Annual check-up … ‘Stats’ unveiled

WordPress kindly notified me that it’s the anniversary of my blog: travelmakerkai.com!

As it’s a year since I edited ‘this is a wordpress blog’ to ‘a black girl’s perspective…’, perhaps now is the best time to do a deep and thorough evaluation by inspecting my stats. Sort of like a full body check-up of my blog mass! Despite the many lows; loss of motivation, the weeks or even months of awkward silences not publishing any posts, my blog still feels relatively healthy with enough content to cover any exposing bones… whatever the stats reveal!

I’m pretty sure every new blogger starts off enthusiastic to share with the world their perspective on a subject they are passionate about. Blissfully unaware, that subject has (most likely than not) already been written about by hundreds of bloggers! Never-the-less, there is no perspective quite like an individuals’ own. Hence why blogging is such a phenomenon- it seems there’s space for just about everyone!

Most bloggers have probably been ‘stats addicts’ at some point, if not the very beginning. Expecting a flood of readers to come rushing through as soon as ‘publish’ has been clicked. Or the blogging community to come out in their numbers to view the new comer.

I put my hands up, that was once-upon-a-time me (relapsing a few times admittedly… So I’m a recovering addict)! Eagerly checking up on the rise in page hits at least once a day. However, like my weight-watching phases, stats-weighting can be tiresome and demotivating at times when the figures aren’t increasing so quickly (or in the case of my weight, my figure isn’t looking quite like the figure 8)! The earlier stages of starting a blog would prove to be my most testing. Would I continue to write posts lost in the blogosphere or give up writing a blog entirely?…. after all, who was checking me out anyway?

Thankfully I persevered, even if I was just writing for a few ghost readers!

A year on and how far have I come with blogging?

By clicking on ‘summaries’ and ‘All-time’ found on my stat page, I can begin the summary of my annual checkup showing my top ten results in each category. An informative way to discover who my readers are, where they are from, which posts and pages they’ve made popular and what they are searching for when search engines recommend my blog… I got a few surprises with that one!

My top 10 views by country:

Country	Views
United States	2,689
Italy	2,573
United Kingdom	2,062
Brazil	1,225
Ghana	244
France	242
Canada	207
Nigeria	200
Germany	197
Switzerland	93

So it seems I’m a hit with the Amercans- thanks guys! Italy never fails to show me some love- grazie mille! Strong support from the UK- I couldn’t have done it without the red passport!! I’m really glad to see Brazil in the top ten despite the language barrier. Spending 3 months in Brazil was the best decision I could have made despite the unfortunate circumstances. It was a pleasure to discover my Afro-Braziian roots, get my first ever press pass (covering the carnival in Bahia), and finding myself spiritually and mentally in Rio. Saudades!! I’m glad to see Ghana and Nigeria also in the top 10 countries showing their support! Chale you guys dey be!

My top 10 posts and pages:

Title		Views
Home page / Archives		3,626
A lighter shade of Black… Observations of racial identity in Rio		397
Africa		358
“Go Brazil Go” Spike Lee documents on Brazil		353
Pictures		265
About MakingKai		245
Sugar, spice and all things nice… A few of my favourite foods!		217
Carnival da Bahia… Ouro Negro!		154
South America		151
Fears of a Travel Addict… Right of a wo(mb)man		149

Top 10 “clicks” linking onto my page:

URL	Clicks
travelmakerkai.files.wordpress.com	628
travelmakerkai.wordpress.com	230
gravatar.com	69
Facebook	22
en.wikipedia.org	19
blackwomenofbrazil.com	18
blackwomenofbrazil.co	18
rarethoughts.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/sex-is-overrated-but-only-in-the-wrong-context/	14
jerusalem365.wordpress.com	14
maps.google.com/maps	11

Top 10 refferals from other sites

Referrer		Views
Facebook		1,029
Search Engines		1,006
Twitter		91
couchsurfing.org		63
dailypost.wordpress.com		61
mail.yahoo.com		60
oneika-the-traveller.com/sample-page		56
rarethoughts.wordpress.com/2012/11/29/sex-is-overrated-but-only-in-the-wrong-context/		46
WordPress.com Reader		30
WordPress Dashboard

There are times when I lack inspiration and simply dont know what to write next. But i discovered that by regularly viewing the searches search engines have recommended to my site, i can write specific posts tailored to those searches, if I haven’t covered it already. And I have hundreds to choose from. A great way to broaden my readership!

Though Im pretty sure who ever was searching for ‘sexy black favela girls‘, ‘sexy black women porn pictures‘, ‘topless sarongs‘ left my blog feeling a little disappointed and will have no reason to return! Thanks Google- but really?! Well, they say sex sells!

‘Stats’ ain’t nothing but a number!

There you have it. I’ve laid out my stats for all to see the naked truth unveiled!

So I won’t get so hung-up on who’s checking me out everyday… Monthly or quarterly is healthier option.
Sure there’s no harm using my stats to measure my blog up, but to what exactly? Last i checked, blogging isn’t a competition! There are no guidelines to ‘how many hits a day, week or month’ a blogger should be making. Like with the scales in my bathroom, I’ve learnt to avoid weighing myself daily! A better mentally is to understand that I’ll get out what I put in (kind of like going to the gym, eating healthy etc).

Thanks for reading…. Cheers to another year (and greater stats results!)

Don’t forget to pass by my visitors book to sign your name and country… Would love to know who you are!

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