Along for the Ride!'s web directory has grown quite rapidly over the last year. The web directory now has over sixty eight thousand (68,000) blogs. That's quite stunning and surprising considering the web directory is just shy of two years old.
When I started the web directory part of AFTR, many of the leading experts told me that the market was over-saturated and it wouldn't do well. Since my primary purpose for the web directory was to provide a way to keep track of AFTR members, I wasn't concerned about any over-saturation issues. To my delight though, the web directory grew much faster than I expected or anticipated. Thankfully, I planned for growth during the initial design of the web directory.
I have also heard talk that social media is killing blogs. While I'm not so convinced it is, I do believe that social media can be a death note to a new blogger or a single owner blog. Social media takes a long of time and its stacked against the blogger. Let's be honest, there is only so much time in a day. If a blogger is spending a huge amount of time promoting their blog through various social media programs, when do they have time to write for their own blog? While I believe social media has it place, I have seen many good blogs fall to the high costs of time and energy required to get most blogs simple scraps of traffic.
I think my biggest challenge has been showing that the widget is a viable tool to bring together all these different and unique blogs in generating traffic for the web directory and its members. Here I am still struggling. Perhaps part of my struggles in the area is people are still a little "gun-shy" due to Adgitize, CMFads, EntreCard, and AdBrite folding. Quite frankly, I really can't blame any blogger that is as each of the programs had a very strong following.
This is an area I will continue to work on and with AFTR turning five years old in April, I think longevity will work in my favor, or at least I hope it will.
