Shayboarder Featured On ESPN
ADMIN
- August 19 2009
- 296 views
- 7 comments
Two of our favorite TransWorld Business snow contributors, Colin Whyte and Shannon Johnson, have linked up for a great story on ESPN today diving into why Johnson’s gear review focused blog Shayboarder has received so much traffic and interest both from within the industry and amongst weekend warriors.
By midwinter ‘08, whispers of, “Anyone know this blogger chick from Steamboat?” were starting to float between industry cubicles in San Clemente and Shay was on-track for 375,000 page views—crushing well-funded media sites with a staff of five, a Red Bull fridge, and underground parking. Thanks to the deep, keyword-rich content and meaty commentary, Google was bringing Shayboarder up with the regularity of a band camp anecdote. Riders were searching for the kind of info only she had. Other blogs were linking in. By ‘09, Shayboarder.com has racked up, she says, over 800K page views total and all of it, she adds wryly, is “for a blog about a girl who rides.”
“The site is popular because it’s for average riders, whether they ride 10 or 50 days a year,” explains Shay, now 26. “[It's for] people just out there enjoying it. It’s an audience that [comprises] the majority of snowboarders… If I learned how to snowboard this year, I would have flipped open a magazine and found out how to do backside 9s versus just being able to find out how a board turns on my blog. My blog is realistic: I ride resorts and groomers, but I also try out a lot of products so people have a better understanding of them.
To read the full article visit ESPN.
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August 19th, 2009 at 11:03 am
"So much traffic"? Yeah right… http://siteanalytics.compete.com/shayboarder.com+...
August 19th, 2009 at 4:43 pm
Go Shay!
August 19th, 2009 at 11:24 pm
Thanks Bill!
I wish I could be comparable to Transworld for traffic, remember it's just a snowboard blog.
August 20th, 2009 at 1:15 am
Shatboarder - Not fair to compare them against a media giant like Transworld and their volume flatlines smaller sites. See this link for a better idea of their traffic: http://siteanalytics.compete.com/shayboarder.com/
August 20th, 2009 at 12:46 pm
What's up with all the ego stroke? Do people really like reading long winded diatribes about how cool a person is?
August 20th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
nice work shay — glad to the see you getting some recognition for all your hard work!
August 21st, 2009 at 7:00 pm
Good comment Admin.
Anyone familiar with media/marketing should realize that it's not necessarily getting the most eyeballs on your site/product/ad/killer_editorial_review that matters… A big part of it is making sure you're hitting the right audience.
Shay hits a certain audience. As does Transworld and ESPN.com. Is there overlap? For sure… but there's also a difference in what they're covering (of course, they're all covering snowboarding) and how they cover it.
PS. If you're going to hate, start your own site, put your name on it and do it better. Shay's got hustle, which is more than we've seen from most commenters in this industry.