Popular posts, because I know you care :)

logger and it's good friend (well, OK, boss) Google have made things a lot easier in tracking traffic to blogs. I used to look at my stats every few months, just checking to see which posts got the most views, which ones didn't. Nothing regular and nothing I've ever written towards. For me, this blog has evolved from part-recipes-part-gratitude to recipes-gratitude-inspiration-journal-pretties-poetry. It's worked for me, and I've really enjoyed playing around with the format, the content, getting to know other bloggers and generally staying up on this technology-lite platform.

Taking comments or stated "followers" alone as an indication of readership is not accurate--such a low percentage of readers comment, and there are supposedly ways to increase that (notice my little questions at the end of posts, sometimes?!), but other than flat out begging (and that always strikes me as WHY?) it is what it is. I know how many blogs I peruse and/or zip past on a regular basis and very few do I actually comment on (but apparently I would/could also increase my own blog traffic by doing so more often). And, some of the super-popular blogs have a gobzillion comments already, adding to that mass always strikes me as WHY, again?

So back to Blogger and the revised interface for the blogger--it's pretty cool. While signing in takes you directly to posting, there's a tab called "Overview" that opens up to your traffic stats and where in the world they are coming from--no, not to the IP address level, don't worry I'm not stalking you--but as general as United States, Canada, Australia, Germany, Russia, etc.

Google/Blogger also track popular posts. So after a couple of months of just looking at daily post tracking every few days, I finally drilled a little deeper and looked at page views for posts. Here's what I found (I know, interesting to me, maybe less so to readers? So bear with me!):

*Most popular post ever: 13 things I love about Canada, with 2,657 views. Who knew? I bet it shows up in some "Canada love" Google searches... (see below!)

*That post is followed by two food-related posts, sort of: Cupcakes! and Gingerbread houses galore. Both are curated-style posts, with links to cupcakes and gingerbread houses from around the web.

*Interesting note: All three of the above posts are Thursday 13 posts--actually the top seven most-viewed posts are Thursday 13s. Probably that's the reason they're so popular, but I'd be hard pressed to figure that out concretely without some help; part of me thinks it must be something more... usually Thursday 13 has a general weekly participant range in the 30-50 range... not in the 1,500-2,500 range. But who knows, it could be some general cascading effect... (Thursday 13 is also my highest referring website, so there you have it. But again, the numbers don't quite add up...

*In my pages region--that line-up of titles on the right-hand side of the blog--the most-visited pages are the quotes and recipes. Which tells me I need to update the quotes more often, and probably the recipes too...

*Oh, and because I know you're dying to know about the audience and what browsers you're all using (ha ha, sure Sher), the audience is primarily viewing with Internet Explorer, with Firefox, Safari and Chrome trailing behind. Here's where I put in a plug for Firefox. Love it! Very user-friendly, intuitive, and not a lot of junk in the toolbar area; very editable, which I like. My last computer had IE on it and crashed and flickered and did all sorts of nutty things. I stopped using IE and switched to Firefox and it's been great, though I might give Chrome a spin sometime soon.

*One last thing, one thing I thought would be funnier than it is--I don't know what I was expecting--is looking at what search terms bring people to my site: "Upbeat music" is the number one search, which explains why my video post for Thursday 13 of my favorite upbeat songs is in the top 10 most viewed. "Canadian money" is next, and combine that with the seventh-biggest search "Canada money," sort of explains the "13 things I love about Canada" popularity. Sort of. Total of 523 searches, and 2,657 page hits? Hmmm. Naturally, "gingerbread house" and "cupcakes" show up next, followed closely by "sweet tea and sunshine," "happiness quotes," and so on. Nothing too shocking. Darn.

There you have it. Fun to research, however shallowly, and share with you, my readers. Gentle readers, as some would say...