Saturday, October 06, 2007

Stats so far

I like to do this updates once a year. There are any number of anniversaries I could pick for the start of this blog. It began in March 2005, lasted 10 posts and went the way of many blogs. Then it came back to life in September of that year, shortly after I moved to the north.

But the one I can certainly keep track of was when I signed up to use Statcounter, which was October 5, 2005. And as that anniversary just past, I figured it was worth taking a look to see what my traffic was like in the second year compared to the first.

So from October 2005 to September 2006, this is what my stats looked like"



Or, I had 39,259 page loads from 26,697 unique visitors.

Now, this is what October 2006 to September 2007 looked like:



In that 12 month period I had 58,602 page loads from 42,851 unique visitors. Essentially, I had a 50 per cent increase in page loads and visitors from one year to the next.

It's no doubt greedy that I would have liked a bigger increase. I was actually hoping for something close to a 100 per cent increase, but that was probably unrealistic. And while I have done things like update the blog almost daily, which helps traffic, there are certainly other measures to boost traffic that I didn't use. I don't link enough, my blog's focus is rather scattershot and it's certainly not the prettiest one around.

In terms of Newfoundland blogs, I figure it makes me mid to upper range. Certainly not in Ed Hollett or Damian Penny territory, but pretty respectable. For a Nunavut blogger I guess I would be near the top. Then again, there are probably only 20 of us who update on a regular basis, I won't brag too much about that.

What does all this mean? Pretty much nothing. I don't make a cent from the blog. I've never seen the need to put ads on the blog because I would only make pennies off of it. And that little change isn't worth making the site look ugly.

I just like know there are people who read the blog and that maybe they get some enjoyment out of it. There's also something else to take into account. When I worked with The Express, I had a reasonably popular column. The circulation of The Express was 40,000 a week. Assuming a third of those papers were dumped by the carriers without ever being delivered (and you thought you had carrier problems, Kate) or tossed by people without it being looked at, and then throw in some more who simply hated what I wrote (hard to believe, but they do exist), maybe 20,000 to 25,000 people read me a week. I had 42,000 pop by to visit in a year.

Ah well. Back to reality...

4 comments:

Matt, Kara, Hunter and Cavan said...

Well I am still entertained so I will keep visiting! You always come up with interesting terms such as "consumer whore" that keep me coming back. I think a doggy update should happen soon though!

jen said...

I like the fact that you haven't switched to the dark side and put adverts up on your page! It's nice to see people displaying their creative talents and not essentially charing for it!

Kate Nova said...

I agree with Jen, though I wouldn't blame you if you did. You obviously put a lot of work into all of your writing. Personally, I don't know how you do it. At the end of a work week, I don't feel like writing another single word, EVER. :)

towniebastard said...

I think one of the reasons for that, Kate, is you write a lot more at work than I do. When I was a journalist I didn't have the umph left to do regular blog posts either. Let's just say my current employer doesn't fully tap my creative writing skills. And if I don't write every day, I get cranky.

And there is some merit to not wanting to write for a blog when you've been hard at work writing other things. The past six weeks I've been trying to write a book. I'm averaging about 2,000 words a day. More than once I haven't wanted to do a blog post after churning that much out. It makes me that much more impressed with authors who blog.

As for the ads, why bother. I know people with triple of more the traffic I get and make pennies a month off those things. Not worth it.