So I’m looking at my blog stats one night, this is a recurring disease of mine. I try to fight it off periodically, calling it obsessive and compulsive, but eventually I need to go and look. I won’t tell you how often I look at the stats or you might suggest that someone take my blog away from me. In any case, after showing remarkable restraint for a few hours, I finally gave in and went and looked. My post that week was not particularly exciting. I liked it, but I wasn’t expecting much. Imagine my surprise then when I see the spike in visitors. I wondered a bit and then figured maybe some of my regular readers who had not looked on the release date had come around. But that’s not what had happened. Strangely, when I looked at the country of origin I found Belgium. Belgium??? It’s wonderful place I’m sure, but I don’t know anyone there and while I get visitors from around the world, I don’t normally get a lot from any given country, much less over 50 in a one hour period. Clearly, something about my blog tags was coming up because of activities in that country. So I went out in search of the answer…yes that’s the kind of thing I do. I’m sure I was a cat in my last life.
I found out that the King had abdicated his throne to the prince. How I had not heard that news in the first place, I don’t know, but while interesting, I was not really making the link back to my blog. I also found out that the Brits were surprised to learn that red tape imposed on them by Brussels had cost them £5billion in just two years (ouch). Again, interesting, but not really making the link…or was I. The consequence of the sticker shock caused a major coalition row in the U.K. The topic of my post that week was coalitions.
Whether that was the cause for the spike or not, I can’t say, but it did provide a valuable lesson. I don’t know what causes a particular post to sing while another does dismally. What I do know, is that vacations, bad weather, sports teams, slow news weeks, busy news weeks and the position of the moon can all influence the outcome. I need to focus on the quality of my content and having fun. The best part of the spike from Belgium was that lesson…and I did get to learn about some things that were getting little or no coverage in Canada but were of interest nonetheless.
Do you ever get preoccupied with numbers and lose site of your objective?
Last weeks poll results: 70% said, “yes, they thought Google Glasses were a good idea” and 30% said, “No way”.
This weeks highly scientific poll asks…