I enjoyed National Blog Posting Month (abbreviated most inelegantly to NaBloPoMo).
I was nervous before it started; worried that I would run out of things to say and concerned that I would be writing garbage. It was challenging, but overall it was really rewarding.
I was rarely stuck for ideas, and I found that I had a heightened awareness of circumstances and my surroundings, as I looked for the daily story that was worth telling. I was constantly thinking and observing and my mind was rarely idle. People have told me that my content didn’t suffer.
I loved getting some new readers this month, and the comments and encouragement from people satisfied the part of me that craves attention and flattery.
There were just a few negatives that came from posting every day. While I was able to keep up with reading the blogs on my blog roll, I commented less than I normally would, and when I did comment, it was not usually a thoughtful or insightful comment (Great post!). I also did not respond to people who left comments on my blog as much as I normally would have. I promise you that I did read and enjoy every single comment left, for some days it is the comments that keep me going and that help me feel like I’m not just talking to myself.
I had been hoping to find and connect with new bloggers this month too, but although I did this a little bit, I just wasn’t able to keep up. I will be going back over things to try to re-find some nice new blogs that I discovered.
And now for the math portion of this post. Did my readership stats change this month? Yes, they most certainly did.
Comparing November with October:
Number of posts in November: 30
Number of posts in October: 7
Number of comments in November: 151
Number of comments in October: 50
Number of visitors increased by: 82%
Number of daily visitors increased by: 88%
Number of unique visitors over the month increased: 54%
Number of pageviews increased: 88%
Average time on site increased by: 117%
Visitors from Germany increased by: 300% (yay Germany!)
Visitors from Australia decreased by: 12.5% (what did I say, Australia?)
Most popular post in November: Litterless Lunches
Least popular post in November: Saturday
Would I do this again? Absolutely. Now please forgive me if I’m not around so much for December. I have a lot of catching up to do.
Holy Cow!! Those readership stats are soooo impressive. I don't think I could have managed it though, so I'm more impressed with how you could post every day. Good on ya'!
I had the same problem with commenting – coming up with a post every day was hard enough (especially when I got sick at the end of the month) – commenting on other blogs was mostly beyond me.
Hey Finola – thanks for publishing this debrief, and thanks especially for the 'math' (as an epidemiologist, the math is always important to me). I agree with Julie that those readership stats are very impressive! Congratulations!
Way to go Finola… though it's nice to have you back 🙂
The stats are so interesting and impressive! Wow. I rarely comment only because I feel funny writing uncreative comments like “great post” (even though I thought it was a great post). I think I should get over that because sometimes it's nice to receive a thumbs up. Ya know?
Enjoy a break!