Montana Blog Rankings (And More!)

Sorry I haven’t been posting this week.
 
Let me explain.
 

 
 
‘Working’ for a Living
 
I’ve been working. Oh, not the $5,000-a-month jobs sending out MT Dem tweets…like New Yorkers Roy Lowenstein or Chris Meagher do.
 
Nope, I’ve got a couple minimum wage (or close to it) jobs, and they’re not cushy office and computer jobs, either. No, they’re the kind where you need to go work outside when it’s cold, or work inside dealing with hundreds of unruly people.
 
It’ll be fun watching the tweets those New Yorkers come up with to bash Maryland Matt Rosendale.
 
Most Montanans could care less about Twitter.
 
Back in 2009, Montana ranked #44 in the states that are most active on Twitter.
 
Today, I’d say that 95% of Montanans don’t even use Twitter. Of the 5% that do, I’d say that 75% of those don’t really follow politics.
 
That’s my opinion.
 
Mostly, I think it’s a huge waste of time and money for either campaigns, or political parties, to constantly tweet.
 
I won’t say ‘no one’ cares, but the truth is, it’s pretty close.
 
When just 21% of Americans are using Twitter, according to a 2016 Pew Research report, I think there’s some truth in that previous statement.
 
We know that 79% of Americans use Facebook.
 
Just 42% of Twitter users visit the site daily, compared to 76% on Facebook.
 
So really…if you’re going to spend money on politics, spend it on Facebook. You ain’t changin’ no minds on Twitter – they’ve been made-up for a long time now.
 
That’s why I’ve been frustrated by Logicosity. Here’s one of the best sites in the state, yet one that’s decided to not post for over a week now.
 
Why? I think it’s because hardly anyone cares if they do write.
 
Now they have a presence on Twitter. I find this odd. Usually I try to put out tweets to get people back to my site. Logicosity seems to now be tweeting instead of blogging.
 
This is a huge mistake, but again…just my opinion.
 
Instead of opinions, let’s get to some facts. Yep, rankings time.
 
 
Montana Blog Rankings
 
This’ll be the 6th or 7th time that we take a detailed look at which Montana media websites are getting the most traffic.
 
The first time we looked was in May 2016 and we’ve looked every 3 months since then. Our last look was in September.
 
So in another 6 months or so we’ll have a complete, and consistent, 2-years-worth of data to go off of. I think this is valuable. I know newspapers feel the same way – they’re always trying to increase their traffic, as they know this’ll increase their revenue.
 
I’m not so much concerned about revenue as making change, or at least changing people’s minds or making them think a little.
 
Most of the other political blogs in the state go at it the same way.
 
So let’s get started. Here are the 23 most popular Montana media websites, based on analytics data supplied by Alexa:
 
 

1. Billings Gazette: #8,720
2. Missoulian: #16,826
3. Bozeman Daily Chronicle: #21,146
4. GF Trib: #33,435
5. Helena IR: #37,018
6. MT Standard: #37,634
7. NBC Montana: #39,050
8. KPAX: #47,839
9. Flathead Beacon: #51,779
10. ID/MT Post: #154,475
11. Missoula Independent: #155,048
12. Missoula Current: #259,019
13. KFBB: #264,339
14. KXLH: #341,529
15. MT Cowgirl: #354,889
16. Last Best News: #446,690
17. Big Sky Words: #455,422
18. Combat Blog: #2.6 million
19. Flathead Memo: #4.8 million
20. Reptile Dysfunction: #10.6 million
21. Western Word: #12.8 million
22. Logicosity: No Ranking
23. Big Sky Rising: No Ranking

 
 
 
Let’s Analyze This
 
I’ll be taking Big Sky Rising off this list. That blog is dead.
 
Montana Political Review is another one that will be removed – the site no longer exists. Happens a lot with GOP sites in this state. Even though they can win elections, they can’t win hearts and minds online.
 
I stopped reading the Missoula Independent when they made their website look like all the other Lee Enterprises, cookie-cutter websites.
 
I haven’t missed reading the site, and actually forget that they put out new issues on Thursdays. Like I said, I don’t miss it…and that’s a big problem for media companies.
 
If your product is boring, I won’t read it and therefore won’t visit your site. You won’t be making any revenue off of me. I can’t help but think many others in Missoula have given up on the Indy since they announced they were no longer indy.
 
For the first time, I think Reptile Dysfunction is actually ranking.
 
ID has moved up a lot, even beating out some TV stations and the Indy. I think it's because they post a lot and have guest posts, plus Facebook shares...and even come Facebook comments. Missoula Current has also moved up a lot, about 250,000 ranks.
 
We see that the Missoulian lost the top spot to the Billings Gazette. The Bozeman paper remains third, while the Helena and Butte papers have overtaken NBC Montana…bumping it from #4 to #7.
 
The Flathead Beacon has fallen about 20,000 ranks. KXLH in Helena has fallen around 200,000 ranks. Big Sky Words has also fallen about 200,000 ranks.
 
Last Best News has fallen 100,000 ranks and Flathead Memo has fallen over 4 million ranks. Combat blog, a site I don’t read, fell by about 2 million ranks. Western Word fell about 4 million ranks.
 
If you’re falling in the ranks it means your traffic is less that it was 3 months ago, and that in turn means that people are no longer interested in your site.
 
Why is that?
 
I think there are 6 main reasons:
 

1. Your content is boring;
2. When it’s not boring, you don’t post enough;
3. Your content is unoriginal and relies on previous news reports;
4. When it is original, there’s not enough of it;
5. You take long breaks between posting;
6. You’re not getting click-throughs from social media.

 
Those are just some ideas. Mostly…I think it’s the ‘boring’ part.
 
I’ll go to all the major political blogs each morning. There are about 7, yet I only read 1 to 2 of these articles…if they happen to be new, which doesn’t happen enough.
 
For many of the sites – ID and Cowgirl – I don’t even need to read the content as I know the message will be the same as it’s always been: Dems good, GOP bad.
 
There just aren’t that many original thinkers putting out original thoughts…thoughts the mainstream media hasn’t already picked to death.
 
So please do us a favor…don’t give up – head back to the drawing board.
 
 
Ugh…the Tax Bill
 
Marco Rubio seems like a smart one. He’s holding out for more money for people with kids…the child tax credit.
 
I commend him on that. It’ll be a good talking point when he runs for president again in 2020.
 
Now, what about Daines? I told you about his real failure a week or so ago, and we see his continued failure today.
 
Daines…why not say you have some qualms about the tax bill so that you can get more for Montana?
 
Well…I know why – he has nothing to be scared about when it comes to his 2020 election.
 
Currently the odds-on-favorite to run against him is Steve Bullock…for the simple reason that Bullock has nowhere else to go besides the private sector. After 12 years of making his money from other people’s taxes, this is the last thing Bullock wants.
 
Yeah…the private sector – an area of our economy where they actually expect results.
 
Anyways, it’ll be Steve vs. Steve, and my…I can’t think of one freakin' thing to get excited about in that race.
 
A guy that made his millions shipping American midwestern jobs to China or a guy that has a closet full of skeletons and no real political accomplishments to point to.
 
Yeah, I think that race – much like our 2018 U.S. House race – will be one I just sit out.
 
I can’t think of a single reason to vote, not where the candidates are boring and the ‘differences’ between them are nearly-nonexistent.
 
 
And Speaking of ‘Ugh!’
 
Boy, there ain’t much that’s helping working people these days.
 
The tax cuts will give us more money in the short-term, but 10 years from now we’ll have to pay more.
 
Yeah…10 years from now…I ain’t thinking too much about then, either.
 
Despite that, the Dems and the media tell us that the sky is falling now, so it must be.
 
Then there’s net neutrality.
 
Boy, this ain’t good for working stiffs. Now the government will allow your internet service provider to block sites it doesn’t like (such as mine), or at the very least, make those sights load more slowly so that you’ll get frustrated and hit the ‘back’ button.
 
It’s a real blow to freedom of speech, a real blow to the independent press, and a real blow to your ability to get good information about the world you live in.
 
It sure helps the telecoms, however. Sure helps the D’s and R’s.
 
I told you nearly 3 years ago now how the internet companies give equally to both Daines and Tester.
 
For Tester, this goes through the Blackstone Group, a group which gave him $74,000 over 5 years.
 
Blackstone restructured the Williams Companies, which were in turn spun-off from MCI and World Com in the mid-90s.
 
For Daines, it’s Elliot Management, a group that gave him $118,000 over a period of two years. This firm specializes in making profits from European telecoms.
 
“Wait a minute,” I asked you 3 years ago, “what does all this European telecom investing have to do with us here in Montana?”
 

“Well, in Europe it’s profitable to have fast internet, but here in America it’s not.
 
Here it’s profitable to keep the internet slow. And it’s just an added bonus that this also leads to less information being disseminated, fewer critical reports about politicians, and many more people inclined to sit in front of the TV instead of surfing the internet.
 
That works great for keeping an electorate uninformed, something that works great for keeping apathetic and useless politicians in office, politicians that will gladly take dark money to work against the very people they were elected to represent.”

 
 
I’m not too angry about this, however.
 
Remember a week ago when I told you that the pendulum always swings, sometimes to the left and sometimes to the right?
 
Well, it’s pretty far over there to the right currently, but it’ll swing back. Right now everyone’s mad at the rich for taking ‘too much.’ Don’t worry – in a few more years everyone will be mad at the poor for taking ‘too much.’
 
Change – it’s the only constant.
 
 
Damn Emails
 
It’s happened again.
 
I received a campaign email, this time from Kathleen Williams.
 
Kathleen Willilams…who the hell is that?
 
On the first one I just sent it to the junk folder. On the second one, however, I opened it…mainly to confirm that, yes, it was one of those U.S. House candidates spamming me again.
 
You might remember how John Heenan and/or Grant Kier and/or Tom Woods also sent me junk emails.
 
Not once did I sign up for their email list, so this qualifies for spam even more than usual.
 
I unsubscribed from Williams’ and Heenan’s and Kier’s/Woods' email, even though I’d never subscribed.
 
This is just another sign to me that these folks don’t care about me. I mean…you added me to your list against my will.
 
In marketing, this is a big no-no.
 
But then these people don’t know anything about marketing. Look at their emails.


Yep, it's gonna be a long 6 months until the primary...and then another 5 for the general. 


God help us.
 
 
 
And that’s all I’ll have for you today. Thanks!