Oh, look, it's my blog stats.
It looks like my number of visits (not necessarily unique) increases at a rate of 0.45 people per day per day, or 400 per month per month. I guess that's good?Blog statistics were one of the things that surprised me the most when I started blogging. I mean, I didn't even know before that webmasters can tell where their visitors come from. Furthermore, I didn't expect that the majority of visitors would come from Google. Or is it just my blog that's like that?
My rate of visits is probably pretty modest. I guess I'll never conquer the world... And I guess my ponderous brooding is sort of a small niche. Anecdotes, human interest stories--I'm not very good at that. Data and information--I'm not particularly good at that either, except within a narrow specialization. I'm mostly good at making abstract rhetoric.
Oh, and puzzles! I can't say I've ever seen a really good puzzle blog (though there plenty of good websites with other formats). Most seem heavily biased towards sudoku and other grid puzzles. Grrrr...
Anyways, part of it is that I'm no good at self-advertisement. I'm too modest to submit to carnivals that often. It's precisely because of the low quality of the Carnival of the Godless that I feel most comfortable submitting to that carnival. And despite skepticism being the central theme of the blog, I don't actually write anything that I would consider submitting the the Skeptic's Circle. My stuff is too speculative and abstract. I wonder if there are other carnivals worth submitting to. But darn it, I don't even keep track of carnivals anymore.
Oh the other route to fame is through commenting on other people's blogs. The problem is that I hardly participate in the blogosphere conversation. Those two outlying points on the above graph are the one time that I linked my null physics post on Pharyngula. It remains my most popular page, despite being one of the more poorly written ones IMO.
But forget fame. Forget the conversation. Blogging has done wonders to my writing ability!
Oh, and in other news, same-sex marriage is made legal in California! Awesome!
5 comments:
I suspect a large part of getting seen is about participating in the blogosphere. I've only been blogging for a few months (and not very regularly at that!) but I've had a gallery on DeviantArt for a couple years, and I think the principle is the same. The best way to get seen is to read other people's contributions and comment. If your comments are thoughtful and insightful, people will be more likely to check you out as a result.
That said, I'm not commenting near as much as I ought to, so maybe I shouldn't talk…
Out of curiousity, what are your top Google searches?
Also, keep posting puzzles! You provide some good ones that I've never seen before!
It's weird... though I find plenty of time to blog, I can hardly ever find the time to write insightful comments. I wonder why that is?
My top search words are "null physics" by a long shot. Following that are "brick puzzle" and "sixteen dots", and then a long tail. It's funny... writing that bit about the brick puzzle has probably improved more lives than anything else I've ever said.
Running your own blog, I find, is a growing process, just like anything else in life.
The most rewarding part is self-discovery. Of course it's nice to have a large audience and feel loved by many, but fame is not our main motivation for writing, is it?
For whatever it's worth, I think you have some great thoughts. Much of it is over my head (especially the puzzles), but that's the price you pay for having the brains. ;-)
Your blog has three types of subjects: physics; puzzles; and atheism. I'll bet the number of responses increases in that order.
Chemiker, I haven't crunched the numbers, but I suspect you are correct. I don't think this means the religion posts are more popular--maybe people are just more likely to have something to say.
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