31 Posts: What I learned doing the 2012 Wordcount Blogathon

A Wordle for the month of May

Statistics

I started the month with an average of 25.6 pageviews a day and 94 subscribers on my feedburner subscription list. Six of those were email subscribers. At the end of the month I still have 94 subscribers and I gained one new email subscription.

I ended with 25.95 average daily pageviews, but that number is hard to move since the tool is averaging over posts back to 2005.  If I just look at the month of May, the average daily pageview goes up to 49.29.  Just over half of the visiters were new.

My highest traffic day was May 18 with 104 page views. The post that drew the most views overall was "Give Up The Life You Planned." That was also the post that drew the most comments.

 

What I learned

• No one is clicking my links from Twitter.  I mean no one.  Not before the blogathon and not during it.  I might as well quit tweeting my posts.  Most of my incoming traffic comes from Facebook. I don't have a Facebook page for my blog, but I do put my blog posts out on my personal account status stream. I have a policy of only friending people on Facebook who I actually know in real life, so this speaks to the power of real connections.  

Lesson 1         If I want people to click the links I tweet I need to put more of myself there.  I need to interact with others in that space and build relationships or I need to cut my losses and stop using Twitter. 

• Good titles are powerful.  I knew this already, but I am not really good at titles so I overlook it.  I knew I had a good title on the post "I Put My Baby In A Box" because it was provocative and would make people click just to see what I was talking about.  It wasn't even that interesting a post, but it got a lot of views and drew a number of comments, both on the blog and on Facebook.  

                    Lesson 2     The time it takes to come up with a good title is absolutely worth it.

• People are interested in what I have to say. The outbound links to my guest posts on other blogs were used, and I'm so honored!  I drew a nice number of incoming links from those posts, too.  Welcome, welcome, if one of those folks is you!

                    Lesson 3    Guests posts are valuable (and fun!) Put more energy into writing them and work up to                     some higher-traffic hosts.

• Good writing will draw readers, links, and reposts.  The strongest post I wrote the whole month was "Give Up The Life You Planned."  It was personal, but really resonated with people. It was picked up for the SecondAct roundup post and drew a lot of views and comments. The "10 Links on Tuesday" posts drew zero comments and only a low number of views.

                    Lesson 4   Put effort into writing well, especially if I'm not going to post as often.  The work is worth                     it.

• Post inspiration comes from all over. I started the month with a full editorial calendar but ended up scrapping about five posts that just weren't coming together and writing on other topics entirely.  Each of those were inspired by something I'd read that day or a conversation I'd just had.  Two or three of those were probably the best writing I did all month.

                    Lesson 5     Follow the muse when she whispers.

Comments

[Kirsetin]

Dona,

I love this roundup of what you learned! I feel the same way about Twitter, but am hesitant to take time from other pursuits to be more active there. Hmmm...wonder if I should be there at all. Such good thoughts here. And your "Give Up The Life You Planned Post"? Just beautiful. Be like water. I'm going to look for that mug!

[Julie F in St. Louis, MO]

I need to study my own stats more closely. This post gave me some ideas on how to organize that review. I'm glad I found your blog on the blogathon.

[Doña Bumgarner]

Thank you, Donna.  That's such wonderful feedback!

dona

[Annette Gendler]

First of all, congrats! Regarding Twitter, last year everybody in the Blogathon followed everybody else, and so we all got some followers. Sadly that did not happen this year, at least not for me, even though I'm listed in Michelle's #blog2012 list. But I've been on Twitter for a while and can tell you it is a nice tool to make connections, totally out of the blue, but you do have to interact, retweet and follow others and slowly you will see results. It's just like any other social media platform. You have to interact for others to interact with you.

[Donna]

Congrats! I really enjoy your writing style. It reads like you are just chatting with me but you are sharing what would not normally be shared when we are talking to one another. Thanks!