A better way to think about it might be: “The numbers mean whatever I can make them mean.” Example: “3000 subscribers = $237/month.”

I love the part about me being responsible for assigning the meaning… that’s kinda new-agey even for someone from San Francisco! The numbers mean whatever I think they mean, huh? Groovy!

:)

Thanks for your encouragement. It means I’m hitting my audience dead on!

High subscriber counts and low Alexa rankings mean something, but you are responsible for assigning that meaning.

Example: I use Alexa as an indicator for traffic relative to myself over time, and relative to other sites. I believe it’s accurate within maybe 50% plus or minus.

Now anyone can see WIAW 3 month is around 80k, swinging daily between ~45k to ~ 110k. Nothing too much to worry about.

Going deeper, and discussing subscriber counts, requires article-level commitment. I’ll start a draft and throw it in queue.
.-= Dr WordPress!´s last blog ..Help Haiti Blog Challenge: I’m Yours… All Weekend =-.

Interesting post, have to say. It’s entirely possible it’ll launch another 2 hour commenting spree (we’ll have to see *cough*). Keep it up :)

I love your observation that people who comment regularly are not necessarily our customers. In fact, usually they are other bloggers networking, socializing, promoting, supporting, and harvesting back links (if we’re calling a spade a spade here).

With that in mind, how do you get to know your potential customers (the lurkers)? Even if we draw them out from the shadows on a post or two, that hardly gives us a good feel for who they are and what value they seek.

Also, I recently learned that alexa is a fairly useless measure of the success of a blog. What do YOU use to gauge your progress over time?

And, what do you think of subscriber counts? I’m subscribed to a zillion blogs, but don’t read most of them. I usually read stuff that strikes my fancy when I’m in twitter or on Stumble Upon. Most of my traffic comes from those two sources as well. Is a high subscriber count a misleading metric as well?

I guess I probably should have sent you an email instead, since it turned out so long. Maybe you could just write about this for a future post (or tell me about a previous one, if you already covered all this newbie crap).

Thanks!
:)