My first WordPress blog “The Concertblog” passed the 300,000 visitor mark some time last week. Yay! When it hit 299,000, I started to monitor the stats more closely than before. These are number of visitors, not views. A visitor can have many page views but ONE visit to the site.
Concertblog stats @ 6-9-2015
When I first set up the WordPress site in March 2009, I had no idea it would be so easy to add content. It was easier than using Dreamweaver and hand-coding in HTML.
I was elated that WordPress was free, until I learned that I was the free labor for WordPress. I don’t get a penny of the traffic that reads my blog post and clicks on an Ad link that I have no control over.
Thus it became paramount to change my own websites (i.e. AnneKu.com) to a WordPress site instead of continuing to create wordpress.com sites.
With the advent of iPad and iPhones, it became even easier to blog using the WordPress app. I could blog anywhere and anytime. I could check my stats anywhere and anytime.
The links to Twitter, Facebook, and Linked-In made it easier and more compelling to tell people that I’ve published.
The nature of blogging changed with the availability of these social media tools. It was no longer just about writing, editing, and publishing the content. Each post in WordPress carried its own Search Engine Optimization (SEO) engine. The blog post became a way to get the attention of the right audience.
Thinking back, I did not blog for this purpose at all. I first started blogging in May 1999, with the Diary of Anne Ku, to get me into a writing routine. Writing and getting published everyday is the equivalent of giving a concert every day. Writing everyday is like practising piano everyday. It’s not enough to overcome stage fright unless I perform in front of an audience, i.e., get my writing read.
Every year, I’d celebrate the anniversary of the launch of my first website on “Ides of March” with a restaurant outing — usually to a Chinese restaurant. After ten banquets, I lost count. Now I use my blogs as a memory bank.
“Hmmmm, I wonder what I was doing ten years ago?”
“What’s the name of the person I met in New York in April about fifteen years ago?”
“Let me check to make sure I haven’t written about this before.”
Traffic to Concertblog reached a new milestone after I published my arrangement for the popular song “Let It Go.” It is by far the biggest attraction. If every view generated a dollar, I’d have $22,144 in the cyberbank! It’s insane!
Views of “Let It Go” for easy piano on Concertblog @ Now