My long time buddy Adam, notably from the Space Wolves and Wahammer Tau blogs has a fantastic announcement for the 40k blogging community, but I will let Adam tell you all about it!
-Jim
Now I'm a big fan of the 40K blogosphere and personally I prefer following the blogs to trawling through the forums.
Only problem is, I've found myself struggling to find the good stuff this year and it's for 2 reasons.
1) From The Warp stopped being the hub of 40K blogging
I used to be able to find loads of great stuff on From The Warp's blogrolls from really obscure little blogs, but very talented bloggers non the less.
I understand that all these blogrolls became too much for From The Warp to manage.
2) Bell of Lost Souls changed how they manage their blogrolls
One upon a time everyone and his dog could get on the BoLS blogroll.
Then after a couple of overhauls, only the small blogs that don't post very often were allowed on the blogroll, while only the big sites were allowed on the Elite Blogroll, provided you wrote content for BoLS of course.
And that kind of screws over all the medium blogs in the middle and kind of holds the bigger blogs to ransom.
It's tough for new bloggers
While there are other 40K blog hubs out there, they don't drive anywhere near as much traffic as these two sites did.
Because of FTW and BoLS not serving the community as they once did, getting 'discovered' in the blogosphere is really hard for new bloggers starting out.
Don't get me wrong, I've found some truly amazing stuff by trawling through the blogosphere, but I've had to do some major blogroll trawling, Google image searching, you name it.
It's tough for readers
I think I'm subscribed via RSS Feed to about 8 blogs, because they're the big ones that update regularly. And that's simply because it's convenient. I don't have time to trawl the blogrolls all the time.
But in an ideal world, we'd want to see all the best bits from the entire blogosphere without having to dig for it, right?
That means we'd be able to find great painting guides, conversions or battle reports from absolutely anyone. Not just the big blogs that update all the time.
Alright, alright. You're probably thinking that I'm going to create another 40K blog hub, well, you'd be have half way right.
What's going to make this blog hub as good as From The Warp back in it's hay day and better than all the other hubs and networks that have sprung up over the past year or so?
Two things actually:
1) Readers will be able to read and filter articles from the blogosphere without blogrolls
That means any blogger's articles can be found, so your blog doesn't need to be as big as Fritz40K for people to read you.
2) The site will rank in the top 3 Google search results for Warhammer 40K, 40K and all of the Warhammer 40K races.
Yes, that is a BOLD statement. But as some of you may know, I work in Search Engine Optimisation as the Link Building & Content Manager for a leading agency in the UK. It's going to take some hard work, but it's achievable.
But what it means is that the site will get lots of exposure from all the rankings, loads of traffic and as a result the blogs will receive far more visitors, subscribers, etc.
Meanwhile, my girlfriend is incredibly technical and will be bringing my creative concepts to life in simple, fast loading functionality for you all.
CONCLUSION
This is a real top-level explanation of what we're up to. I didn't want to delve too deeply into the details and there's loads more stuff that this website will do for the online community. This is the real tip of the ice berg.
If you have any questions, I'd love to answer them! It's probably best that I explain all my reasons for creating something for the community in the Comments below rather than fill up this article with personal stuff.
But for now if you could head over to my old 40K blog and bookmark or follow it, we'll keep you up to date with all the developments right up to the big launch in January!
And I just wanted to say "thank you" for all your years of kindness and suppport.
-Adam
Bigger part of the blog-o-sphere is that many readers are unwilling to take the time to reply to post they are reading. Comments act as a fuel for many bloggers and provides them with feedback. A site dedicated to blog rolls is only part of the solution to creating a strong gaming community on the web. I challenge you, Adam, to have a weekly top-x and to comment on blogs you are reading. This will go a long way with bringing your new blog the readers it is going to need.
ReplyDeleteCHALLENGE ACCEPTED
ReplyDeleteThe aim of this new site is for bloggers and the blogosphere to be the main focus, not just have them bolted on to the side bar of some big site.
So yes, there will be weekly top 5s and many other features, as well as resources to help bloggers make their blogs better, understand their traffic and get more of it.
It's going to be lots of fun too :)
Very well said, well written and consider this very well anticipated. I'll support this through my blog in a large way, and look forward to seein it's fruition. I got a lot of my starting support through the exposure at FTW and know what that kind of support means to a blogger starting out.
ReplyDeleteI've asked FTW for some exposure, but not had a reply yet. Will ask again this weekend.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like a great idea. If I can help in anyway, I'm more than willing to.
ReplyDeleteHOTPanda, you are spot on there, I have my regular commenters that almost always post but when comments are lower than usual it can be a bit of a kick (but I am just as guilty for not replying to articles at times). Although not likely to generate much traffic, I think I may also start doing a regular "This week, I have mostly been reading..." section.