Monday, January 30, 2012

6,000 and Counting

I started blogging in October of 2010 and fell in love with it. I started this blog because, Alex, the boy my daughter was dating encouraged me to start one. He had made one for school and was really enjoying it, so I thought I would give it a try. I am so happy I did. I turns out that I love blogging.

I don't know how much other people like my site, but I really enjoy it. It has been a great release. Plus, I get to have fun being creative and telling stories. Sometimes the posts were funny (or meant to be), sometimes confessional and occasionally reminiscent. Some of them I labored over and others I just cranked out before I went to bed. Either way, I wish I had started doing this years ago.

The pictures don't always have to make sense!
The beginning of this month marked just over 14 months of me pounding on my keyboard. My blog was visited about 4,500 times during that period. That averages out to just over 10 views per day. However, this month has seen a drastic change.

Today, I reached the 6,000 views mark. This means I've had about 1,500 views in the last three weeks. That is over 60 views a day. I've been blogging for 15 months and 25% of all the traffic I've received has come in the last month. Before this month it took me over 4 months to get that many views and now it has happened in 3 weeks. So what happened? I have some theories.

One of the causes for this was completely on accident. On January 4, a friend of mine (Adam) had a rather embarrassing medical issue. I took him to the emergency room and blogged about it the next day. That story became my most read post before the day was over. Adam sent the link out to all his Facebook friends and they swarmed in to see what he had been griping about on his Wall for the last 24 hours. This gave me a quick surge of about 400 views in a couple of days. This number may be common place for some bloggers, but for me, those numbers were huge.

On a side note, I want to make it clear that I don't just humiliate people because I have an audience on the web. After I wrote the blog, I saved it to be approved by Adam before it was posted. Once he gave me the 'OK', I published it. He received several phone calls and sympathetic comments on his Facebook wall for the next few days. While Adam did appreciate the extra attention his new-found fame had brought him, he unexpectedly found himself to be a bit distressed for approving the story. It was disconcerting for people to be so acutely aware of what most would have wanted to be a private experience. After telling me his concerns, I agreed that from this point forward if I write about any of his adventures or mishaps, he will be referred to as Stephen. He found that to be acceptable.

Versatile?
I think that is a nice way
of saying I can't focus
on any one thing.
While that post did provide me with a quick surge in my numbers, it was not the only thing I did. A few months back, I was given the 'Versatile Blogger' award (Thank you Brandie Boddie). Besides the prestige of receiving the award, I was to do something. The award required me to share a few things about myself and pass the award on to seven other bloggers. Unfortunately, I really wasn't reading many blogs. That was the second time this had happened to me. I received an award that I was supposed to pass on, but did not know who to give it to. I didn't want that to happen again, so I started looking for other blogs to read.

Once again, I wish that I had done this earlier, because there are some great writers out there. Some of my favorites are Creative Devolution, Crack You Whip, The Bloggess, The Cowardly Feminist, "Jen" e sais quoi, GweenBrick, Misadventures of the Monster Library, Mayor Gia, Pish Posh and Wait in the Van. This is in no way an exhaustive list. It is just a few of the blogs I have grown to love in the last month. There are many more, but these are the first ones that came to mind. I started thinking of some others, but I figured the list is long enough. To those people I listed, I love you all. Thank you for the opinions, laughs and words you have shared.

Now that I am actually reading other blogs, I have started seeing a huge increase in traffic. This was an unintended, but much appreciated result. After reading their posts, I always left a comment, because I know how much I love to get comments. I really want to know what my readers think of the post or what thoughts come to mind as they read it. It is frustrating to check my stats and discover that one of my posts has had 50 or more visits and no one left a comment, so I always leave one. I do this because I think it is nice and as a blogger I understand how much those comments mean to me. Because of those comments I left, many the blog owners come over to check out my blog and I even pick up traffic from some of their readers. Now, I am getting regular traffic to my site and didn't even mean to do it.

HOORAY for accidental victories!

Thank you to those of you who have been reading since the beginning and welcome to the new people I have met in the last month. I look forward to getting to know all of you better.

Let's see how long it takes to reach 10,000. Now that I have more traffic, I had better produce quality funny.

30 comments:

  1. Ah, the mystery that is page views. I gave up trying to figure it out a long time ago. It's good that you enjoy it, though. To me, that's the most important part.

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    1. I really do. At first, I didn't care if anyone read it or not. As time went on, it was exciting to know that people enjoyed certain posts. I would keep writing either way, but having followers is good for the ego.

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  2. Congratulations on your readership increase! Laughing at the shuffle dancing zebra!

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    1. Thank you. I couldn't wait to use him somewhere. I haven't had blogs about zebra or dancing, so I just threw him in.

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  3. I'm commenting. Ok? Jeesh, such pressure.

    Actually I just clicked on you from another site because I have seen your name in comments here and there and decided to check you out. I found that commenting on other blogs was actually my jumping off point and did give me more readership and comments on my own blog just for the reasons you mentioned.

    Oh, and dancing zebra is the bomb! I might have to steal him. Shhh, don't tell Brett.

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    1. I would have started earlier had I known about this. It happened on accident, but I like it.

      You can have him. I found him a few weeks ago and have been waiting for the opportunity to drop him in somewhere..

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  4. I found your blog when you commented on mine and I've been reading ever since - and I thoroughly enjoy it! Boo-yah for your traffic increase!

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    1. Awesome. I was so excited when you left that first comment. I love your blog. When I showed my daughter that you had read my page, she wasn't as impressed. I still don't know why.

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    2. Because she's a teenager and we're old - well, to her, anyway :-)

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  5. Brett this really is a great blog! Its so fun to hear you have gotten awards! And readers! Thanks for the mention. And the comments. :)

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    1. Yay!! Thank you. Another of my favorite bloggers commented on my site. I love your cartoons and would love to get a tour of your part of Africa sometime.

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  6. I find that if you want to have your blog visited, you need to visit other blogs. Commenting not only shows you've visited but the more you're seen on other blogs, the more people are to come visit you back.

    Fairly successful with me, plus, you tend to find other awesome blogs. :P

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    1. I've enjoyed the ones I have found. I have even followed the links of comments on other blogs to find even more. It never ends. I just have to find a balance of how many I can keep up with.

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  7. Aaah yeah, I'm familiar with the mysterious phenomenon of Page Viewers not equaling the number of Comment Leavers. I think it's great that you try to leave a little message wherever you go! That's a good philosophy. Wish everyone had it!

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  8. First visit, immediately impressed by dancing zebra, stayed after viewing your definition of versatile :p

    Congrats on the milestone, good luck with the 10 grand.

    Now if you will excuse me, I have a "Reader's Favourites" to have a poke through

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  9. Congratulations on your milestone! You are on the right track with blogging though; do it first and foremost because you love it. I can't imagine life without writing and Naked Girl in a Dress provides that outlet for me. Everything else is bonus.

    I can't wait to see you hit 10K too!

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  10. For some reason blogger will not let me hit reply to my comments.

    @KT - I think it is nice to hear what people think. It doesn't have to be every single person. Just a little feedback. EVEN if it's negative.

    @Rusty - Glad you enjoyed the zebra. Thanks for visiting.

    @Naked Girl - I do love it. It's a great release. Thank you.

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  11. Congrats! You're way ahead of the game, as it took me quite awhile to start figuring things out. Once I discovered other blogs and started sharing little pieces of me here and there, I realized that a cool community was starting to come together.

    Don't get hooked on numbers or page views or comments. Those things really don't matter and I'll never understand them. (I don't always leave a comment because I don't always have something to add, so I imagine others do too.) Anyway, what I think matters is doing what you like and finding others who feel the same way. Be real and real people will follow...I hope ;)

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    1. Thank you, Abby. I am a numbers person and just can't help it. That's why I am studying to be a MATH teacher. I will do my best to not let the numbers drive me crazy. I has been a nice boost to see the readers jump.

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  12. Hey! Your blog's awesome Brett! I've been following for less than a month, but I love it so far. Besides, I often agree with you on what you say or you remind me of things that happened to me and that's really cool! You rock, man!

    Congratulations on the 6000 views! I've reached 170 but I'm a teacher of English, not a Math one, so I don't care about numbers that much (yet); however, it's a very important achievement, so congrats on it! Let's throw a party when you reach 10,000!

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    1. As a teacher of English, I expect you to point out any misspelled words or bad grammar you find on my blog. I agree about the party, but you cannot bring your mother-in-law.

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    2. Oh, no, I was not thinking about bringing her... Though it might be a curious situation to see!

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  13. That is awesome, man. Unfortunately I don't get so much time to get out and about, blogwise, any more, otherwise,I would be visiting much more.

    I can remember the first day I had a hundred hits. I went out and had about a million beers. Not that I have that many more now, because I have slacked off a bit, but I know what it feels like. Congratulations!

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    1. Thank you. It did feel good. Now to keep the numbers going.

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  14. Congrats! Keep up the posting, I'm glad to see it is paying off!

    JP
    Lettuce Be Clear

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  15. Woohoo! Congrats on the increase! I'm a junkie for the stats and ride them like an emotional wave... If mine are up, I'm stoked, if they're down, so is my mood.

    Thank you for visiting my little spot on the web! I apologize for not returning the visit sooner, but the traveling thing is taking more time than I thought! I can see myself being like your parents - doing this for years to come! (Both the RV thing, and the blogging! ...Don't get an RV unless you want another addiction! :)

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    1. I don't think I could do it. It sounds great in theory, but I am not self-sufficient to the point that I could take care of mechanical issues or any other skill that would be needed to fix problems, empty poo containers, keep oil changed or any thing else that required work.

      I could travel with someone else for a few months, but then I think I would be ready to head home.

      Thanks for coming by. I have enjoyed reading about your RV adventure. Keep yourself safe and keep posting.

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  16. Isn't it so nice when people are actually reading the words you are putting out into the universe?? Thanks for the visit!!!

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