover is basically 3 things;
- Shop location and size
- Event schedules
- Why should a player visit your shop?
I have a shop that has agreed to allow me to try out the coverage, so stay tuned! I hope it will be a good coverage for the shops and for the people outside Singapore who are planning to come by for a trip and wanting to find card shops.
(If any local card shops are interested to allow me to try this out for you guys, contact me via this email for details: sng.daryl@gmail.com)
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