Happy Birthday, Baby (sort of)!
This week, my baby blog turns six months old, and I thought I’d share the statistics I’ve gathered and lessons I’ve learned so far. I use two methods for tracking my blog statistics: Blogger Stats (which comes free with my Blogger account) and Statcounter.com. Each is slightly different, and useful in a different way.
Although I’ve slowed down the number of entries I post, I have thoroughly enjoyed the blogging experience and would encourage other writers who are reluctant to take the plunge to go ahead.True, I hear stories from writers who claim blogging takes away from ‘real writing’, but I say blogging uses a different set of muscles than writing fiction.I keep my blogs short, and generally don’t write anything if I don’t feel like it.However, just as I hate lulls in the conversation, I start to get antsy if my I feel I’m neglecting my blog, and before I know it, I’ve come up with a topic or a picture that amuses or inspires me
Blogger:
· According to Blogger Stats, there have been 2,661 page views since January, when Pandora Swift Notes went live. The top referring sites are Google, Christinasbuzz (see the link on this page (thanks Christina!)), and the Online Writers Workshop for Science Fiction & Fantasy (a future post topic).
· According to Blogger Stats, my top page views by country are the USA, Malaysia, Denmark, Russia, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Canada, Australia, and the Czech Republic. I found this particularly fascinating, since I don’t think I know anyone in Malaysia, Russia, or the Czech Republic; but hello, and thanks for stopping by so often!
StatCounter:
· StatCounter tells me that 93% of my hits came from Google, 4% each came from Bing and Seznam. Surprisingly (to me, at least) Yahoo isn’t mentioned.
· My blog averages approximately
o 190 unique visitors per month
o 115 first time visits per month
o 64 returning visitors per month.
· StatCounter also tracks visit length, and 29% of visitors stayed at least 5 minutes (17% were over an hour or more)
· Interestingly, StatCounter also tells me that the most popular search terms that brought people to my site were:
· “any notes on jaws by peter benchley the story”
· “cryptozoids”
· “fantasy characterization”
Now I know that none of this stuff is particularly earth-shattering, or even notable. I’m not famous, or even published yet, but I am (slowly) building a platform, and sharing what I know with you (dear readers) as I go. I’m delighted to see the Unique and Returning visitors per month statistics, and hope to keep growing and improving Pandora Swift Notes with every entry.
To all of you who have stopped by, thank you so much. To those of you who have left your kind comments, you make my day. I love my blog.
Awww, Happy Birthday! ;-)) The world of blogging opens up so many doorways. I have connected with people I would have never otherwise been in the “proximity” to do so with. I started Tweeting for the first time this past week as well, and all I can say is WHOA, talk about connections! It’s like walking into a crowd of people and overhearing all sorts of chattering…oh, I mean tweeting 😉