My blog is three months old! As with all anniversaries it is a good idea to celebrate so please help yourself to a piece of virtual cake and help me blow out the candles!
Blow out the candles on the blog 3 month birthday cake
The other good thing about anniversaries is that they create a natural opportunity to look back and look forward.
What are my thoughts about the blog at this three month birthday?
1. I am astonished that it is only three months! Not just that the time has gone by, but my blogging confidence is so much greater now it feels as though I have been doing this for a lot longer. And of course this is what we do at birthdays. The conversations often have the theme “It only seems a moment since you were learning to walk, going to school “..
2. I now find it harder to imagine what it was like NOT knowing. It is good to learn more – obviously – but in a business context it is very important to remember what it was like to not know. We are speaking to the person before they use our services and the more you can identify with those feelings the stronger the connection is likely to be.
3. Writing down how things are helps to create a kind of audit trail of development. Why does this matter? Because I have every intention of moving on more in the next three months. The journey itself is of value, not just reaching the destination. Plus there is the benefit that what you measure can be improved.
So for the record
in April (which was only 3 weeks) there were 220 unique visitors visiting a total of 658 times
in May there were 457 unique visitors visiting 1681 times
in June 415 visitors stopping by 1966 times
and so far in July 90 people have dropped in for a chat or a quick look around 669 times.
We are talking about real human eyeballs here not bots, or spiders. The interesting ratio is that in the first month the number of visits per visitor was just under 2.99 and the figures for July of visits per visitor is 7.43 – so the number of visits has doubled. I don’t exactly know what or how everything is measured but a development like that has got to be good news.
These figures are from my hostgator hosting account which is how I started measuring on day one. What is satisfying about hostgator is that you can get a minute-by-minute update and if you think the same figure is showing just click the update link, and bingo- some new numbers will have been added! This is incredibly satisfying at the start because you get instant validation that something is happening. Rather like a child watching a plant grow you want instant results! (And without pulling the plant up to see if the roots are growing!).
I also have Google Analytics on the blog but you don’t get instant gratification as the figures are one day old. To be honest there is some discrepancy between the two systems and I guess that in time I will move more to analytics but I still love popping over to hostgator. It feels friendly!
4. Frequency of posting has slowed down. Total number of posts is 44 which means roughly one every other day in a three month period. In the last fortnight in fact I have posted very little for various extraneous reasons. But because I had posted a lot to start with the recent absence does not seem to have dramatically reduced the figures.
The blog is like a human. When it is new born you are alert for every snuffle and sound and extremely attentive to every need. As it grows it can survive on its own for longer without food and even begin to sleep through the night. Despite some benign neglect my blog is still alive and well. It is lying contentedly watching the trees moving in the breeze or the light dancing on the ceiling and happy to see me again, as well!
5. My posts have included some references to current affairs which are hot and topical and bring in lots of traffic. The intention is that visitors will then like what they find and come back to visit again. For example I wrote about Susan Boyle and Britain’s Got Talent (and did some PR around it as well) which was amazingly popular for a few weeks. But nobody wants yesterday’s newspapers, so the posts that stand the test of time re-appear at the top of the most-read list in the next month. You don’t want to be endlessly chasing news stories so a balance is best.
My aim for these first three months was simply to post content. To focus on making the contribution and getting out there in cyberspace. At the same time I have been writing for a client as well and the results are fairly similar – both blogs are getting 60 – 70 visits per day fairly reliably.
What are the plans for the blog for next 3 months?
1. Publish consistently even if I am not around. The next three months includes holiday time, so it is the perfect opportunity to schedule publishing to maintain consistency. WordPress is very good for this.
2. Plan my posts better around keywords, and check that the shape of the blog is as I want it to be. It is not a novel by Tolstoy (described by Henry James as “a loose baggy monster”) but focussed on marketing… and getting the spark into marketing. Collect the other ideas ( all of them!) and sort them out separately.
3. Make dedicated time for my blog. Don’t let the client work stop me. This will be easier if I am scheduling post publishing as I can let the concentration build up, rather than working in short bursts of time.
4. Get experience of the different monetisation options.
5. Go visiting. Get out and read other blogs and make comments.
Next update in three month’s time! So come back then and find out what has happened. I think three month time periods are motivational. I enjoy new things, so creating some newness and momentum by seeing the world in 90 day periods is good for me.
To read other posts about blogging click on the word “blog” in the tag section in the right hand column.
Wow, I didn’t know about that until now. Cheers!!
Hello,
i subscribed because i think this is the right place for me.
bye 🙂
competitive intelligence
Thanks for this post!