Wednesday, January 2, 2008

Happy New Blog Year!

Remember the goals I set when I started this blog last October? Here's how they're working out. By January 1, I wanted to

  • Deliver art to my two B&M shops at least twice. I delivered once, and I'm about to deliver again; so I didn't miss it by much.

  • Donate art to charity each quarter. I donated a collage to EDS' auction on behalf of the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

  • Respond to a call for entries each quarter. I'm preparing to submit greeting cards in response to a call I found on Etsy--a book of 1000 handcrafted greeting cards that's in the works.

  • Accumulate 40 comments on my blog. I've received 48 comments, including one from the goddess, Claudine Helmuth.
I'm feeling pretty good about all that.

At this moment, the hit counter on my blog shows 1865 hits since October 23. Since it counts every single hit, including mine, it's a very rough counter indeed. I wanted a more comprehensive picture of the progress of my blog, so I started tracking it through Google Analytics on November 1. I don't have a year's worth of data, but I'm loving the data I've got. Here's what's been going on for the past two months.

Google counts unique visits per day, so if the same person clicks in more than once, only the first click is counted. I've had 143 absolutely unique visitors; 553 visits; and 858 pageviews. By far, the greatest number of visitors hit my home page. For those who have come in directly to an article, the most popular pieces have been my profile of Dogwoodlane and my profile of Idyll Hands.

My visitors come mostly from referrals: 69%, vs. 27% who come to the blog directly. The sites that direct the most traffic my way are, in order starting with highest volume: Blogger, Annie's blog (casseroleblog), Erin's blog (knittinghands), and my Etsy shop. Of hits that have come through search engines, the most popular search topic has been glimmer mist.

My biggest day so far: December 18, when I featured Polly and Claire's advent calendar. Thanks to Polly's popularity, I had 29 unique visitors that day.

Okay, I ain't Tim Holtz with his 20,000 hits per day. But I've discovered that I really enjoy blogging, and there are a few folks who check in with me regularly. So I'll definitely continue in the New Year. And if you have ideas or suggestions, please share. You know I want to hear them.

3 comments:

idyll hands said...

You mean we're supposed to stick to the goals we started with our blogs? Hmmm... interesting concept :)

Congrats on your achievements with the blog and with Etsy so far. I need to come up with some goals that are up to me and not up to chance. Hey, there is my goal, to make some goals. Happy 2008.

Anonymous said...

Way to go with meeting your goals!

Kimberly

Anne said...

You go, girl!