Pool Student Seeks Your Feedback!

Whoo-hoo! I just passed 25,000 visits to this blog today. Thank-you all very much! I know in the grand scheme of things this is pretty small potatoes, but for me it’s a big deal. I’ve been having fun and learning a lot, but knowing my blog is actually being read by many warms my heart.

I’ve been working on and off lately on a new look for Pool Student’s Blog, crafting a new theme for those of you knowledgeable about blogs, and have been making decent progress. But I realized today that maybe I should focus more on improving the content rather than the presentation. I have the poll on the right that tells me my drills pages are more popular than my posts, yet I’ve been spending most of my time on the posts. That will be changing. I won’t be cutting back on my posts, but will ramp up my addition of drills to make my collection more comprehensive.

I have blog statistics that help me see what pages people go to, but they don’t tell me what they like. About a month ago I added a way for readers to give a rating at the end of every post and page, but so far, though I’ve had more than 2,000 visits since then, only 4 posts/pages have been rated, so that hasn’t told me much yet. It would be great if more of you would take just a second to indicate your rating on each post/page you visit. The ratings are anonymous, I just see the totals, not who rated what or how high.

Request for Feedback

I have some other ideas, none yet fully baked, but I thought since this blog is intended to be a conversation not a monologue, that I would solicit ideas directly from you, my readers. And don’t feel constrained by the following list, it’s just to get you started.

I’m going all out here to ask for your input, so please don’t be shy. I have thick skin so you should have no fear of even the possibility of causing offense. Rest assured that I will take all criticism and suggestions in the spirit in which they are offered.

My high for comments on one post is 20, for 10 Reasons Gambling is Bad for Pool. Help me obliterate that record by leaving a comment or two and push my high run above 50.

Thanks in advance for your time and your considered feedback.

April 4, 2010 • Tags: , , • Posted in: About Me & my Blog

6 Responses to “Pool Student Seeks Your Feedback!”

  1. MelindaNo Gravatar - April 6th, 2010

    First off, excellent blog entry! Great idea for your fans to help contribute even more.

    I only have a few suggestions/considerations for you:

    I would change the maroon color to something more bright/lively, if you can. I know that sounds minor, but a “cool” color is even more welcoming.

    I would like to see more of your articles listed under the “Resent posts” section. That would help people like me who catch up on entries I have missed. :)

    My last suggestion is something that came to mind about the titles. I think if you add more of a surprise element to your titles, more may get read and it makes the entries more exciting. For instance, if someone knows what Last Pocket 8 Ball is, they may not read the “Last Pocket 8 Ball” article. If you name it something clever and intriguing without saying what the article is about, it’s a cool way to get more people to read the entries and also adds an element of surprise for the reader. Just an idea.

    Keep up the good work! I enjoy reading our blog and appreciate your contributions to the pool community.

  2. John BiddleNo Gravatar - April 6th, 2010

    Melinda, thanks so much for taking the time to comment. I’ve already changed the number of Recent Posts to 10 based on your suggestion, and I’m mulling over the other two. I’m going to wait awhile on those as I hopefully get many more.

    I am a little surprised that this isn’t working very well, with one comment after 91 visits, and no new ratings. I really appreciate you being bold enough to tell me what you think.

  3. Jarno VirtanenNo Gravatar - April 12th, 2010

    (I’m using your example questions, because I’m doing this in hurry. :-)

    I’m personally most interested in practicing and everything related to it. So I’d like to see more articles about practicing in general and in specific. (Drills, for example.)

    There are some reviews that don’t interest me much, but they don’t bother me much.

    “Do you like the posts as they are, or would you prefer them shorter or even more in depth?”

    I think you’ve struck a good balance with the depth of your articles. I don’t mind even deeper, but I think they’re just fine as they are.

    “Do you have products, books or videos you’d like to see reviewed?”

    I don’t have, but I’d like to see you review Bob Fancher’s book Pleasures of Small Motions.

    “What don’t you care for?”

    Obsessing over your readership. ;-) I understand that you want to improve your blog, but I think you do just well doing what you personally think is best.

  4. Jarno VirtanenNo Gravatar - April 12th, 2010

    “If you name it something clever and intriguing without saying what the article is about, it’s a cool way to get more people to read the entries and also adds an element of surprise for the reader. Just an idea.”

    I, for one, completely disagree with this idea. I understand why it might appeal, but the truth is that majority of readers in general only read titles (I don’t mean the subscribed readers, but those who stumble upon on a blog) and the titles are best to summarize the content of the article as accurately as possible.

    I think John’s titles are generally very high quality and I like them just as they are.

  5. StlJohnnyNo Gravatar - May 7th, 2010

    Excellent suggestions and rebuttals from both commenters so far. Your blog seems to be a bit more “to the point” than a lot of others, so mystifying the titles might detract from that. Additionally, if all a user sees are the titles (from a feed, lets say) having descriptive titles will entice them to click on it – but in the case of someone stumbling across the blog, they’ll see excerpts (or whole entries in my case) without the need to pay much attention to the titles.

    On the other hand, if all the user sees is the title and you use an enticing title, the user might be more inclined to click on it just to see what the heck you’re talking about. It really is, in my opinion, a toss up and best left to your own opinion – unless you want to build this for a specific delivery method and/or audience.

    I am personally terrible with titles and even when I go through my own archives by title, I had a hard time finding things. Thankfully, tags and categories provide enough filters.

    I, too, added a rating extension but it seems people just gloss right over those. *sigh*

  6. John BiddleNo Gravatar - May 8th, 2010

    All SEO (Search Engine optimization) articles and books are adamant about not getting cute in your titles, but making sure they are keyword rich instead. Sometime this sounds too artificial to my ear, so I’ve gone with a blended model of keywords and clear meaning.

    As to the ratings, I listened to a podcast awhile back that mentioned that only a very small percentage of readers comment, and an even smaller percentage will rate posts. I thought that since rating was anonymous, whereas commenting requires leaving an email (though some people lie) that mroe would rate, but it just isn’t so. I’ll just have to be patient I guess. Perhaps they’ll build up over time like the comments have.

Leave a Reply