This is a bit of a Friday evening ramble.
A Few Less Clicks
I was a little disappointed at the end of 2019 that the stats for this blog were a few hundred clicks less than in 2018, with a handful less visitors. Really? No increase in traffic at all? How disappointing.
Then I realized that I had written and shared only 128 posts, as compared to 171 in 2018. So there actually was an improvement – at least in terms of people and clicks per post.
It was a Busy Year
2019 was a very busy year with my corporate job and in our personal lives: two foot surgeries! a new job for the Grill-Meister! a new little bay house called Gumbo Cove! And I didn’t have a regular cadence established for writing.
A Loose Goal of 20 per Month
I am trying to be more structured about creating and sharing in the Glover Gardens blog this year, while giving myself permission not to stress about it. It’s a labor of love and a very fulfilling hobby, but certainly not a commercial endeavor or a mandatory activity. I managed a post per day for the first 7 days of this year, and hope to hit about 20 per month. That seems like a reasonable goal and a regular cadence, don’t you think?
But What’s Really Important?
The more I thought about the metrics, though, the more I came back to the reason I started the blog in the first place: to create, document and share. Stories, recipes, poems, memories, images, observations about the little things in life. And the only metric that means anything to me is to have touched another person or two in some way.
Your Feedback Fuels Me
You inspire me to keep blogging.
I love your reactions to a poem or a story. For instance, the comments on my days by the water are precious to me; the first one is from my Dad, who died just two months later. Several other of you Wonderfuls have become my muse since then.
I love hearing that you visited a restaurant I recommended, like Bistro des Augustin in Paris.
Or that you make one of my recipes at your family events. The Texas-Tuscany Goat Cheese spread has crossed into The Best Eater’s new family (his in-laws) and makes an appearance at their holiday celebrations – I’m delighted!
Thank you for the feedback, you Wonderfuls. It fuels me. Keep it coming! I especially like it when you send pictures, or relate the theme of one of my posts to your own life.
Numbers add up to nothing…. Neil Young 😳
You are always so good with the lyrical quotes.
It’s my life…. Seriously, I don’t care about WordPress numbers because a decline has nothing to do with posts. Every six months or so I look at the people I follow. Last check revealed just how many folks stopped posting, which means they stopped reading. Unfortunately for a couple of them, a little research revealed that three of them need a jazz funeral.
Wow, I’m so sorry to hear that. What a way to find out. I know what you mean about checking on people…I don’t have time to read daily but “batch read” when I can, and was alarmed that the last post from a vegetarian food blogger I follow was several weeks old, with no explanation about the silence. He had posted daily for years and was one of my first followers, and he sometimes translated my recipes into a vegetarian offering. I found his email and checked on him and it turns out that he just got tired. I feel like I’ve lost a friend.
You’re lucky. Posting has become very tedious. I’m out of things to say…
I am flabbergasted. I literally don’t know anyone with a richer palate of things to talk about. I hope this is temporary.
As you know there are things that I can’t talk about. I’ve lead an interesting life, but the worst Chinese curse possible is may you live in interesting times.
Definitely easy to get swept up in the numbers. Context helps though, as you say if you’re posting less it makes sense that you’re getting less hits.
For what it’s worth, I love reading your blog. Even if I’m usually quite far behind on reading!
Wow, Jason, thank you so much for the compliment. I love reading yours, too, and like you, I’m always behind. I have a handful of blogs where the creators have become like friends to me, you included, and I “batch-read” them when I can. Usually at 5:00 a.m. on a weekend when I can’t sleep in.
Thank you too! 🙂