Another blogging year is almost over and it’s time to recap some of the ups and downs of 2011. Did I reach my goals? What drove traffic to husdal.com? What were the most popular posts? What can I do to improve in 2012? These are just some of the timely questions every blogger should ask before starting a new year of blogging. As to how husdal.com fared in 2011 there are some expected developments and also some unexpected surprises. All in all, I think I did pretty well, compared to 2010.
Did I reach my traffic goals?
It is very ambitious, I know, but when I started 2011 I was aiming at doubling my 2010 traffic, which meant going from 100,000 visitors to 200,000 visitors…well, I missed that one. I only increased by 60%, not 100%. Nonethless, 160,000 visitors in one year are some 13,000 visitors per month, and I’m quite happy with that.
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What I find noteworthy is that the average visitor spends more than 4 minutes on my website; that’s good. Now, for 2012, considering my coming career change and less time for blogging, I’ll adjust my goal to 200,000 visitors. That should be a fairly reachable goal.
What drives traffic to husdal.com?
Looking at what sites/domains that bring in the most traffic, a marked change has taken place in 2011, compared to 2010:
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In 2010, en.wikipedia.org (#1 in 2011) wasn’t even on the list, linkedin.com was #8 (#2 IN 2011), researchblogging.org was #2 (#4 in 2011) and google.com was #3 (#5 in 2011). The reason for Wikipedia’s jump in ranking is that some articles list my posts as external reference, e.g. this post on the Northern Sea Route is referenced in Wikipedia’s article on the Northern Sea Route. The increase in linkedin.com as a referrer I put down to that not only have I linked up with a lot of people using Linkedin, I have also been active in Linkedin Groups and Linkedin Answers. The last to referrers are a result of my cooperation with Incapsula, the state-of-the-art security and performance provider for websites, and which has protected my blog from a number of attacks in 2011.
What were the most popular posts in 2011?
2011, as did 2010, confirmed that sometimes posts may take a while before they gain an audience, as the most read posts in 2011 may be posts that I wrote quite some time ago, and not at all in 2011:
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If I disregard my home page as the most read “post”, the real #1 in 2011 was #3 in 2010 and was written in 2009: Supply chain risk management in six steps is a straightforward and reasy to read and understand post about SCRM; it is essentially supply chain risk made easy, and that is probably why it is so popular. Interestingly, my 2009 post on the latest trends in SCM still holds up as #2 (#2 in 2010), presumably because people are using that as a search phrase. Surprisingly, #3 and #5 on the list are new posts from 2011, and a result of securing my blog with Incapasula, and the promotional posts and comments I made about it. What was #1 in 2010 is now #4 in 2011, thankfully, because the post is only popular among those searching for an image on cost-benefit analysis, and has nothing supply chain risk about it.
What can I do to improve in 2012?
As already mentioned, there will be a career change in 2012, and consequently there will a change of focus of this blog. It remains to be seen whether this will be an improvement or not, but it will certainly – I hope so – widen the audience of this blog, and will inspire me to write better, I think. As to other things I could improve, I ask you as my readers to come up with suggestions, so please leave your thoughts in the comments below.
Less posts – more visitors
In summary, my writing was a lot less prolific in 2011 than in 2010, only 87 posts, compared to 121 posts in 2010, not to mention 164 posts in 2009. I think it truly goes to show that less is more and that churning out post after post is not the key to success in blogging. I did not reach my goals, but I am satisfied the way things turned out after all. Bearing in mind that I posted almost nothing during the entire months of November and December I am quite content that I did not suffer a greater loss of visitors.
2012 – here I come
To all my followers and fellow bloggers, Happy New Year 2012!
Related links
- getclicky.com: GetClicky web stats
Related posts
- husdal.com: Looking back at 2010
- husdal.com: Looking back at 2009
