The Meaning of Blog Numbers
I’m tidying up the blog – and my house – ahead of the double move. It’s throwing up lots of different numbers:
Numbers
- 468 published posts
- 3,016 comments
- 76 categories (oh dear!)
- 2 published e-books
- 12 ingredients of confident writing
- 10 authors who’ve guest written here
- 5 being the number of my new page rank
- 486 trackbacks of which 422 sp*m
- 22 podcasts
- 606 subscribers – thank you! *
- 23,167 unique visitors in the second quarter of this year
- 1: the complete value of a comment that makes me think, smile, wonder, hope
Do you ever stop and wonder what all the numbers mean? Which blogging numbers do you focus on, celebrate, ignore, or wonder at?
*yesterday anyway – I know the numbers go up and down… but this was the first time over 600
Photo Credit: One Two Three Four Five Six Seven by Thomas Hawk on Flickr
All it takes is one… One reader, one comment, one e-mail to make your content matter and make it all worth-while. Sure I look at the statistics, subscribers, etc. But I still always just appreciate that anyone…any 1 person, is reading…
And then there’s the percent of global Internet users who visit your site: 0.00041% over the last month, a slight drop from 0.00044% in the last quarter. And when you consider Google only managed 2.22% it kinda puts it all into perspective doesn’t it?
I’m not saying numbers aren’t important but they need to be taken with a pinch of salt. I regularly get 100+ hits every day (which considering I only post twice a week is good) but how many are genuine readers and how many are just passing through? When I look at my comments for example it always seems to boil down to the same dozen or so people and it sometimes feels as if I’m only writing for them.
Personally I just get on with the job and let the numbers take care of themselves.
It’s amazing how many statistics make up a great blog, Joanna.
I’m fascinated to learn of your ebook and podcasting activities. These alternative forms of connecting with an audience certainly appeal to me.
The ‘how to’ guides on these communication channels are currently being read – along with the 1,000 + 1 other bits of information.
Oh, and that’s another number to add to the list!
Ricardo, all it takes is one – indeed. Sometimes it’s good to focus on that one person – I find that looking at the bigger numbers or thinking about lots of eyes upon me makes my fingers freeze. Focusing on the one makes it easy and enjoyable.
Jim – interesting numbers you’ve thrown into the mix there! I know a lot of people pass through – often only for a few seconds. I guess the good thing about blogs is that it does offer the opportunity for slower visits too, and conversations – even if it’s only a fraction of the people who visit or read who want to join in.
Scott, hope you enjoy the other materials. I have to say when I was compiling this list I was thinking about the number of (wo)man hours that had gone into the creation of this blog! I’ve stopped doing the podcasts just now – they seem effortful for some reason. The e-books are fun though (although still a lot of work)
Joanna
Joanna, two of those stats jumped out at me. 600+ subscribers is fantastic. (Are those individual post subscribers or RSS subscribers to your blog? Either way is impressive.) The other stat, which caught your attention as well I see, is 76 categories. How are you planning to deal with that with your WordPress move?
Brad, those are the RSS subscribers.
76 categories – I know. What was I thinking of?! I don’t really notice just now because I’ve got them hiding in a drop down list, but I’m going to whittle it down to about a dozen before the move. In fact that’s what I’m doing – laboriously – just now.
So many blogging things you wish you’d known at the outset…
Joanna
Joanna, I had to laugh about the 76 categories! When I moved from Blogger to WordPress I realized that I obviously did not know the meaning of category and seemingly created a new one with each post. LOL! Even now, I want to pare down a bit more to just 3-4. Congrats on the subscribers, and page rank! These are all great numbers to celebrate! I tend to ignore the numbers, all of them. LOL! Of course when it comes to money, different story!
Karen, it’s just too easy to create new ones isn’t it? I was thinking yesterday (as I edited and deleted) that they should introduce some kind of payment system to ration them – so you have to buy a token or something to be allowed a new category, otherwise they just end up growing like topsy.
I’m down to about a dozen now – will try and stick to them when I move.
How’s your own redesign going – are the covers coming off soon?
Joanna
LOL! I love that idea of tokens, lol! I have my theme files and should be ready to unveil this month. I am very excited. Ah, if only redesigning ourselves were that easy! I am looking forward to your double move too! Wont’ it be wonderful to greet the Autumn season as we snuggle into our new quarters and take on new challenges?
Karen
I’m looking forward to seeing the new design Karen.
You made me laugh thinking about redesigning ourselves. I can think of several plugins I’d love to be able to download and apply so I functioned better!
Joanna
Take care not to obsess over numbers. They can depress, distress, make you feel less. I don’t believe numbers can give a true ROI for blogging and other social media activities.
It’s the people you meet, the conversations you participate in (outside of your blog), and the off site conversations.
Not saying to ignore numbers either… probably a good thing is to watch for trends. I tell ya, though… I don’t like tagging. If my tags would link to a search site or something so people can look for other sites on the same tags… that’s cool, but that’s not how my blog uses tags. Categories are better. Drives me nuts trying to figure out if a tag should be freelance, freelancer(s), freelancing. It’s nuts!
Meryl, what great (poetic!) advice: “They can depress, distress, make you feel less.” Problogger had an interesting piece on this a while back – that focusing too much on your ‘success’ was risky, because if things turned down you wouldn’t have enough of your own sense of worth to hold onto and carry you through.
The conversations and relationships are the stuff that makes it real and worthwhile – and also the things that motivate us over and over when we hit a dip.
I guess you’ve learned many different ways to keep motivating yourself over such a long haul
Tags and categories are perplexing. I think I’ve been using categories like tags. My tags do ping to technorati – but I’m not sure people use technorati too much any more. Maybe they serve some purpose somewhere in the depths of the internet…
Joanna
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