Tagged: blogging stats
The Best and Worst of June 2013
Yes, my post is late today! Well, that’s because it’s Canada Day and I’m sick (again) with a sore throat and runny nose. Nothing unusual there so don’t panic; I’m just feeling miserable and am a little crankier than usual.
If you look at the stats for this time last year, they went down as well as most of my traffic seems to come from students looking for help on school assignments. That’s why in June I only received 3,803 views and 2, 014 unique visitors. Still respectable, but nothing really to brag about.
So on that note, let’s look at what my top posts in June 2013 were:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. Why no Writer Wants to Tackle Chronic Pain
4. End of Days by Eric Walters
5. An Apology to Self-Published Writers
None of these is really that surprising. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome has made this list every month since May 2012 and the rest are either novel study books or are particularly clicky articles that people read, shared and commented on. Obviously that drove the views through the roof for these particular articles.
So then what were the worst articles/book reviews in June?
3. Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins
4. The 3 Best Books to Read in the Bathroom
5. Rot & Ruin by Jonathon Maberry
None of these is all that surprising seeing as some are not particularly popular self-published books or books from older series that have already been finished. The only real puzzler here is Rot & Ruin by Jonathon Maberry because while it’s not the most popular book ever written, it does have a decent fan base. Oh well; that’s just how it goes sometimes.
The Best and Worst of May 2013
Well, I’ve come around full circle. Last year in May I started my Best and Worst of… series and never thought I’d still be doing it a year later. But it turns out I like analyzing my stats and hearing your thoughts on them as well. Therefore, I’ll now be adding years to the series.
Anyway, May was a record-breaking month, surpassing February, March and April in terms of page views in one month. In the month of May I received 4,627 page views, with 2,508 of those being unique views. That’s pretty good and I’m hoping it will continue to be a trend. So what were some of the best posts for this month? Let’s take a look:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. End of Days by Eric Walters
3. An Apology to Self-Published Writers
4. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
Amazingly, there’s two articles up here that were just published this month, rather than the same old articles I’ve had up for a year. I’m proud to say that my apology to self-published writers reached so many people and got such a great response. I thought long and hard on publishing that article, but decided that doing the right thing was more important than my embarrassment at admitting I was wrong. The reading speed article did surprisingly well, likely because it really engaged a lot of people. It was fascinating to see how fast other people, both regular readers and book bloggers read.
Now for the worst articles of May:
4. Run Like Jäger by Karen Bass
5. Victoria: May Blossom of Britannia by Anna Kirwan
When you think about it, none of these are really surprising. Some are old books that were never popular to begin with, some are the first books in trilogies that are or almost are finished and one is a self-published book. The latter, The Show by John Heldt, is a great novel, but it just doesn’t seem to be getting much traffic lately.
Well, that was pretty much how my May went. How was yours? Are you reading anything good at the moment?
The Best and Worst of April
Well I’m happy to report that my total views are up since March, reaching 3,748 instead of 3, 548. Part of that I credit with the fact I reviewed books by authors who publicized my posts and the fact that I had a huge giveaway in conjunction with Carla Hanna. Giveaways always bring up statistics.
Enough about that for now. What were the most popular posts for April?
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
2. Giveaway: Starlet’s Web & Starlet’s Run by Carla J. Hanna
3. End of Days by Eric Walters
5. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
I definitely have my theory as to why my Hunger Games article soared to the top this month: a teacher is using it in their curriculum. How do I know this? I followed the link that was giving me so many referrals and logged in as a guest on Owensboro Public Schools Moodle (an online correspondence course tool). It seems my article is being used to help teach The Hunger Games to students and that makes me very, very happy. I suspect some school(s) is/are doing a novel study about Eric Walters’ End of Days because it fits in with the themes that are supposed to be covered in most curricula. As for the others, they’re very popular books or giveaways; those things normally get plenty of traffic.
So if The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome is at the top, what are some of the bottom ones?
1. Kaiulani: The People’s Princess by Ellen Emerson White
2. Why Books Should be Rated on a Logarithmic Scale
3. The Host by Stephenie Meyer
5. Lady of Palenque: Flower of Bacal by Anna Kirwan
What’s not surprising is seeing two books from The Royal Diaries on here, but I’m disappointed that Margaret’s hilarious guest post Why Books Should be Rated on a Logarithmic Scale isn’t doing so well. It’s definitely not for a lack of effort or creativity on her part, but I suppose it isn’t all that clicky (not a lot of keywords people search for). As for The Host and Extras, they’re not exactly the most popular books around, but with The Host movie coming out you’d think there’d be more traffic. Oh well; it wasn’t the most flattering review anyway.
That’s how my April went. How was yours? Anything new going on with you guys?
The Best and Worst of March
No, this is not some weird April Fool’s day joke. Honest. Although, looking at my stats this month, I sort of wish it was. My overall monthly views are up from February at 3,488 hits and 1,998 unique views, but they are still lagging behind the record-setting month of January. This very likely has to do with me taking so many holidays and posting reviews of obscure books. Obscure books = less search engine traffic = less overall views. I’m happy to say that as far as I know, I’m home all of April, so we’ll see if this is a new disturbing trend or only temporary.
Now here are my 5 best posts for March:
1. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton
5. What Makes a Character Memorable?
We have two newcomers this month! Both 1984 by George Orwell and my article What Makes a Character Memorable? are completely new to my Best and Worst series. I have to say that this is a refreshing change from the usual five that top this list. Of course some of the regulars are still there, but at least there seems to be more traffic going to my newer articles. What about my ‘worst’ articles, though?
2. A Curse as Dark as Gold by Elizabeth C. Bunce
3. The Fourth Wall by Walter Jon Williams
4. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare
Once again, every single book at the list of the worst five articles is completely new. Notice that they’re all book reviews too? It seems my articles are more popular, as I observed long ago. Well, at least the good news is that my worst articles keep rotating and aren’t like the best articles where it’s pretty much the same 5 every month.
So how did March go for you?
Happy Birthday to The Mad Reviewer!
Yes, tomorrow is The Mad Reviewer’s one year anniversary! One year ago, at around 5:00pm CT I signed up for WordPress and started blogging with a pathetically short welcome post. On my first day I had 18 hits and one comment from a friend I knew in real life. Now on my blog’s anniversary I’m averaging a little less than 200 hits a day and about 10 comments a week. Yes, I’m not the biggest fish out there in the sea, but I certainly have more reach than I used to.
As a treat tomorrow, I’m going to tell you where the heck I got the idea to start a blog. Why I decided on my name, my niche and my blogging style, etc. I’m also hoping to run a couple giveaways this month as a thanks to my followers, so stay tuned for another year of madness!