You know it's strange, I have to fight an almost antiquated system to work with companies offering reviews of products, services and books because they rely on statistics and arbitrarily chosen ones at that to determine if my blog is worthy of working with them...
I honestly don't care if I ever have a Google Page rank, my Alexa score or my Technorati rating move up or down, but I do care that my readers enjoy the product reviews and giveaways that I do here on Acting Balanced. I often sit and wonder if companies, PR people and others really understand what they are looking for - and whether the blog with the great stats is really drawing the readership they want to target...
I live with and love a 'Stats Guy' and know first hand that there's truth in the quote "Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics" because there are definitely ways of manipulating both traffic to your site and your stats to be more favorable to those who are stats watchers... but the real question is - Who is reading my blog? Are they your target market? Can I deliver on my promises to you? Are 100 quality contacts who read what I have to say better than 10,000 who have subscribed but never actually read what is written - having only subscribed to get me to subscribe back, or to enter one specific contest, but then delete or bypass every other post?
I often wonder about the people who spend hours of their lives exchanging backlinks and worrying about how many sites link in, if they also have time to produce quality content and keep their readers engaged...
I do use the statistics I gather from google, alexa, feedburner, facebook, twitter etc to help get my foot in the door with companies, but I always end my pitch with - "The best way to know if my blog is a good fit for your product/service/book etc is to experience it, please visit www.actingbalanced.com to see if my blog would be a good fit for you. I am always happy to provide additional details and links to posts that may be similar to what I would write for you, please contact me for more information.", because honestly, I don't really want to work with a company who relies solely on stats to make their decisions.
It is my understanding that Google PR hasn't been updated in over 6 months, and may never be updated again... or it could be updated next week... but really - is relying solely on one statistical analysis that was developed years ago really going to tell you whether my blog meets your PR needs?
I'm linking up with Lindsay Socializes who started this conversation - please visit her blog and get her take on the situation... and add your $0.02 to the conversation if you are so inclined...
Or just leave me a comment here and help build the PR discussion...
