So I was talking to one of my guest post writers recently when we talked about some potential blog post ideas when I said this phrase.

“Pageviews mean nothing to me.”

Since we were on the phone, I couldn’t determine what her reaction was. She’s a pr and marketing expert and had just launched her own website for her business.

I’d written about this topic before. Yes, I still use SEO techniques and I still use social media to promote the posts on this site but I very rarely look at the page view stats.

There use to be a time when I would obsess about those numbers, not only for my site but for the site of the newspaper I worked for. We did everything possible to get those numbers to pop. And I did the same for my own site. At its height, my blog would receive at least 8,000 page views a month, a very nice number when it comes to the sponsorship search or becoming a brand ambassador.

But unlike the newspaper site, I didn’t really live by that number. So, when I looked back at the posts I used to reach that 8,000 a month, I cringed.

Horrible. Those posts were so bad.

What made them that way was that they were not useful. They were created just to be click bait not to help anyone or to inspire anyone to do their best work.

And what was I doing if I wasn’t helping people?

That’s when I decided that I would write things that would help people with their writing journey. Whether it was thoughts about self publishing or how to create awesome characters or  even inspiring people with my own journey through the writing process, I wanted every single post to be useful.

So I stopped looking at the stats for this site. I listen instead to the conversations I have to people on Twitter or Google+. I listen to other writers and offer advice or support. Then I write that up for this site. I bare a bit of my soul and my thoughts on things and stories I’m working on.

If I don’t care about pageviews, what do I care about? The follow number — Twitter, newsletter(s), and this site.

Those numbers validate what I do and tells me if what I’m doing and writing is valuable to the folks who read them. The ultimate number is the newsletter subscriptions. Why? Because those folks not only read the blog and get it in their email box, they want to know more.

Newsletters are the only place where more is better. But more doesn’t mean amount. It means quality.

Essentially, all this is about mission statement. I want to help people get to where they are going — whether its through advice or through inspiration. Page views aren’t part of the mission.

Yes, mission. Writers need mission, a focus, if not they’ll spin their wheels and get no where.  For me, my mission is to help people on their writing path and continue my own. Anything else is just noise.

So, what your mission statement? What do you stand for? Don’t know yet? It’ll come to you soon. Until then, check in, ask questions, and of course get more with the newsletter.