Celebrating 20,000 blog hits

I am celebrating reaching 20,000 blog hits (averaging 1000 hits per month since 2016 and 1500 hits last month – woohoo!) after nearly 3 years of writing my blog. I know that some people get that many hits in a day but my aim was to have information that was going to be useful and enduring for people rather than just be gimmicky or sensational with the aim of ‘going viral’. Frankly, I’m amazed that over 50 people a day are finding something useful on my blog.

Thanks to everyone who has supported me in my first foray into blogging and social media. Special thanks to Carmella who challenged me to start a blog when it was the last thing on earth I ever thought I would do (see A Reluctant Blogger under About Me) and to Tarnya at Kitchen Table Web Design without whom I would not have got through the technical challenges and developed a professional looking blog.

It has been a fascinating exercise. Part of my motivation was to learn how it all worked and to challenge myself, but I have learned so much more about people’s behaviour (mine included). My loyal followers have made supportive comments on some of my posts but much more often comments and feedback are made to me in person or via email or phone rather than via the blog. Initially I thought this was a older generation thing but it is right across the age ranges.

Many people at work have said that they love my blog but didn’t want to sign up because it felt too much like stalking! This is strange because I am a fairly private person and think very carefully about what I am prepared to put on a public site so that I don’t feel like I am giving up that privacy. So the items that I do write about are ones that I am happy to be ‘stalked’ on.

I have a wide range of different interests and so my blog is a rather eclectic mix of topics. When I started out writing I had no idea what was going to be popular, and sometimes I have been very surprised.

When I go on my travels, lots of friends and family visit my blog to see my photos and follow my stories, and people tell me that they go on to have a look at my adventures to plan their own trips, but these pages hardly even make it to the ratings compared with those posts found through search engines.

Just to give you an idea of the strange mix of topics that are my most visited posts:
Homemade Vogel’s bread recipe (1631)
Cherry Guava Jelly Recipe (1269)
I thought replacing a ponga fence would be simple… (1113)
Getting the right Preserving Jars for your needs (994)
Growing Potatoes in Planter Bags (416)
Stuffed Marrow Recipe (350)
Freezing Fruit (345)
Cherry Guava Cordial (311)
Water tanks for the Garden (306)
Feijoa Vodka (296)
Tomato Relish (277)
Solid Shampoo & Conditioner (257)
Alcohol Inks on Acetate Challenge (249)
Growing Kumara in Containers (227)

I can’t tell whether any of those people who have searched and found something they were looking for go on to look at any other posts on my site – I know that I rarely do that myself on the sites I visit – but I only have a few followers who I don’t know personally (a special thanks to you).

I also have a Facebook page that my blogs get posted to, with the idea that this would expand the numbers of people getting to see my posts but Facebook seems to thwart this idea and sometimes only sends my posts to 4 people even though many more have liked my page. I don’t pretend to understand how it works but I’m not very impressed with it.

When I started my journey I thought that if I didn’t do it, I would never know what might be possible. Who knows, I may one day make some money from my blog – but in the meantime I will keep enjoying life and posting about it. Hopefully you will all still enjoy reading my eclectic range of posts.