Reading stats the wrong way

did this drawing a stats drop day in 2015

Are you a stats freak or do you not care for such things at all?

I’m a bit of both and my interest for stat figures has changed during my blogging time here on wp.

At first I was thrilled over the activity in the stats. Some days peaked and others there were almost no activity at all. You all recognise this feelings I think.

I’m still thrilled over stats figures sometime, but they don’t bother me any more. I’m beginning to learn how they are possible to impact. My, that was probably the worst sentence I’ve wrote in English. My Swedish is interfering. Sorry!

Anyway, how do you improve the stats when you don’t take shortcuts like fb, twitter and other social media? I’m only on wp and that’s a challenge, you may think when it comes to stats improvement.

Nope, it’s quite possible to make improvements without any other social media. My blog is not that big compared to Dannys or OMs, but they also spend a lot more time on blogging than I am able to do. (Another Swenglish sentence)

In 2014 I was an inactive blogger. I used my blog only as a showroom for my art. Then in March 2015 I started to get outside my own blog. I visited other blogs. Scary at first, but then I found one wp friend and another and another and I still find new friends almost everyday.

This is how my stats looks like.

Views 2014: 4870, 2015: 25726, 2016 January: 1842
Visitors 2014: 1828, 2015:6239, 2016 January: 461
Likes 2014: 88, 2015: 32945, 2016 January: 1639
Comments 2014: 11, 2015: 9063, 2016 January: 632
Followers 2014: 10, 2015: 800, 2016 January: 880
Countries 2014: 5, 2015: 99, 2016 ?

You can see a big difference between 2014 and 2015, right?
In 2015 I started to be an active blogger, that’s the explanation. OM use to say that stats is all about how much effort you out in to blogging. He’s 100% right.

 

borrowed the neverending form from that guy who did the first ones

 
Views, visitor and likes you can improve by post and repost and reblog a lot.

Comments stats needs a bigger effort. It’s about writing posts that triggers people to comment.

Follower stats comes by following others, that sometimes follow you back. I did that in the beginning. Not a smart way to gain followers. You have to follow about twice as many blogs as you get as followers back. That messes up the reader.

Best way for me these days to get new followers is to visit other blogs and like posts and comments that you read and like. Leave comments that are interesting to answer or encouraging comments. Then people find you, eventually. Comments likes are a very good way to find new followers.

Country stats are the most exciting stats. It is amazing to see how small our world is. In 2015 I had visitors and followers from almost 100 different countries. Wow! I’m a world traveler. Physically I been to very few countries, but here on wp I been traveling world wide.

Collecting flags are not that easy, but just be open to every blog and even if you don’t understand the languages, there’s always beautiful pictures and google translate that can help you like a foreign blog.

So, back to my headline – reading stats the wrong way.
In the beginning and for a long time I thought stats was telling me how my blog was doing. Now I know that stats tells me how I am doing.

If I don’t take time to visit your blogs, read and like posts and read and like comments in your posts, my stats are dropping fast. I can post and repost a ton, but stats won’t move up as fast as they drop. But if I visit your blogs actively and just post one or two new posts my stats get up really fast.

I like that. It is how it should be. Active blog visits should pay off good and it does. You also get to read so many interesting posts and comments and watch so much great pictures and art.

Wow, this is maybe my longest post ever! Sorry. Hope you found some interesting in it 🙂

Happy blogging to you all!

Anna