Google Traffic or Loyal Readers?
What satisfies you more and why? A whole amount of Google traffic who register their presence in the form of analytical stats and help us in our GPR's and stuff or A small set of loyal readers who read and appreciate your post through comments… Given a choice, what will you opt for?
Remember you can have only one :P So please dont say both! Also give the reason for your choice. What do you desire and Why?
Throw in your candid opinions 
A loyal reader is more important than a Google traffic If you want to add of more revenu.
sorry to disagree with Pradeep; if Google receives continuous clicks from same IPs they will ban, moreover, high click through with small audiences = low PR + risk of disabling your Adsense account.
There is nothing like a comment from someone who has actually read the whole post. The stats used to make me happy earlier. Now I know how misleading those numbers are. So for me - Loyal readers. Anytime.
The catch of course is that I want more and more of them. So can't rule google out of the picture.
Yep, that is true! The inspiration that our readers provide through their thoughts and words can be seconded by none!
Though high stats look good anyday. There is nothing like your readers reading your every post and commenting on them!!
Yup, I hit the stats page everytime I log in to my blogger dashboard, but that's only after checking out on all my comments! That just says it all, isnt it..
Sometimes I wonder, as travel bloggers, what is our main aim? May be to reach out to the world and help those who are Actually travelling places... and that can be done only by taking the help of Google and search engines, what do you feel Umeshji?
Since I haven't had any comments in over a week I'm going to say loyal readers lol. I like seing my numbers go up but I thoroughly enjoy the interaction.
It does not matter ,whether they are loyal readers or from Google traffic. As long as the the blog makes impression.
What I found is if we increase frequency of updating, loyal readers can't comment everyday, it's not possible so graph of comments goes on decreasing. But on search engines we go high, visits and pageviews substcribers increase. I used to post almost in a week, I had lot of comments. Now, posting many different topics, almost daily and rarely I get comment. But then I thought, life is short and I have to reach to maximum people with thoughts so increased posting. I am sad not getting my regular friends to comment on my blog. Even I can't manage to comment on their blog. So can't feel sad too. I think answer I have practically given.
I feel SM as very ideal blogger. He is so dedicated...in posting. So he gets high traffic too. But he manage time to comment on many many blogs too. So he has good comments too. I feel he is completly professional.
Very practical, Mohini! I agree with you cent percent! What is our ultimate aim of blogging, why had we started it in the first place, for whom? these are the main questions that need to be answered here, I think...
You are correct about increasing the frequency of posting and getting less comments...
An apt mixture of both? I've been blogging for nearly three years actively, and I've got both. Readers who read and comment loyally for my posts, and also few time visitors from search engines. Some of the search engine bloggers who've found my blog have become regular long term readers too. But regular readers are always quite better than a one-time visitor :)
Wow! 3 yrs is quite long! Yep, there are many categories of visitors, one time, loyal, and there are those intermittent ones too who keep dropping by now and then...
loyal visitors == returning/revisitors along with good comments is pretty much better.
google traffic == just for the reads
a blogger/writer would always love to hear from his/her readers. Google traffic often also increases loyal readership [but that's not always].
Loyal readers also boost our confidence as bloggers through their thoughts and definitely score over their Google counterparts in that way..
Justify your ans!
either.
A good question.....Loyal readers for sure is better than the Google traffic thing mainly because of the appreciation, because they know you and your blog and their feedback will be really helpful. Loyalty always scores for me.....
That is one BIG pro of a loyal reader but what about the pros of a Google reader(GR)? Look at it this way, isnt he (GR) one of the most genuine forms of a reader a blog can ever have? even though he may or may not be commenting..
I would prefer having comments by regulars and aim to go on increasing that base. But who wouldn't like to see a soaring graph of GR views? Actually I have no choice since I can't claim to having thousands of hits a day 
Since mine is a personal blog that gives me space to air my views, I can't expect any revenue out of it either, can I?
@Mohini: I agree with you about increasing frequency and losing comments. It is also not practical for me to post more than 1-2 posts in a week.
I cant say about personal blogs and revenue but I completely concur with the first statement of yours and though mine is a travel blog, still I look forward to doing the same thing. Because comments form a huge inspiration for me to keep writing..
I had asked a similar question about the effect of Google readers in another thread.
@Arti
I thought that a travel blog like yours has potential to attract lot of GR with high relevance. And info (Tech, cookery, financial, travel) blogs, generally go for Google juice, I thought.
A Personal blog gets Google readers too. But often the relevance is very low. So they try to cultivate loyal readership/friendship by following, commenting on other blogs.
But as you said, it depends on what you want. If you are in it for professional reasons you go after Google. For the interaction with fellow bloggers, you go the other way. It is just that, if you are a personal blogger getting GR is extremely difficult in my opinion.
Being a niche blogger (medical blogs are not read by too many people) its hard to get loyal readers, but I do get a lot of Google love on certain posts. However, I would prefer a loyal reader over a bunch of random googlers any day! Quality over quantity...
[or maybe I am just trying to console myself coz no one reads my blog!]
A doctor and medicines - two things that scare the hell out of poeple :P :P Just kidding, hehe :D
let us try to see the positve side of it.. why had you started your blog in the first place? What was your target audience in mind?
We cannot really compare..
See, the visitors are of four types,
First the persistent ones. They are those who are loyal to you and will lap up each of your post eagerly. However, tell me this, how many such readers can you have at max ? The scaling up is very limited in this case. But since they are the higest quality, keep them hooked up with active interaction.
The second type of vistiors are reasearchers. They have been looking for an information over the search engines and landed up on your page. There is a great chance that they will read your page and may even see more. Never ignore these people. For them make sure your content is good and is SEOd.
The Third type are stragglers who land up on your page from the Bookmarking sites like Digg/Stuble On etc. Since the data at hand is much more in their case and since the page is accessed from within the bookmarking website, there are chances that they will read just that one page and move on. Their attention span is also low and hence we need photographs / illustrations etc to attract their gaze.
The Fouth one are the most insignificant yet more in number. The trolls, pat backs etc. They come and go in large numbers but your blog is never on their agenda for the visits. Their existance doesnt make a difference and hence you need not even worry about them.
Long post.. hope I made some sense. :)
I prefer the second type, the researcher one. This is because of the nature of my website which deals with such topics and issues that really needs to be searched about. The more visitors I get through searches, the more it becomes clear that I am succeeding in providing a new perception about the real issues that are affecting people in general and in particular. Luckily, I enjoy a good visitors count coming from search engines.Ones you attain success in attracting people from search engine, attaining persistent readers or 'loyal' readers as Arti termed them becomes pretty easy.
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