Six years of blogging—yahoo! I’ve taken the advice of writing pundits that I should blog as an author, so I did it sporadically and half-heartedly for four years. I didn’t do regular posts. I wasn’t committed. I didn’t know what to do.
Then in 2017, my husband and I took a fabulous trip to Ireland and England, and it hit me–blog about every day of the trip. We were gone for 23 days, so I had topics for twenty-three posts, and I was off and running. I realized the power in having planned blogs. My statistics changed, and in 2018, I hit it full tilt. I grew exponentially in 2019! Now I have a database of topics for 2020 already.
Last year, I looked at my first five years, and the data opened my eyes! Today, I wanted to take this opportunity to look at the statistics of my blogging and thoughtfully consider what’s working and what needs to be tweaked! Let’s look at my statistics for the last six years:
For the first two years I had 207 views but my visitors increase. In 2016 views more than doubled and visitors increased also. In 2017 again, views increased but visitors more than doubled. But 2018, my numbers went off the map! My views increased more than six times and the visitors jumped by seven times. Wow!
In 2019, I more than doubled my views and visits from 2018. I moved my website to wordpresscom so the blog and website sit together, and I think that’s helped.
Over the years I increased my posts, and last year I posted on a regular weekly basis–some weeks I posted twice a week. Readers like regular blog posts, and they like more. Regularly, I post one blog post a week, but last year I added some at the holidays and did that again this year.
Here’s how many posts I have published in six years:
- 2014 – 7
- 2015 – 16
- 2016 – 6
- 2017 – 22
- 2018 – 55
- 2019 – 66
Let’s look at specifics from 2019. My most popular post published was “Why Knit?” with 1939 views. Experts say to ask a question in your title and I saw that suggestion improve visitation. “Home” visitation of my website was the second popular, so moving my website is the reason for that!
What was your favorite blog post of mine in 2019?
I love the growth statistics this last year, but I continue to have two disappointing statistics: likes and comments.
Likes:
- 2014 – 0
- 2015 – 1
- 2016 – 8
- 2017 – 45
- 2018 – 136
- 2019 – 57
A major decrease from last year shocked me. What do I do to encourage more likes on the wordpress site?
Comments:
- 2014 – 0
- 2015 – 2
- 2016 – 77
- 2017 – 8
- 2018 – 48
- 2019 – 0
Many visitors interact on Facebook with likes and comments but don’t go out to wordpress.com to like and comment. How do I move the reader to go out to my blog and respond?
I want more interaction with my visitors. I end each blog with questions to stimulate conversation, so help me out. What do I need to do? What would make you like and/or comment more on my blog?
Visitors to my blog come from all over the world which fascinates me, so what countries visited my blog last year and how many did I have from the top countries?
2019
- United States – 4893
- Pakistan – 593
- Algeria – 520
- Turkey – 485
- Nepal – 425
- India & Mynamar (Burma) – 149
2018
- United States – 3962
- Australia – 108
- Canada – 103
- United Kingdom – 69
- Germany – 36
- Ireland – 34
- India – 26
- Japan – 25
- Hong Kong (China) – 19
- Sweden – 8
Notice the directional movement in readership of my blog from 2018 to 2019. It’s amazing the difference.
In 2019, other countries who visited my blog were Venezuela, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Libya, Ireland, China, Egypt, Philippines, Bolivia, Tunisia, Japan, United Kingdom, Chile, Canada, Argentina, Morocco, Sri Lanka, Iraq, France, Australia, Brazil, Albania, Nicaragua, Afghanistan, Mexico, Bhutan, Ecuador, Germany, Somalia, Colombia, Guinea, Georgia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Italy, Serbia, Sweden, Malaysia, Romania, South Africa, Paraguay, Russia, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, Honduras, Hungary, Mali, Surname, United Arab Emirates, Netherlands, Thailand, Cambodia, Palestinian Territories, Saudi Arabia, Dominican Republic, Guyana, Ukraine, Peru, Austria, Macedonia, Namibia, New Zealand, Guatemala, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Poland, Haiti, Finland, Costa Rica, Senegal, Armenia, Hong Kong SAR China, Tanzania, Singapore, Kenya, Croatia, Cameroon, Laos, Mauritius, Lebanon, Fiji, Tonga, Niger, Cote d’lvoire, Spain, Samoa, Lithuania, Taiwan, Malta, Greece, Vietnam, Zambia, Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Maldives, Barbados, Benin, Liberia, Jordan, Sierra Leone, Vanuatu, Congo – Brazzaville, South Sudan, Timor-Leste, Yemen, South Korea, Belgium, Uzbekistan, Panama, Qatar, Portugal, Czech Republic, Uganda, European Union, Belize, Mozambique, Congo – Kinshasa, Comoros, Madagascar, Bahamas, Iran, Denmark, American, Samoa, Trinidad & Tobago, Gambia, Chad, Norway, Cape Verde, Rwanda, Kazakhstan, Burundi, Puerto Rico, Kuwait, Uruguay, Brunei, U. S. Virgin Islands, Moldova, Caribbean Netherlands, French Polynesia, and Reunion.
In 2018, readers from 29 countries have visited my blog in 2018; in 2019, it grew to 150 countries! OMG! I changed something this year—I paid for an ad, but at the beginning of March, I selected “Worldwide” when forming my audience, and that made all the difference.
So, why did you come to my blog from such far-away places? Let me know.
I continue to add quality photographs and graphics because of good blog design.
Over 84% of all marketing strategies use images, popular GIFs, graphics, animations, and signs among others to pass information. Visual communication has more impact in passing information to people.
In 2020, I plan to include these topics this year:
- Our Travels
- Square Dancing
- MAJOR FOCUS: Marshall Flippo and promoting my new book
- Personal life stories
- Being 65 and fully alive
- HolidaY highlights
- Ranch life in southeastern Colorado
- My 16-year-old cat, Jesse
What would you like to hear about? I’m open!
All-in-all, my blog has become a major focus of my writing career, so stick around and see where we go this next year!
~Whitey & Gladys Puerling were playful friends of Flippo’s who created a Fan Club. I thought it would be fun to recreate this group. Would you like to join the Marshall Flippo Fan Club Facebook page? Read interesting posts about Flippo’s life. https://www.facebook.com/groups/328325644382769/
~I HAVE OVER 200 PRE-ORDERS FOR THE MARSHALL FLIPPO BIOGRAPHY! You, too, can pre-order this amazing story? You can select which paper format or e-book format you would like. Go here to order the version you want. Monthly SWAG Giveaways! https://goo.gl/forms/4D4hwbHdme1fvJc42
~Visit my Etsy Shop, Larada’s Reading Loft for digital or paper copies of all my books: https://www.etsy.com/shop/LaradasReadingLoft
