Day 11 of the 31 Day Blog Challenge is about looking at your blog's statistics. The information you can get from your statistics can help you develop a strategy for growing your blog.
I have to admit that I have been hooked on my statistics for months. I use Statcounter to monitor my blog. I hate it that Carolyn, my blogging partner in crime, has more visitors than me!
But having said that I have put this challenge off for a few days. The reason for this is because I feel rather inadequate and intimidated compared to bloggers such as Darren Rouse and Skellie, who talk about hundreds and thousands of subscribers, whereas I am averaging about 50-60 unique visitors per day. However, it was Kate Olson who brought me back to earth in her post 'blog and let blog' where she questioned the validity of the so-called 'rules' of blogging and concluded she was going to blog what and how she wanted - go Kate!
Needless to say, I cannot help being fascinated by the amount of information that is provided by statistics. For the last few weeks my most popular post has been about emigrating to New Zealand. This obviously has a very wide appeal beyond midwifery and education, although I only had one person leave comments. That has now been overtaken by the post about counting baby movements. It is clear that posts about pregnancy and birth attract a lot more readers than midwifery and education. But I do not want to write those sort of posts regularly - this is my conscious decision not to build a readership based on those theme of posts. The other posts that are always popular are anything about Facebook and Second Life.
I can look and see what blogs readers have come from and it has been useful to go back to those blogs and keep a relationship going with the blogger. Carolyn has had a significant number of visitors when she was mentioned by a very popular midwifery blogger Sagefemme. So it is worth getting noticed by 'famous' bloggers.
Looking at searches and key words that bring people here has not really helped me develop a blogging strategy because they tend to be very random. But generally, emigration, Facebook and Second Life seem to be the search terms that most frequently bring me visitors. So, maybe it is time to become a Second Life expert - NOT! It certainly is worth continuing the emigration theme.
1 comment:
I am not trying to be smug or anything here but I have to say, what I enjoy most about my statistics, is not how many people have visited my blog, but where in the world they have come from. I have frequently thought about removing my stat counter but it is this fascination that makes me so reluctant to do this. Also if I get a lot of hits from one particular source, eg another's blog I can go and check that out and thank the other for mentioning me. Basically I just blog about whatever is interesting me at that moment in time without worrying too much about anything else. Perhaps I should have more of a plan I don't know.
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