Wow. Thanks so much to everyone who participated – an impressive 80% of readers who saw the post donated their time, and I can’t say how much I appreciated it.
For those of you that are interested, here’s some stats on the average reader:
The average reader is a 45-54 year old male who’s (obviously) into motorcycles and cars. In the last year Bike-urious had visitors from 204 countries, though the majority (55%) of viewers live in the US. Within the US, the largest percentage of viewers (16%) came from California.
Even including readers who said they didn’t own a motorcycle, the average reader has 6.58 bikes, but that’s inflated thanks to readers who had a whole bunch of bikes. The median was 3, and I will say that the largest collection I heard about in the garage was one reader with 73 bikes.
Going forward, here’s some of the feedback I got that I will work on implementing:
Most people had very kind things to say, which I appreciated. There were also some helpful suggestions which I’ll consolidate here:
– Encourage more people to comment.
Lots of people said this, so I’m going to turn it around a bit and say that if you want more comments, start the chain yourself! I know that so many of you have great things to say (and you know a lot more about these bikes than I do), but I don’t know how to get it out of you to start a discussion. I’d love to hear why I bike I chose was good or not, and the stories that you have of them growing up.
from http://iamerinbrown.com/2014/03/the-downfall-of-the-comment/
One reader noted that Disqus was a pain to use, because you have to log in each time you want to make a comment. I can sympathize with this, however I will say that if you create an account then it saves your information. Still, I can understand that you might not want to create yet a new account in life. I will be sticking with Disqus simply because the other solutions (WordPress, LiveFyre, Facebook) all have their own problems and I’m comfortable running a Disqus-based commenting section. Sorry for the inconvenience.
With that said, I’m going to start attempting bribery to increase commenting. =) Expect something soon in terms of a ‘Commenter of the Month’ award that will be a $25 giftcard to RevZilla, SportbikeTrackGear, or similar.
– A lot of the bikes I feature are too expensive/un-obtanium.
Fair enough. I’ll look for cheaper stuff (but they’re still going to have to be interesting!). I’ve already started a “Less than $5,000” category to identify these bikes, but I’m not sure what the threshold should be: $5,000? $2,500? $3,328?
from http://genius.com/1275690
– More flat trackers/street trackers/dirt bikes/newer bikes/less cruisers/more cruisers/etc
As you’d expect, there were conflicting opinions on different bikes for the future. I’ll probably stay relatively constant with what I feature, though I suspect some more newer bikes will make into the fray as part of the ‘featuring more obtainable motorcycles’ movement.
– More information on new bikes/human interest pieces/things beyond bikes for sale.
As some of you know, Bike-urious is unfortunately just a part time passion for me, and because of that it can be difficult to cover the wide world of motorcycles. I will figure out a way to expand, and I’m always open to guest posts if there’s something you know a lot about that you’d like to share! Reach out to me if you’re interested – abhi@bike-urious.com
– More trip reports like Utah and Alaska.
I’m all about this, these posts just take me longer to create. As you’ve probably seen, I’ve started writing up a previous trip down the Baja Peninsula, hope you enjoy it!
– Add a search option by model.
It’s not obvious, but there is a search button on the site. On any page, you’ll see it in the top right corner:
– Clean up blog design.
This and the previous comment highlight the fact that I am not a web designer. Unfortunately, that will not change any time soon, so I have two options in the short term:
1.) Do nothing.
2.) Ask for help.
I don’t like the idea of not trying to make Bike-urious better, so I’m making a plea to you: is there anyone out there that’s savvy with WordPress design who would like to help? I’m very open-minded on this and willing to experiment a bit. If you’d like to help, please email me at abhi@bike-urious.com. Thanks in advance.
– Finish school and get a real job.
Haha, ouch. =)
Alright, that about sums it up. Your thoughts on the above would be greatly appreciated as I start implementing some changes.