Blog Anniversary

One year ago I put my first post on From a Beggar’s Bowl.  I had created the account on blogspot and came up with a title slightly before, but the first actual posting was March 22nd, 2012. It has been an interesting journey. I am going to describe in detail some of what I discovered; now would be a good place to bail out if you have no interest in blogging. This is post 99. If I had planned more carefully, it could have been number 100 on my anniversary. No big deal.

I have learned some of the mechanics of posting, editing, etc. I use Windows Live Writer for typing up and inserting photos most of the time. I like it. I did create a few posts direct on blogspot. The biggest difference is that the photos if you click on them when it has been done thru blogspot, show up as a long strip so that the reader could just look at the photos and ignore the words. I am not sure I like that. I have done that on some of the blogs I have visited; clicked on the first photo, brought up the strip, looked at the rest of the photos and then left the blog without reading another word. You can also more easily add captions to photos; at least, I haven’t become very adept at that on Windows Live Writer.

At first, I didn’t tell anybody I had a blog. Eventually, I told my two sisters and a few acquaintances; then I placed a link to a post on Facebook, widening the exposure. The next step would be to join blog circles or hops or to link with other blogs or subscribe to them with the idea they would reciprocate. I’m not sure of the mechanics of doing that; I think the tutorials on blogspot would discuss how to do it. I haven’t explored those because I am not sure I want to take that step. I have some ambivalence to exposing myself. See my post Why Blog as to my motivation.

When I finally explored the dashboard, especially the statistics area, I noticed that some of my traffic came from strange-sounding places: vampire.stat; adsensewatchdog; filmhill. I was pretty suspicious of these from the get-go. I did click on vampire stat once to see why it would be directing traffic to my blog. I became pretty sure that these were monetized web sites trying to make a buck off of me in some way. If you want to learn more about these bots, this discussion sums up their game. Basically, they are not trying to drive traffic to your blog, but hoping you will click on the link in your traffic report so that they can count your visit in their stats and boost their profit-making ability. Apparently, in a few cases (zombiestat) they deposit spyware or other nasty things on computers not well-protected, but for the most part they are harmless. Except, they give new bloggers a false sense of the traffic to their blog. It is demoralizing to realize you have few real followers when you have 20 “views”. You want so desperately to believe your “baby” is going to succeed that those first stats are exciting. Unfortunately, they are not real readers, but these bots.

The dashboard overview graphic also is skewed not only because of these bots, but because even though you chose not to count your own viewing of your blog , it does show up in this graphic. The list of views for individual posts, however, does accurately reflect the number of views. My post list shows my highest number of views at 48 for the Home post. 43 for the Moravian Stool. The recipe posts have about a dozen views. These posts managed to offer something of value to readers outside of my inner circle. They gave history about Indiana Glass Company or provided an image of the stool and links to a relevant article or gave a recipe to try. Under the traffic report you can see the key search terms people used that landed them on your blog. These are legitimate readers who hopefully gained something from the posts. Since my blog is not narrow in scope, these readers probably did not become followers the way say a recipe site would draw in someone who found a recipe they liked. That’s OK. At least I know information I provided was helpful. Sometimes, a post has few views, then for some reason takes off. The Applebees Brownie Bites posted last October did that last month. They seem to have come from word searches on Google, but why the sudden surge in traffic? I have no idea.

I tried to post fairly often, at least a few times a week (except while out-of-town as I did not want to try creating a post on a small screen such as my Nook—but I could have as one can post from tablets and even smart phones). Did I post too much? Too little? Was I too philosophical and not practical enough? I would love to get feedback. I can see myself continuing, but probably not as frequently. The initial excitement wears off (and the bots are a downer). Most blogs die within 2-3 years. I like to travel and to read so probably I will at least keep some of those types of posts coming for awhile. Beyond that, who knows.