Since today is a bit of a milestone for my blog, I thought I’d take this moment to express my amazement of the follow set of statistics.
400 Posts
This post that I’m writing right now is my 400th post. To many of the bloggers whom I follow and commerce with that won’t seem like a huge deal because some of them have thousands of posts. But to me, it’s positively amazing. I gained access to the internet sometime around the fourth grade, and in that time I’ve hopped on several bandwagons and tried dozens of times to express myself in one way or another. I’ve “designed” websites (oh…dear Geocities…) and been an active member of several forum communities; I’ve posted web-comics and even had a couple of other blogs. but I never stuck with any of them. Eventually they would get boring, or I would fail to find the time to keep up with them, or some other issue would send me wandering non-nonchalantly in the other direction. But this blog? I’ve stuck with this, even when I couldn’t think of anything to write, and even when I didn’t have the time. I’ve stuck with it for 400 posts and almost two years straight, and I have to admit that knowing that makes me very proud of myself. Maybe I am becoming a responsible adult after all.
336 Comments
Oftentimes I’ve found myself wondering at the lack of comments on my blog. I see that people are reading my posts, but rarely does it seem that anyone takes the time to say anything. But today I saw this number – 336 – and thought, “You know what? That’s not too shabby.” My blog, after all, is not a viral sensation. I’m not a famous person that people flock to speak to, and even 400 posts is nothing in the grand scheme of the internet, so 336 comments is actually a pretty decent collection. So thank you to everyone who took the time. š
Best Ever: 208 Views
Again, to many bloggers this number is going to seem piddly, but to me it’s simply amazing. On March 18th, 2013 I wrote a post expressing my feelings about my grandfather’s death and sharing some of my favorite memories of him, and 208 people read it. For a small-time blogger like me the thought that 208 people came to my blog on a single day and, for a few moments, shared in my grief is absolutely unbelievable. Someday I hope to break that record, but for now I just say thank you for choosing that particular post to show that you’re here.
13,524 Views
Someday I hope to have the kind of blog that gets this number of views in a month, but for the time being I’m amazed to know that my blog has gotten this many views since it’s beginnings. As mentioned earlier I’ve had several webpages since I first started being allowed to roam the internet, and I’m quite certain that this number is the highest one I’ve ever seen for views on something of mine.
103 Blog Followers
I don’t count Twitter and Facebook followers in this stat because, let’s face it, most of my Facebook followers are family members, and most of my Twitter followers are fellow writers who may or may not have the time or care to bother with my blog. But on WordPress itself, the follow specifically meant for reading blogs, I have recently surpassed 100 followers. Again, someday I hope that my blog gets that many followers in a month, but given the relative infancy of my blog I’m amazed and gratified that more than 100 people have said to themselves, “Yeah, I want to keep an eye on this blog and read what the author posts.”
And so here we are, me and my 400 posts, my personal-record-breaking views, and my followers with their comments. It’s been an excellent run so far, and I hope it continues far, far into the future. Cheers!
No Page Left Blank 
Add another comment to that count. I hear you on that. I’m about to post my 200th post on my writing blog (my Japan blog already has more than 500 posts, 1950 comments, 67.237 views, and a best 389 views in one day (the day after the big earthquake in Japan in 2011), but I don’t feel it’s my “main blog” anymore. I’ve refocused on writing, and that blog doesn’t get as much commenting as I’d like. But I do enjoy looking at the numbers. Congrats on number 400!
One problem, I believe, with blogs like ours is that we tend to talk a lot about the process of writing, what’s going on with our writing, and how certain aspects of life relate to our writing, which is really only interesting to other writers. Have you ever noticed that some of the posts that get the most visitors are the ones that had nothing to do with your normal blogging (i.e. my good-bye post to my grandfather)?
Yeah, I have noticed. I do a lot of reviewing, though. But that generates about the same interest as writing. But recently, my most popular post has the word “sex” in it. It’s all about population growth in a colony world. It was interesting to see that the number of hits on that post was similar to the number of visits from South Korea. Isn’t that odd?
I’m finding the more follower I have, the more followers I get – meaning, I used to be excited when I got 3-5 followers a week. Now, I’m getting 3-5 followers a day. I think a good number are spam, but the majority seem to be real people. However, this has not increased my view count per day by much.
One thing you can do to increase interaction on your blog is to ask conversational questions at the end. They are not always answered, but it helps open the door.
400 is a lot of posts, so good job sticking with it!
I long for the day when I get multiple followers per day! lol
I do actually try to ask conversational questions at the end of a lot of my posts, particularly ones about kids, but I don’t see a lot of difference in interaction between the posts in which I do this and the ones in which I don’t. Of course, that could just be because I don’t have all that many followers yet, so there’s fewer people to potentially interact.
Here’s hoping that things will keep moving up in the future because I plan to stick with this blog for a long time. š