Talking Point: Why Are You Here?

Do you ever wonder about what you’re doing and why you’re here? I’m not talking existentially, although a little of that is good for the soul. No, right now I’m actually wondering why you’re here on this page.

It’s all about you

When Stuart and I plan our blog posts each week, we think of you. We wonder who you are, why you’re here and what might make your stay interesting. Yes you! Did you know we talk about you? Seriously if you weren’t along for the ride, there would be no ride, no point. Our blog would be a diary. And I’ve always hated writing diaries. So thanks, you’ve saved me from that.

Last week we learnt we’d been nominated in three categories of the UK national Brilliance in Blogging awards. We’d never thought of ourselves as brilliant. Gaudy, eccentric, off-balance perhaps, but not brilliant. Anyway, recognition is a nice feeling. But what is brilliant blogging? And who decides?

What makes a blog brilliant for you?

I’d like to think readers are at the heart of good writing but we’ve come to realise we don’t really know that much about you. Our relationship is a bit one-sided. Like my mother in law, we do a lot of talking and perhaps don’t listen much. And we want to know what would make time you spend here more brilliant?

So without wanting to be rude, who are you?

I might recognise your name from a comment, or your style from a tweet. But you and I have never hung out, I don’t know what you look like, or sound like, and our kids don’t play together after school. I don’t even know how you take your coffee. Maybe you don’t even like coffee?

The thing is if we want to be brilliant for you it would be brilliant to know what you want and like.

So we’re asking…

We’ve had a go at tapping into your views and opinions through a series of regular talking points like this. Since October we’ve done a lot of work on the blog, redesigning, introducing Punkt, better photography, more videos and new strands of content like Talking Points and Adventure Ideas.

But we’d love to know what you think. Like:

• What do you come here for?
• What do you find most interesting, valuable, enjoyable or irritating?
• Is our blog too narrative or not narrative enough?
• Do you just want to read travel or more about family life or other stuff?
• Should we do more reviews, or less reviews, or no reviews?
• What could we do better?

Perhaps you don’t give a monkeys what we do with our site. In which case, we’d love to hear that too. And it probably means you have a better work/life balance than us.

Over to you…

Anyway, we’d love to hear from you in as few or many words as you can spare, anyway you like. Leave a comment below, drop us an e-mail, tweet us or post us on Facebook.

And I’ll try not to be like my mother in law. In fact I’ll go further than that, I’ll forgo my coffee and reward the most useful piece of feedback with a £10 Amazon gift voucher so do make sure we can contact you.

Look forward to hearing from you