puckcirclehttp://sharkcircle.wordpress.com is my blog.
Here is the situation. I am getting x number of people coming to my blog every day, who now know about it, and want to read it presumably. This is good. But I am trying to get more exposure for the blog, and I have a unique question. Basically, the blog is a sports blog on the San Jose Sharks hockey team, as well as the overall league they play in, the National Hockey League. Now, the San Jose Sharks prospects are playing in a prospect tournament, along with the prospects of a few other NHL teams. As a Sharks blog, I felt I should make a post letting people know about the prospect tournament, just in case any sharks fans have come to rely on my site for their sharks news. The tournament is taking place in British Columbia, but every game of the tournament is actually available to watch online. So I thought I would let sharks fans know about this. I created a post something like, "Watch Live: Young Stars Prospect Tournament kicks off at 4:00PM PT with Sharks vs Flames, and Oilers vs Canucks at 7." That day I noticed I got about 20 people coming to my blog strictly because they searched for the young stars tournament, not just for the sharks, but the other teams. In the context of what happened the next day it's strange I didnt get many searches with the Oilers, Canucks, or Flames in them, given that they are canadian teams, but anyway...
The next day, I do the same thing for day two of the tournament. Except one of the games on day two features the Winnipeg Jets, which means I've put it in my title that the jets are playing the other team. The Jets are a canadian team like the other ones besides the Sharks, except they are special in that they are getting their team back this year. The team had to leave for financial reasons a decade or two ago, and this offseason the Atlanta Thrashers were sold to a group in Winnipeg and so they are getting their team back. And that prospect game on day two was sort of the first game back, even though it was just the prospects. So what happened was I got like 60 different people coming to my blog off searches like "watch young stars jets" "young stars stream" and so on, a lot of them with the jets in the search.
There is another game today, the jets vs oilers, two canadian teams where hockey is loved. Heres my question. The one thing my blog has in common with these people is that it's a hockey blog, and they like hockey. So that's a pretty big thing obviously. But at the same time, these are people coming to my blog with no intention of actually coming to my blog. They are coming because they are looking for a link to the game, and I posted the link (which is a legal link on the vancouver canucks official website, by the way). In other words, I know there are blogs out there, which I've read, about how to surf traffic waves, keep people on your blog. But those are for like, when someone is looking for your blog, or a blog like yours, finds it, reads one article, how do you keep the person's interest who had some interest to start. These people just want the stream. But, they are getting it off my blog. If there was some way to say hey, I know you're just hear for the stream, but check out my blog afterwards, that would be good.
What I've done so far is, I added a second poll to my blog, put this one higher than the other where everyone can see it, and it has a Winnipeg Jets question: "Which player are you most excited to see in a Winnipeg Jets uniform this season?" I put three of their biggest players as possible answers. The thing has gotten like two votes on it. It's not doing anything. i even put at the top of the "watch live" blog a little greeting for the jets fans, welcome jets fans, be sure to vote on the poll. Fortuitously, about a week ago, an ex-Shark signed with the Winnipeg Jets. So when this happened, this is a player I thought the Sharks should have re-signed, I wrote a blog about how he signed with Winnipeg, and why it was a mistake for the Sharks to let him go. In other words, a blog about the player, now a Winnipeg Jet, and why he is good, why the Sharks made a mistake in not re-signing him--and therefore why the Winnipeg Jets were smart to re-sign him. Basically it's a glowing endorsement of a player they just signed, written analytically. It's the kind of thing sports fans love to hear. My team just signed a guy and he was so underrated that this blogger who watched him all the past season in San Jose wrote a blog about it. So it's really the perfect circumstances, so right after the link to watch the prospect games, I have "Also, Jets fans, be sure to check out our article on your recent signing Kyle Wellwood." I think in yesterday's blog it also said that we think highly of him and to read it. Anyway it was pretty fortuitous circumstances, you'd think that would draw some interest, but it didnt. 3 or so views on that, whereas there are like 60 clicks on the stream link.
So I added a winnipeg jets themed poll. I wrote a welcome sentence to the Jets fans (and other fans, can't leave them out especially considering it's a sharks blog, not a jets blog), I encouraged the jets fans to check out analysis on their new player, sort of bolded that so they could see. None of it is doing anything. What else can I do? I understand they won't forgo watching the game to read my blog, but shouldn't there be a way I can get a few more people to read it afterwards, or during intermission?
Also, in terms of just the search, like I said I got 60 on the day of the winnipeg jets game, mostly search terms including the word jets, but not many searches for calgary, vancouver, or edmonton, even though they have just as many fans. Does this mean they just arent as interested in watching it as winnipeg because winnipeg just got its team back, or are their searches not reaching me? I have the same tags and categories for all the teams basically, so... what should I do? What I mean is if I have "winnipeg jets prospects" as a tag, I also have "calgary flames prospects" and "vancouver canucks prospects" and every other team. Is it a geographical issue? Do people in edmonton get directed to sites that are based closer to where they live, or does the internet work like that?
What should I do to keep the jets fans and get them to subscribe and all that? Oh yea, forget, as part of the welcome sentence with the link to the analysis on their player, right after "you should check out this article" comes "and subscribe to our blog using the button in the right sidebar." Oh, that is one thing though, is there a way to give them a direct link to subscribe in the actual post? I mean instead of "go to the sidebar and click the button" how do I just put a button right in front of them? Other than that though Ive done everything I can think of, so I leave it to you experts. The game starts today at 10:30PM eastern time so if Im going to do anything to turn these stream-seekers into readers it should be before then when the majority of the searches come in. i think there will be one more game tomorrow though so late suggestions would at least help for one day and not two.
Thanks for the help everyone
The blog I need help with is sharkcircle.wordpress.com.
gigisanchez
timethief
