Monday, August 8, 2011

One year of regular posts

Though I started this blog years ago, it was one year ago that I started posting regularly. This was partially inspired by Jeff Atwood's advice to post regularly. I have no idea how he regularly posted 6 times a week given that I have a hard time posting once a week. And I think that Syd (a commenter on that post) hits the nail on the head that there is more to being a popular blogger than just being reliable. However, being reliable is definitely a prerequisite.

So how have I done? Well, I missed two weeks in the past year. And I feel like I am struggling each week to keep up. However, Google Analytics shows that I've been at least a little bit successful. I've trended up pretty consistently since I started posting regularly.


100 page views a week is far from a popular blog. But it is a number that is high enough that I know that it isn't just me and my closest friends reading my blog. So that is some measure of success.

If you've been following my blog you've noticed that I have two different types of posts, my philosophical posts and my practical/tutorial posts. When I started this blog, my goal was to post primarily philosophical posts and to generate a discussion on each post. My secret goal was to learn more from my comments than I put into my posts. Unfortunately, so far, I don't get many comments, so that isn't working out. At some point I decided to also write tutorial type posts describing how I solved a specific problem. I've learned much from others who have posted what they know, so I feel I should give back. Based on Google Analytics, the majority of people who see my blog come to view these posts. Unfortunately, if the readers don't leave comments, I have no idea if what I posted was useful or just a waste of time. I can only hope that some people are finding it useful. Even more, I hope that some of these people become regular readers (and commenters) on my more philosophical posts. I am the eternal optimist and still hope to achieve my original goal.

Of course, to accomplish that, I need to continue Jeff Atwood's advice and post regularly. While I have plenty of ideas, it is somewhat daunting to me to actually turn those ideas into posts each week. Well, here's hoping that next August I get to bore you all with another post like this.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Just out of curiosity, what percentage of the commenters in recent months have been people you met face to face and what percentage are total strangers that you only know through their blog comments?
-Alan

Michael Haddox-Schatz said...

If I've counted right, prior to this comment I am making now, in the past year 39% of the comments have been from me, 44% from friends, and 16% from strangers. (leaving 1% for rounding errors).

Anonymous said...

clearly this is the time to put up one of those signs that reads, "Your advertisement could be here!" :)
-Alan

Michael Haddox-Schatz said...

Getting a nickel a month from ads just isn't worth the hassle.