PART ONE: This week Megan is back at the Skirted Roundtable! Please join us as we first discuss Interior Design: where we get our inspiration for a new job and how we come up with ideas for a room's design. The three of us weigh in on what steps we take when we start with a new client.
PART TWO: Be sure to listen this week's Blogging discussion. It's all about Blogrankings, the newest way a lot of blogs are finding out how many readers they actually have. We also talk about the pros and cons of Google Analytics and Technorati. Listen as we try to figure out why we care, or in Megan's case, why we don't care how our blog ranks compared to our peers. As always, thank you for stopping by.
Comments
But, (I think it's been a week or 2) now I'm a little more comfortable with it & it's not really on my mind as much. I'm still undecided though as it does take my focus a bit off of just blogging to blog to more of a competitive thing (more competitive with myself because I realize that the more I post, the more readers I have.) ... so we'll see
Also I do really like google analytics & just started it about a month ago. It was an eye-opener because I honestly thought I had like only 50-75 people reading a day (thinking of readers in relation to comments) and it's nice to know more people are reading something you put so much time into.
ok, sorry for the book!!
And if there's an item in the room that's staying/ it's not a blank slate, then I take a photo of the item to the fabric store with me & work it from there just as if it were the inspiration fabric.
ok, another book- sorry for the long comments but I just get so chatty after these things- ha!
I think the Blogrankings thing is kind of fun because we're all friends (I know most of the bloggers on there so far, anyway). You can't take it too seriously. We all have good and bad traffic days and weeks. It's great to see how much traffic everyone's getting in general, tho. Makes me think design blogs are really growing.
I was planning to take a blogcation next week while we're out of town, so I'll probably plunge down to the bottom. Oh, well! :-)
I'm really confused about Google pagerank. Mine was at 6 for a long time. Then suddenly it plunged to 3, even though my traffic was better than ever. I started a new blog (Beach Cottage Love) in May, on a lark, and only update it a few times a week. It gets only 300 or so visitors a day. But guess what pagerank Google gives it? A 3. The same as my main blog. So it's hard for me to take PR seriously if it's saying both are equal in any way.
Thanks again for the conversation!
Regarding Google Page rank, my understanding is that it's not based on hits but on the quality of the links to the site. So, while who knows why HoH dropped down - could have been something that their algorithm picked up as suspect even if it's not - but I would suspect that your Beach blog ranks high is it's connection to your main blog plus any others links in. A smaller secondary blog can ride on the coattails of the main blog, in a way. Our skirted rountable blog has a PR of 4 already, even though it's new. But, between our 3 main blogs linking in, and linking frequently, plus all the readers who have so kindly linked to us, it's moved up quickly. My own blog just went from 4 to 5, and was 4 forever, but it could drop back, as it did once before. And you might see HoH pop back up overnight. I think the key is that none of these ranking/tracking systems are perfect. But overall, they give an idea of where things stand.
And, if you're not using a hit counter or tracker, check into Statcounter.com or Sitemeter.com. Both will give you hit by hit info like search terms, etc. On a detail level, it can be very interesting info.
Also, I see it as friendly competition, and it is fascinating to see what impacts the numbers. Posting more often seems to help a lot. I went on vacation for the past week, with no internet access, and when I came back my unique visitor number was about half of what it has been over the past few weeks.
I was wondering whether blogranking might be a scary thing for a blog that is advertising, but does not pull in the numbers of some of the other blogs. Even if those numbers are relatively good, how many blogs can pull in the kind of numbers that the top 5 are pulling in? Yes, it is probably the bloggers who are paying attention, but any curious advertiser can see the link on any of the blogs participating, and see what is going on.
Also, wanted to let you know that I asked blogrankings to create a new category for home and design, given that so many of the 'lifestyle' bloggers are home and decor related. They said they will do it, but it hasn't happened yet!
xo,
cristin
For us as design consumers working with a pro, it was an "inspiration fabric" about color rather than style. Dark reds, blues, greens, oranges on a black background. We took the fabric everywhere, just everywhere. It was the constant in everything we did.
It wasn't what we expected; but we used the inspiration fabric for a bed skirt that continues to make us happy.
How do I begin designing projects, with my questionnaire for both clients if it is man and woman, it has every question I can think of on it and then some. Then I measure the room, measure pieces that are going to stay, work out the paint color if it is going to stay, take pictures of everything and everywall and then over all pictures for the before pictures, pictures of all the rooms off the room I am working on. Take paint, carpet, flooring, tile and counter top or ganite samples back to my office... I then go back to the design studio or my home office and do the floor plan (while listening to the skirted round table)...lol...then working with the softseating and casegoods they have picked or have discribled work on the space planning, once the space planning is done, I will go through the fabrics picking the base fabrics and area rug, then pull out all the fabrics I would like to use for pillows and maybe a accent chair, ottoman etc. Now I will by scale work on casegoods and what they should look like by the clients questionnaire and the other rooms in the home, the fireplace etc...
Once this is all worked out I will pull in the lamps, artwork and accessories that work...
Now I am ready to do a presentation of the whole room from A to Z...the average time for all of this to happen is 3 to 7 days...
I just think I wrote a book, lol
Oh well, to late, I'm done...
Regards, CAM
PS I do not have a good enough blog to be rated...I do it for fun not a way to get clients so I must admit I do not care to be rated...to much pressure, I am to busy with clients...
Once again a fab post. I too start with fabric! I love fabric and can't imagine not it being an inspiration. I feel like it helps the room take shape. And it is such a relief to hear that all clients are the same expecting you to be a miracle worker with quick answers, and as Linda said come in with a flurry of feathers. I love that visual, it is so true!
It was nice to hear that I'm not the only one who has walked in a home and not known what to do.
I'm actually working on a post about that feeling of anxiety I get when that happens.
Thank you again for your honesty.
xo
Brooke
Another show down! This one was particularly interesting to me as I like to start with color, then fabrics, accessories, case goods and special pieces. Thanks for the post!
Leslie
I think all these ranking can drive you crazy! I'm just going to keep on blogging on not get so wrapped up in how many people are reading my blog! I think it will drive me insane if I don't.
Thanks for another great podcast! Both of them!
Now, I should say that I have been blogging for many years for my job and have been a diehard Google Analytics user. The day we realized my blog was getting more traffic than my office's website was a great one - for both my confidence and my reputation in the office (people went from thinking it was a fad to trying to take advantage of the opportunity I had created to interact with our audience).
I have one suggestion about the average time on site. A lot of people randomly hop around Blogger using the "random" button. Those visits might not be long.
On top of that, I have never bothered to track down how readers using the RSS feed might affect that average time on site stat. Perhaps the few seconds my blog reader spends retrieving your post is tracked.
I listened in to your 'Blogrankings' podcast. I agree with Joni that Google Analytics is very comprehensive and I find it like a game of Suduko trying to figure it all out. I find now that I have been blogging for several years that I am getting an equal amount of hits from people searching me through keywords as I am getting from referring sites. I also experimented in seeing if the number of times I post in a week had any reflection on the traffic I got to my Blog and was surprised to find that whether I posted 4 times per week or once every 2 weeks it didn't make a difference to the amount of traffic to my Blog. I was surprised by that and can only put it down to the fact that readers are coming to me by keyword searches??? But in the end I have found that the most important thing for me in Blogging is to enjoy writing my posts and connecting with my readers.
You all are doing a great job...keep it up.
Kindest Regards
Patricia
PS I find that Technorati sucks big time....and maybe that is because I use Windows Live Writer to compose my posts?? Technorati does not show the links that Google Alert shows for my Blog and it has been stuck for the last several months. I found the change in their reporting when Blogger switched to Google.
Another great Roundtable...loved hearing where you guys start when designing a room for a client. :-)
Susan
But very few folks have worked with pro's. Most folks don't know how valuable a tool the inspiration fabric is; how it simplifies the process; how it's a trick (but not a trick) of the trade. (Checking to make sure you can get the furniture through the door is another non-secret trick.)
So, it's great that y'all talk about it.
The more your clients know about the process, the better clients they well be and the more fun they'll have.