Another week passed and my blog is stabilizing.
Although things are slow the roller-coaster ride of pageviews is becoming less bumpy.
Average number of pageviews over this week: 81 within the range of 71-88. This trend has been here for at least a week now. I can expect roughly 70-80 views a day, every day now. I’m happy with that, very happy. Let’s see if this Saturday and Sunday we can keep that number up.
Number of subscribers to my RSS feed: I added a counter to the left side column on my page last week so you can see the number every day. It’s now at 42 and on the slow increase. I get one or two additional subscribers almost every day.
Where the traffic is coming from: Some traffic is coming from the “thank you” page accompanying the digital nomad survey. Other than that it’s all over the place as usual, more and more is getting here through search engines. Roughly 25% of visitors get here through search engines now. I’ve identified what the popular topics are and I’ll be sure to implement that knowledge in further writing.
What I have done this week to get my blog bigger and what I learned: I’ve started a five part series on Stoic psychological tactics and so far it really seems popular. It certainly made people sticky which was one of the goals (at least, if we’re talking in blogging tactics). There is also more interaction and I’m seeing new names in the comments which of course is the best thing I could wish for. I even get some tweets about it which is great.
A short blogpost this time, there isn’t so much to tell. I feel the wildly varying pagesview numbers I had in the beginning is stabilizing and now is getting ready for the slow and steady growth.
I’d like to share a last set of numbers. The numbers of visitors in the first three months:
- March: 145
- April: 1673
- May: 2904
Totally unrelated but also a part of progress: I’m working more and more on Project Mojave, slowly homing in on niches I like and can commit myself to although there still is a lot of brainstorming and statistical analyses to be done.
First. let me thank you for your kind offer. I like first to try to find out what I have done wrong on my own. It is usually the best way for me to learn. (But if I can’t , I do ask for help.)
Second. Your stoic psychological tactics are really good. If I wasn’t already a regular, those articles would have done it.
[edited that line for you, Gr, Christiaan]
Great job on getting the numbers!
Heck, I was excited to get 47 views this first week on my new blog. It is always personally reassuring to see those numbers and realize they are actual people.
The stoic philosophical series has definitely made me a convert/subscriber. Keep up the great work!
May I offer a suggestion?
Consider taking off your reader count until it is higher, I think you’ll get more page views and credibility. People see 33 and don’t come back, but if they don’t see any, just focus on your writing, they’ll be back and more likely to subscribe.
When I read your tweets, I think, this guy must have a large following…so today I thought I’d stop by (I met you through the 31 days forum). I was shocked to see only 33 readers!
Anyway, just a thought! :)
Thanks for the advice, I’ll do that and see what the effect is. :)
It’s going back up when I reach 100
How is your blog doing after the 31DBBB?
You know, it’s really growing…and I’m really excited about it! I still have to go back and do so many of the tasks, but oh that thing called time…
I just hit 1134 subscribers this morning! Woo hoo! Although I have bigger goals – I am aiming for 100,000 page views a month by..hmmm…haven’t nailed that down yet, but I’m hovering around 30,000 now.
I think your numbers will jump after you take down the reader count.
:)
Those are numbers I can only dream about at the moment.
In a society filled with everything we could ever want the only thing we lack is time. On that note, I’ll give your blog a thorough look as soon as I have to the time to do that. I’m sure you’ll reach those goals in no time.
Let’s see what deleting the counter will do. I hope you’re right :)
Just stopped in to say howdy. I’ve been busy since 31Days writing but it looks like you’re doing an excellent job with your posts. I’m planning on reading the stoic psychological tactic series (I’m a big fan of meditation, and cognitive awareness).
If I’m not out of line, may I suggest marketing your best posts on popular social sites? I’ve had thousands of hits this week from HackerNews, and dozens from reddit, digg. I recently installed google friend connect and that provided a very large boost to my readership.
Dig the feed counter, but I understand not showing it until you get a steady subscriber base.
I find it somehow a bit strange to promote my own blogposts on sites like Digg and Stumble. You’re certainly not out of line with that one. I still need to develop all those channels properly, I could probably to much better than the 100 or so views a day.
If you like the series, please do stumble, digg and otherwise promote it. ;)
A couple of easy suggestions. Get the addthis plugin for wordpress (so folks can submit your stuff with a simple click). You may really enjoy google friend connect as well.
Do thos work with my wordpress.com blog? Or do I need to transfer everything to my own domain and have full freedom over my blog before I can ad that pluging. It doesn’t seem to show up in the list of plugins I can select from.
I guess it really is time to get my own domain.
Let me check now…
http://www.addthis.com/web-button-select
ok that should work on your current blog. Do you have an appearance tab on your dashboard? If so choose widgets and you should be able to add your own customized html with the Text choice.
You may wish to transfer to your own domain anyway though. It’s easy the earlier you do it, and once you do future host moves will be invisible to the readers (no need to go through all your interlinks and update them). I just recently went through that pain (moved from messel.typepad.com to http://www.victusspiritus.com) and swapped blog platforms from typepad to wordpress.
Well, the button is up, let’s see if something happens over the next few weeks. I’m planning to transfer in a few weeks which will be fun.