One of those boring entries ABOUT blogging. Feel free to move along if you’re not a blogger.
Recently a someone asked me how I recommended they increase their traffic as, “My stats have only gone up, like 5% in the last year.” Heh. And you’re coming to me…WHY? I am constantly caught off guard when people assume I know about successful blogging. I dont make money of my site, I’m not on any sort of A-list of SUPER ENTERTAINING BLOGGERS. And I’m most certainly NOT an expert in traffic. Especially since my numbers have been consistently declining since I signed up for Sitemeter in 2006.
August 2006 thru March 2007
This was my first few months of stats reported from Sitemeter when I signed up in 2006. I had been blogging since January 2004, but I had only kept up with the stats that came on my server. Since they don’t keep “archive” stats, I decided to sign up at Sitemeter just so I could compare over time. But I’m going to be very honest with you – I don’t look at my stats anymore. I used to. Just like all bloggers I went through phases where I would obsessed over them and critiqued my entries based on how they affected my traffic. And then, one day, I just stopped caring. Maybe because I just was happy with where I was, maybe because I didn’t like what it did to my content. Either way – I swear to all that is holy – I stopped checking my stats.
Every few months I log in just to make sure everything is still working, but other than that? The only gauge I have on my traffic is the comments I get on entries. And while I’ve noticed that declining over the years, I just stopped fretting over it. I felt like I knew the cause anyway. Some of it was that my traffic was only high originally because bigger bloggers than I had linked to me a few times and people started reading me because of the association. However, I’m not as funny or as entertaining as those other bloggers so after awhile, those new readers stopped reading. I knew that, and I wasn’t going to stress over it. I’m well aware I’m not as entertaining as many who link to me, I read those same women daily because they crack me up. I only crack myself up once in awhile.
I also was aware of what many infertile bloggers are aware of, blogging about infertility tends to increase traffic. Women struggling with the same problems seek solace in our stories. Therefore, the Google searches that make my heart hurt (“Multiple Miscarriages,” “Can’t Stay Pregnant,” “Why Does My Uterus Hate Babies?”) – usually lead people to my site. I enjoyed that for awhile, a community of shared struggles. But I knew when I stopped writing about Trying To Conceive or Trying To Stay Pregnant, my traffic would drop. Since I knew the cause of the decline, I didn’t need to put numbers on the actual drop. I was afraid it might depress me. I was happier not knowing.
But – I wanted to prove how little I knew about increasing traffic so I pulled up the past 12 months to compare to the first year on Sitemeter.
March 2009 thru March 2010
First glance it doesn’t look like that huge of a drop. Then you have to pay attention to the TOP of each graph. Sitemeter is kind enough to adjust the range of the graph so that your highest traffic month sets the limit. This is the comparison ADJUSTED to match quantities.
Went from 60K to 20K in 44 months
I’ll be honest. I’m not exactly sure what those numbers on the side mean. Does that include repeat visitors? Spam bots? Unique hits? Who knows. Doesn’t matter anyway because I’m just focusing on the relationship between the two charts. The change. I went from 60K to 20K in 44 months. That’s a HUGE drop. I guess that’s about a 66% decline in traffic over a few years? Aren’t you supposed to go UP in traffic the longer you blog? Heh.
Anyway – my point? I’m happy with my blog. I have never felt more at peace with my online life. I have many good friends and many loyal readers and many times? Those two are one and the same. I get good comments that make me smile and I find new blogs constantly to add to my own Google Reader. After time sometimes I remove blogs that no longer intrigue me, so if people have done that with my RSS feeds? Grown apart from my writings? I’m okay with that. If we just added to the blogs we read and never removed any, we’d all have grown into our desk chairs by now.
Now, if my decline continues and I only have 12 readers over a month in March 2015? Then maybe I’ll rethink my strategy. But for now? I’m completely at peace with where I’m at. And I think – in honor of that? I want us to share some of our favorite “new” blogs we’ve discovered. I’m going to give you a few Newbies (To my Feed Reader, not necessarily to blogging itself) to check out. And then I want you to tell ME about someone new. Try to recommend someone who gets lets than 10 comments on their entries so we can spread the love to people who will notice our affection. These are three from my own Google Reader list that I don’t think I’ve ever linked to before (outside, maybe, my sidebar) – so they’re “new” to you guys. I also probably don’t comment on their sites enough (Because I don’t comment on ANY sites enough) so this makes me feel less stalkerish by linking to them here.
Feet Firmly Planted who has a great photo up right now from a gun shop that made me literally GUFFAW.
Yummy Sushi Pajamas who writes very truthfully about the struggles of motherhood.
Gigglepotamus whose husband I met at a blogger event last year but who also does some amazingly creative projects that make me swoon and want to be adopted by her.
So…who do YOU recommend?
Thanks for the link! Honestly, I know everyone (including me) wants to have tons of readers, but if everyone starts blogging for stats, the blogosphere will change in a way that I don’t think is positive. We blog because we have something to say, because we need help or support, or think something hilarious happened and want to share it. I don’t want it to be the sort of place where we blog because it attracts new eyeballs.
I love your blog.
This was a great post and I REALLY found myself relating to it. I can get way too caught up in my blog’s stats and forget what I’m actually writing about sometimes. I usually gauge the popularity by how many comments I get, but sometimes that doesn’t even reflect how many people are visiting. It’s better to not stress about it, I say. Well, you said it first, but I’m agreeing.
I love my real-life friend Natali to death and her blog is great. She is crazy-busy with her job and still manages to do all these amazing things for and with her little family. She posts recipes that I copy every week. http://onmywaythere-nc.blogspot.com
I recommend…
Life on Its Own Terms (http://www.itsownterms.com/)- A very brave, very personal look into one woman’s struggle with addictions and recovery
Rancid Raves (http://rancidraves.blogspot.com/) for being one of those blogs that makes me think, and evaluate
and
Single Solitary Things (http://singlesolitarythings.blogspot.com/) for telling the struggles of a single, Christian woman in her search for love and family.
Please don’t change! I *think* I might have found you from Amalah’s (Amy’s) list of blogs on her site. I love it here, there’s so much you write about that makes me say ME TOO! I hope I can be very much like you when I have a teenager, and the ways you handle NikkiZ and her unique personality makes me want to take notes because I foresee needing your experience to help me get through the teenager in a toddler’s body years that I have in front of me. I should comment more, that’s my blogging weakness.
For the first time in four years, I’m happy with my blog (save for its being down most of the day today — grrr), and my traffic is close to nil. I tried the personal blogging thing, ’cause that’s what girls do, and I sucked royally at it. I tried to blog about the things I saw on other blogs (crafts, Amy Winehouse — this was 2006/07), and while my traffic spiked for a while and I was picked for my local paper’s “blog of the week” feature, I hated it and felt like a big ol’ phony. I have no idea who my target audience is anymore, and there’s a good chance it’s just me, but I’m okay with that.
Please excuse my ignorance, but can Sitemeter keep track of people reading in Google Reader? Because since I discovered Google Reader, I only click through if I want to leave a comment or read the comments, or if the blogger mentions a new site design. Otherwise, I stick to Reader. You kindly provide a full feed, so maybe your numbers are dropping because people are reading the feed instead? Otherwise it makes no sense! Your posts are funny, your photos are fabulous (the toddler-tossing ones are my favourite), and I have to say I’ve recently enjoyed reading about your foray into the world of cooking.
I enjoy:
http://www.parsingnonsense.com/ and http://mrsdashoff.wordpress.com/
I love reading your blog and following you on Twitter. But today I laughed while reading this post for a totally different reason. At the beginning of the post you said, “I am constantly caught off guard when people assume I know about successful blogging.” Then you show a picture of a graph that shows 65k readers. 65k!!! I think I have three readers. One’s my mom. But anyway, I do appreciate popular bloggers who continue blogging because they enjoy it and not because people are reading.
Favorite new blogs. You’re one of my new ones, so if this were on somebody else’s site I’d link to you, but since it’s not that wouldn’t make much sense (because everything I say and do makes sense. Case in point, right?).
I’d love to introduce you to my friend Courtney at http://www.courtneydevries.com She’s a homeschooling mom of five-soon-to-be-six who only gets occasional snippets of time to blog, but she’s great fun to read.
I stopped visiting your site because I read you in my RSS feeder! Did you take that into consideration with the slipping stats?
I had to run over here to tell you that.
I can never make enough sense of my stats to bother looking at them. And I have a degree in math. That is the essence of pathetic.
I do agree that certain things bring lots of peeps to sites. I was pregnant until a month ago, and the drop in readers since giving birth is laughable….I guess pregnancy is more interesting that parenthood to some people.
I have never really bothered to check my stats, mostly because I could never figure out how to read them! I know that I don’t have a ton of readers, but that’s okay. I know the main reason is probably because I am somewhat infrequent about updates lately (I had more comments years back when I posted more often), but also I don’t fit into any particular niche.
I have been reading your website since pre-NikkiZ (if you can believe it!), but I am sure the frequency with which I read your site doesn’t show up in your stats because I rarely click over here (or anywhere) from Google Reader.
And, here are some blogs I have fairly recently (within the past year or so) discovered:
Ashley at http://www.ourlittleapartment.com/
RA at http://definitelyra.com/
Kate at http://www.pseudostoops.com/
I agree with Beth-don’t change the way you blog. I enjoy it. They way you write makes me feel like I know you.
I have tried the blogging bit, but it doesn’t work out. Guess I will stick with facebook!
I’ve been loving http://visualanarchy.blogspot.com/ for awhile now. Her kids’ exploits never fail to amuse me.
I’m glad I’m not the only one who looks at the sitemeter and thinks: well, now I know… what exactly? I have a VERY small bunch of readers, but I don’t know how else to write, or that I would be interested in blogging if I wasn’t doing it my way, so I’m mostly happy that I get to say what I’m thinking and am glad if anybody is there to hear it.
Dear God, I think I could have written this post. Two notable differences: I don’t think my monthly traffic was ever anywhere NEAR 65k and I am too scared to check what it has dropped to now. Yeah, I used to check my stats obsessively (several times a DAY, even!). And now… I don’t care. I don’t get many comments, but I never have gotten many of those so that’s no different. I think there’s like two people who read my blog and one of them is my mother in law.
That said, I don’t have a lot of new blogs to report about. I read the old standbys… the ones I’ve loved for years (yes you’re included here… I always read your posts!). Most of the new blogs I’ve added lately have to do with knitting because I’ve totally become a yarn nerd. And I’m sure that’s pretty dull to most bloggers out there so I’ll just keep myself to myself over here. Heh.
IF (it won’t) that ever happens, I’ll be one of those 12, and please keep blogging for me!
I’m guilty of Google Reader non-commenting disease as of late too. However, I abandoned Bloglines because my list of blogs was out of control, but I was too guilty to delete anyone.
I’m so lame.
I think you would really like Abby at My Sweet Babboo. You can find her at http://unst.blogspot.com.
Even though I always enjoy your blog, the thing that keeps me reading year after year is that I like you. I tried to think of a non-weird way to say that. Obviously, I couldn’t.
Ditto on the feed reader. I always read from there. I wonder if your stats would go up if you had to click through to read the whole post. I’ve been reading since I was pregnant with my daughter and NikkiZ was tiny! You’re still on my daily-read list. I’m always bummed when you haven’t posted!
I have started contributing to a new mom style blog, http://www.allkindsofpretty.com. I think you would like it Zoot, because it’s been challenging me to break out of my momiform of jeans and sweatshirts and actually start paying attention to what I wear.
And I have been reading you for a long time now. I think since 2005! And I still love you and your writing. Keep on doing what you’re doing.
I think that my favourite thing about that photo is that it was shot from a Prius
You’re still one of my faves, Kim, because of how real you are, and you feel much more “Accessible” than others. You’re just that cool. And I like your Christmas cards 
I really enjoy reading your blog. To me you are more “real” than a lot of other blogs I read. I also love hearing about your kids =) I found you when you were mentioned on another blog–that’s when I had first started reading blogs.
I don’t even include the link to my blog because I rarely post to it. It’s mostly just for my amusement and to share pics with my Mom.
I just read a new blog yesterday that was pretty funny http://www.bloggingdangerously.com/
I think I’ve been reading you sine 2007 but it’s been via a feed reader since 2008 so I contrbuted to the decline, too. I have little kids, too, and I appreciate how you write about the daily juggle with honesty. I’d like to pimp out my friend: http://torpidtrifling.blogspot.com who is an amazing mom and teacher and writer. Though, um, I’ve only received over 10 comments exactly once, and that was when I announced my last pregnancy. No, twice, because it happened again when I posted that he was finally born. But like another commenter mentioned, now that he’s actually here his paparazzi seem to have moved on
I’ve been reading your blog for years, and love the way you write. I rarely comment (am I a crazy lurker??) but I think your outlook on life, and how you share you stories with us, is fab
Well, first I wanted to tell you that I read in a reader so I am always here but won’t show up in stats. Plus, I hate to say it but I almost never leave comments for the same reason…shame!
Also, this post was great. I am basically shadowing you in the “just stop looking at stats” method. When I was going through IVF my traffic went way up, then when I was pregnant I thought it would drop but it didn’t. My top month was around 5K the month Henry was born. Since then it has slowly dropped and now I average about 3K. At first it bothered me, but in the last couple months I just decided I didn’t have the time or the energy to care! So, rather than blogging more or changing what I talk about, I went with stop looking at sitemeter! Much easier!
Finally, my linki. April over at eclectic effervescence is just awesome. She is a mom of twins through IVF and she is just so real. Check her out!
http://eclecticeffervescence.blogspot.com/
How incredibly ironic is it that, upon my checking my sitemeter stats this morning (a friday morning “over coffee” ritual), I see that you, dear lady, have sent me a metric ton of traffic?! HAAAAAAA. Thanks, Zoot!
Looks like I’m one of many who felt compelled to come over and say, “I’m sorry – I just read you my Google Reader so my visits don’t count!” I do make it a point to click over to the actual site when I know the blogger has advertising and tries to make money from her blog, but since you said you don’t care about that I only click through when I want to comment.
So I think you have two options (at least): ask people to click through, maybe for just a few days, to get a more accurate picture of who is reading. OR just assume that you STILL have at least 65K readers or more, but we’re all back at Google. I like the second one best myself, because who wants proof? Just assume you have MILLIONS of readers!
I’ve read your blog since probably day 1. The thing that annoys me lately is that you end your post with a question.
I so don’t care about site traffic (I don’t even know how to check hits on my blog, but it doesn’t matter because I know I have around 5 a week), but I noticed you didn’t take feed readers in to account in this post. Does the site meter capture those? Because, I’m betting alot more people read in their feeder now, and they probably don’t click through to comment on every post they read. I know I probably on do so for one post in every dozen or so I read.
Oh, how I love my stats. My degrees deal with numbers so it’s only natural though, right? I don’t let my stats affect the posts but it is a nice surprise to get over 20 views on a post. One day I got 100 and nearly feel off my office chair. The lameness, I haz it. It can’t all be about the numbers though, there are some popular blogs that I just do not get and eh, it’s all a matter of taste as the ever fabulous Tim Gunn would say. I crack up over Much Love, Nicole over on blogspot.
I’m an rss reader too. You have 1,144 subscribers on google reader. Extrapolate that over an average of 25 or 30 posts per month, and there are your other 30K visits, roughly.
I am not a mum and don’t live in the states; but I love your blog!! =D
I think I originally found you because you had a section that allowed for download of design templates for typepad and blogger so that may have accounted for some of the previous traffic as well. I think just the way Google indexes blogs over the years has created decline for those who don’t have big time traffic.
I didn’t take the time to really read through the comments, but sometimes I read you on Google Reader, even though I don’t subscribe and rarely ever come to your site…Maybe it’s a reader feeder gap?
I thought of a reason for the fall in stats: so many people use readers now. I used to visit each blog individually (I had them bookmarked!) but now I read them in my reader and only visit if I want to make a comment.
Oh. Perhaps I should have skimmed the other comments before debuting my GENIUS IDEA.
If you gonna get sucked into the stats you’d never have time to write anything. My blog stats shoot way down when I was watching my analytic like a hawk. I gave up and just do my thing! 3 months later I was way up on my stats. so stats don’t define blog, blog define blogs!
I agree with the other comments above that blame readers for the drop in stats.
I’ve just been catching up on my reading and found
http://foxandmaus.wordpress.com/
very entertaining.