If you're blogging or writing online to make money, then "hits" may matter in terms of advertising revenue. But they have no real relevance. At a dinner party C.I. threw Saturday, a music producer and an actress got into a lively conversation about just this topic and used Stevie Nicks as their example. In the seventies and eighties, few rockers were trashed by critics and music writers more than Stevie Nicks who was regularly mocked as "a space cadet" and far worse. Those articles and album and concert reviews were read by millions. Writing with a smaller audience were those celebrating the unique artistry of Stevie. As the 90s drew to a close, who had won out? Not the most widely read, not the accepted narrative. It was the smaller writers, writing passionately and factually that changed the tide and led to the critical reappraisal of Stevie.
That was before the dominance of the web and that's the kind of power that you'd assume independent writers online would be going for: Tackling false (and often sexist) narratives and refuting them.
http://thirdestatesundayreview.blogs...onfluence.html