IMMania.com

I received an email from Anita Chaperon yesterday that she was closing down her blog of 8 months and directed subscribers to the blog’s home page for more details.

I couldn’t help but feel a profound sadness at the news.

It’s hard to explain, but I would liken it to pulling up to your favorite bar or restaurant and finding that it’s gone out of business.

Her blog was Reviewlicious.com and was the first blog I entered into my BlogRoll. As I recall, I think I received a notice from her husband Andre, that Anita was launching Reviewlicious.com and eagerly signed up for the announcement list.

It was good timing for me because I was struggling with some PPC issues and I knew this was an area that Anita excelled in. So I was hoping to pick up possibly a tip or 2 from her new blog.

I actually picked up a lot more than I bargained for.

I managed to win a case study contest that Anita ran to promote the launch of Reviewlicious.com. Over the next several weeks Anita took a lot of time to review the site and campaign I submitted for the case study and sent back very detailed emails listing suggestions and advice for improving my campaign.

The other case studies Anita posted on Reviewlicious were equally as detailed and enlightening. It was clear to me from the outset that she was building a place where IMers could come and get great information on IM topics and also honest reviews of IM tools and info products.

It seemed like a great model for a blog — provide killer info and monetize a bit with product reviews. It is a similar model to what I based this blog on.

However, there was one troubling sign that seemed to appear from the beginning.

There just weren’t enough visitors contributing comments to the blog. In reality, the comments that actually get posted to a blog are really just the tip of the traffic ice berg. But it’s little consolation to only see the evidence of these visitors in your server logs and little else to indicate they appreciate your efforts or that they’ve even stopped by.

Here’s a quote from Anita’s message about her decision to close down, at least temporarily, Reviewlicious.com:

“I started it wanting to create a great place for people to get the true scoop on products in the IM niche. And for the past 8 months I’ve done exactly that. However, Reviewlicious was never meant to be my main business model…

I have found that it takes such a large amount of my time to maintain and grow that it impacts on my ability to work on my other projects. So I had to make the decision to shift my focus away from it.”

The amount of time and work Anita put into this project was substantial. Her attention to detail and desire to get things right come through in every post, which probably took some time to put together. Despite this, her personality and great sense of humor came through in every post. I only wish I could write like that.

I also need to mention that Julie Joyce’s weekly SEO posts were great. She got right to the point about best practices for SEO and didn’t mess around. I also enjoyed her ability to make Celine Dion references in most of her posts when needing to make a strong point regarding SEO.

So might things have turned out differently if more of the people who stopped by Reviewlicious.com had bothered to take the time to leave a comment?

I don’t know.

But I think if Anita had seen some more tangible evidence that her hard work was being appreciated, then maybe she might have reconsidered her decision. I certainly understand here decision though. There are only so many hours in a day and when running a business you need to do those things that benefit your business the most.

Also in a way, I feel partly responsible for the way things turned out. I posted a few comments at Reviewlicious.com, but not nearly as many as I felt I should have.

I haven’t been blogging long, but I know how tough it is to get visitors to your blog and how it’s even harder to coax them to leave a comment, no matter how brief.

Anyway, the good news is that Anita Chaperon isn’t going anywhere (other than her recent move to Spain) and she and her great writing can be found at AnitaChaperon.com.

Which reminds, I need to update my BlogRoll.