I was having a look at my site stats tonight, because it’s now a full year since I’ve been on this domain. It’s interesting to analyze some of the trends.
For instance, the top overall search term that brings new folks here is “time signatures“. The second top term is “odd time signatures“. The entry and exit on those terms is rapid, suggesting that what you folks are really searching for is a site like Drum Dojo, where there’s a great explanation of odd time signatures. Alternatively, there is Gregg Bissonette’s advice for odd times (from his DVD): “Break them down into smaller parts.” That advice is true for drums and life.
Until last Sunday, the top search term for October was “kensington publishing dooce“. I enjoyed writing the posts on the Dooce lawsuit and am glad that they were interesting to others, too. I’d have been perfectly happy seeing October close with that term at the top.
But my rant on Sunday night pushed Dooce a bit down the ladder and the actual top search term for October was a tie between “48 hours scientology“, “PayPerPost” and “Techcrunch“.
Some other interesting stuff from the reports: In October, 2005 the number of unique visitors for one month was 1100. One year later, 8,950 for October. Welcome visitors. I hope you came for a reason other than seeing me behave badly and call someone names.
Which brings me to my final observation: There’s been a pretty steady trend of growth in the number of visitors to the site, but October’s growth was huge compared to the August-September growth. That’s cool, I’m glad that folks are finding their way here. But honestly, it makes me a little bit sad that perhaps the post least characteristic of who I really am garnered the most attention.
It’s the old “don’t-look-at-the-train-wreck-I-have-to-look” syndrome, and as much as I might enjoy getting attention and new readers, I honestly would prefer it be for something I wrote that was worth reading. Or looking at. Or both.
I’ll try to do better on that score. I do have one more response to make to close the door on that whole exchange, but I’ll do it in a separate post and then move on.
Thanks to all of you who have visited, commented, and linked here over the past year. It’s been fun being part of the conversation, and hopefully the next 12 months will be even more interesting.
- DnW
Technorati Tags: attention, search terms, metrics, site statistics
