Tagged: stats
2013 in Review (WordPress Annual Report)
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 59,000 times in 2013. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 22 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
For those of you wondering, yes I’m obviously still posting my own analysis tomorrow but this is a little preview if you’re curious.
The More Followers I Have, The More I Get
As you guys have realized, I’m pretty open about my blogging stats. I like analyzing them and hearing your thoughts on things like why certain articles are doing well or why traffic could be down in a given month. But one thing has been puzzling me of late: followers.
You see, I was flipping through my ‘Trophies’ in WordPress (which is a feature that shows when you achieved certain milestones in likes, comments or followers) and saw that I had 200 followers on January 31, 2013. That’s a year and a couple weeks after I started my blog. I figured that was pretty good, getting 200 followers in only a year considering that I don’t blog on controversial things that get lots of clicks.
Then I noticed another trophy: I had 500 followers on September 26, 2013. Less than 9 months after getting my 200 follower trophy, I suddenly had 500 followers. That’s 300 followers in less than 9 months. Considering it took me a little over a year to get just 200 followers you could say it took me by surprise. Then I started thinking: the more followers a blog has, the more new followers it seems to get. But why is that?
Is it because people seem more attracted to bloggers who look like they have their act together? Or is it because they see a good commenting community? Could it be because more people hear other people talking about the blog? It’s hard to say.
What do you think? Why do blogs with more followers have an easier time getting new followers than smaller blogs?
The Best and Worst of July 2013
Well, July was actually a pretty good month for me. I got some serious reviewing in, writing 7 reviews in one day and 5 in another (and spacing the rest out like I normally do). I also did some serious reading and have begun requesting more from NetGalley which I really shouldn’t considering my author backlog. Ah, the wonders of procrastination!
Overall monthly views are down from last July (3,937 compared to 4,350 last July), but that doesn’t really concern me at this point. It may be that WordPress changed the way they’re counting statistics or it could be that people weren’t visiting my site as much. It’s not a big deal considering that I began the month with 413 followers and ended with 462! Followers are more important than views to me, so getting almost 50 views in one month is quite an accomplishment. It seems that the more followers I already have, the more I attract.
But enough rambling. Let’s take a look at the 5 best articles of July 2013:
1. Why Girls Hate Game of Thrones—A Rebuttal
2. The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome
3. How to Write a Review Request
4. My Least Favourite Book Tropes
5. The White Queen by Philippa Gregory
For once, there are four newcomers to the top 5 list, three of which were published just in July. My Game of Thrones article is frankly, no surprise. I published it at the beginning of the month and am still averaging 15 views per day on it. It’s particularly SEO friendly and clicky so it’s spread around through social media more than my rants usually do. Similarily, How to Write a Review Request and My Least Favourite Book Tropes were articles/rants that were easily shared and promoted discussion. And of course, The Hunger Games and Ancient Rome continues its streak at the top. As for The White Queen, well, The White Princess just released and there’s quite a bit of buzz surrounding the series at the moment.
So what articles were the worst 5 this month?
2. The Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean M. Auel
3. There Comes a Prophet by David Litwack
4. Kushiel’s Scion by Jacqueline Carey
5. Look What Just Arrived! (#3)
Again, no real surprises here. They’re all either self published books, old books or old articles. It’s a shame that so many good books end up on my bottom 5 list in terms of hits, but it doesn’t change the fact that they’re still good books. It would just be nice for the authors to have a little more publicity, especially in the case of indies.
So that was how my July went: a blur of books and work (ah, tourist season). How was yours? Are you reading anything interesting?
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 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?