Happy Birthday, little blog!
Sharon Joss Writes is two years old.
Sharon Joss Writes is two years old.
As I reviewed the blog statistics for this year, I was at first surprised to see that my numbers had dropped significantly in 2012 versus 2011. According to Statcounter, my blog received 2,029 unique visits in 2011 (roughly 169 unique visits per month), and only 1,487 unique visits in 2012 (only 123 visits per month). On the surface, at least, my blog appeared to be losing ground.
The biggest difference between 2011 and 2012 was the number of posts. In 2011, I posted 93 entries, and in 2012, only 60 (more than once per week, but significantly less than in 2011). Since the most popular bloggers post at least 3-4 times per week, I shouldn’t have been surprised, but if I didn’t believe it before, I sure do now. Lesson learned: Update my blog more often in 2013.
But I didn’t stop there. I decided to do the math and normalize the number of unique visits on a ‘per post’ basis. By dividing the number of unique visits for each year by the number of blog postings for that year, I was able to determine the number of unique visits per post. This resulted in much better news. In 2011, I averaged 22 unique visits per blog entry, and in 2012, that number averaged 25 visits per entry. And while I celebrate the +10% modest year-over-year growth, this also reiterates the point about more frequent blog posting.
Additionally, I’m putting more focus on my professional network this year. One of the nice things about checking your blog statistics on a regular basis is that they can reveal how people are coming to your blog. I always get a spike in traffic after I’ve been to a class or convention, and online forums can also bring people to your blog for a visit. If they like what you have to say, there’s a good chance they’ll become returning regulars.
Another interesting statistic to check is your most popular posts. For me, Pandora Swift Notes most popular pages are any that talk about monsters. I don’t know why, but monsters are popular topics. I like that. Monsters are a big part of what I love in genre fiction, so if people are coming to my blog to find them, I think I’m writing about the right stuff.
