This blog passed a few landmarks in the last couple of days, so I thought it was worth marking them - with a blog post! It was twelve months ago this week that I honoured a new year's resolution and opened my Posterous account and began blogging.
I had had a few attempts before but this one seems to have taken, with more than 70 posts in that time, which is more than one a week.
Just yesterday it passed 12,000 unique views. Actual hits (the same person visiting many posts) has become impossible now to measure just how many hits that is after 60 posts (I have to do that manually by adding up the hits on each post) but all are now in triple figures and some are as many as one or two thousand. In the last few days, two posts even passed the 3,000 mark (this one and this one - both of which about the recent Australian Federal Election).
I'm trying to illustrate the power of blogging. I don't have an advertising budget, i haven't taken out bill boards or pages in the newspaper. This traffic is only the combination of social networking (Twitter and Facebook) and the wonders of SEO or search engine optimization (otherwise known as Google juice). As a communications professional, I've become very interested in this. Dont get me wrong, I'm mainly doing this because I *love* writing. But it's been very interesting watching the machinery evolve. Early on, if I didn't promote a post on a social network, it would accrue almost no hits at all. However, just the other day, one post accrued only slightly less than quite normal traffic but without any network promotion at all. I just posted it. While my analytics are very basic, I cannot tell where much of the traffic is coming from. I must assume the real magic here is the tags. I have noticed for instance, anything with the tag "Obama" can go nuts! Also, generous mentions by bloggers commanding far larger audiences - such as Kate Carruthers - goes a long way (thanks Kate!).
As well as the sheer love of writing, and a curiosity about the medium, a key driver for setting this up was an understanding that it is a very good form of mental self-investment - akin to painting (the recommendation of the Seventh Habit of Highly effective people - sharpening the saw). I have derived tremendous satisfaction and enjoyment from the process and would recommend it to anyyone. However, I would say that very few of the posts have been as cathartic and rewarding as one of the very first I wrote, a year ago tomorrow, so I thought it deserved another plug as its traffic levels are sadly meagre by comparison to it's subsequent fellows.
In the year ahead I'd like to do more kooky posts like this one; and write more movie reviews like this one
If you have been reading, thanks very much for stopping by - I *really* appreciate every visit - and I hope you continue to do so:-)