Well the blog is 1 year old today. Happy…blogiversary? This year sure went by quickly. It doesn’t really feel like it’s been a year, but here we are. I didn’t know quite what to expect from blogging to be honest. I didn’t have a grand plan. I mainly wanted to get my thoughts out of my head and put them to paper so to speak. I figured they were not really doing anyone any good just bouncing around in my own head, and that maybe someone like you could benefit from them. Maybe some people could relate to my world view, maybe they could learn from my mistakes. When times were tough for me, reading about others experiences was incredibly helpful and I wanted to give back.
My modest goal was to publish 50 quality posts (about 1 per week). By quality I don’t mean they needed to necessarily be award winning writing, but that they had some substance; and at least one inappropriate use of the semicolon in each post. Writing a paragraph or a summary of other blog posts and articles I would not count towards the total tally.
Writing does not really come naturally to me. Some bloggers I know can blast out 1500 words in a couple hours and have a quality anchor article for their blog in less time than it takes me to write my first three sentences. While the writing does come easier for me now that I have been practicing for a year, it is still often a struggle.
Maybe some of you are curious about my blog stats. Everyone likes numbers right? Well here they are:
Quality posts: Maybe 48. Although I did publish two of my favorite articles off the blog here and here. So I either hit this goal or got pretty close. I had 58 total posts (59 if you include this one).
Page views: 42,519 total which is about 116/day. (best day was September 22 with 776).
Visitors: 14,179. How many of these are robots is anyone’s guess.
Podcast interviews: 2. You can listen to them here and here.
Must popular day: Sunday (15% blog traffic)
Twitter followers: 734. You can follow me here.
Facebook likes: 39. You can like my page here.
Guest posts on other blogs: Two that I can remember here and here.
Top five countries reading the blog: United States (32,866), Canada (3,184), United Kingdom (1,207), Australia (851), Germany(303)
Total comments: 325 (many were my responses though)
Subscribers: 158
Here are my 10 most popular posts in order of popularity. If you haven’t spent much time reading my blog this is a pretty good sampling:
I’m glad I started blogging. It has overall been a positive and satisfying experience. I will probably write the obligatory meta-post on blogging someday, but for now I will keep this short. I think my favorite part is the feedback I get both in the comments and via the contact page. Of note, I respond to most messages I receive, although I have a sneaking suspicion some of my responses get filtered as spam. If you don’t hear back from me it is likely a spam filter rather than me ignoring you! Thank you all for your comments and feedback, it means a lot to me. I will continue this experiment for as long as I am having fun doing it. Eventually I will move onto something else, but for now my brain is still full of stuff waiting to get out.
Also a big thanks to everyone who has shared my writing with others on social media and forums and their own blogs. This is a huge component of my traffic and brings new and diverse readers to my blog. I am very grateful for these votes of confidence in me. All new blogs struggle to get readers and I am especially terrible at marketing myself so I rely on you. My small ask of all of my readers is this: If one of my article particularly resonates with you please consider sharing on social media.
One more thing: Several of my articles have been inspired by conversations on social media or direct feedback. If you have a suggestion on a topic or question you want me to answer let me know in the comments below (or send me a message if you want more privacy). If it is something I think I can write a decent article about I will do it. I want to know what is important to my readers
Happy holidays happy philosophers, and thanks for reading.
Love,
The Happy Philosopher
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I think you have a lot of great reading material, HP. Your approach is different which I attribute to your personal experiences and worldview. You have my vote to keep the posts coming. When you list stuff you find around the internet it is always a good place to start learning new things. Two thumbs up.
I’ll add my vote of confidence to Keith’s. As a fellow physician battling burnout and pursuing financial independence in order to bring balance into my life and to more fully pursue those things in life that most resonate with me, this blog has really helped me quite a bit. If nothing else, it’s great to know that I’m not alone. Beyond that, I really enjoy the way your mind ‘works” if that makes any sense. I’ve reached a stage in life where exploration and experimentation matter a great deal to me; your reflections on your voyage have been great food for thought. Keep those posts coming!
One full year! I think you’ve officially outlasted the average beginning blogger. And as long as you keep going, you’ll always have a month and 3 days on me.
You’ve got some great content there. I think I linked to each of the first eight. Keep the inspiring words coming!
Best,
-PoF
Way to go, blogging it out for a whole year! I’m in the same boat as you, putting out 1 decent post a week is plenty enough. I would struggle to get out 3 a week. This is for fun anyway, and putting out something every week for a year is one hell of an achievement. Congrats on your achievement and success 🙂
Congratulations! Thank you for your insightful, and well thought out blogs.Take care!
Steve
Congrats! I rarely (never?) comment, but I love seeing your emails come through. Keep up the great work!
Awesome job hitting the one year mark. I can definitely understand struggling to write quality blog posts. Writing does not come naturally to me but I feel like it has definitely built up my skills which is translating at work. Keep up the awesome work and I look forward to reading more posts in the future!!!