Yesterday I read a blog on how to increase traffic on your site. I came across it accidentally, I was not looking for it. Can somebody explain to me, what is achieved, when I increase traffic on my blog? It sounds to me like how to improve the bottom line of your business. Is creating a blog a business or a matter of self-expression? Am I a better person when I have five-thousand visitors a day?
Of course I am excited when people like my images or my puppets or what I have to say, but when I read an About page where 1350 entries start with: “Thank you for visiting my blog”, doesn’t that mean that the blog owner is just good at pushing the Like button on other people’s blogs? For me personally it is a real deterrent!
Don’t get me wrong, it is a truly innocent question and I don’t want to offend anyone. I have seen blogs with thousands of followers and they deserve every single one of them for their quirky and/or informative content – I myself follow a few of those – but then I also have seen a blog with a total of seven posts of average everyday babble and more than 2000 followers. So, what is the motivation?
dedepuppets 
I use feedback, good or bad, to help me know how to improve my writing and what topics interest others like they interest me. I think that if your whole goal is to increase traffic, you will soon grow bored. Your passion should prevail. Just my two cents’ worth! :-)
I totally agree with you. I am interested in what people really think.
I agree with many of your observations and it is healthy to question one’s motivations about blogging. I guess having thousands of visitors is an ego stroke or the hope of making money somewhere down the line. I like that much on the web is still free and happy for the few people who have found my blog and seem to like what I do.
Thanks for that. This is the reason why I blog too. I like that it is free and I don’t have to bow to the rules of one big organisation. I like a lot of what I see and it makes me think. But for me personally it is impossible to read fifty blog entries a day and process them in meaningful way and have a life outside blogsphere too :).