Close to 10,000

I've blogged for a little over a year now and am nearing 10,000 unique visitors to my blog! However, I don't get too excited about the number of visitors. Why? Because on the internet there are so many ways (intended and unintended!) for a visitor to end up on your blog or website.

There are many free services that you can use to monitor activity on your blog: among them Stat Counter, NeoCounter, and Google Analytics. They can tell you the number of visitors, pages visited, referring websites, popular content, etc.

Top 5 internet searches that resulted in a visit to my blog:

1. Georgia O"keefe (I stated that my trumpet flower photograph reminded me of Georgia's flowers)

2. Alien Footprints (A description of a hand carved stamp).  I'm fairly certain that most of those Googling "alien footprints" were not searching for quilt-related information!

3. Textile Artist -this one makes me happy!

4. Glue Resist

5. Baby Quilt

 

Number of visitors to my site by country:

1. US

2. UK

3. Canada

4. India

5. Belgium

Referring websites (not counting Google searches):

1. The Quilt Show Member Blogs

2. Julie Prichard

3. Subversive Stitchers: Women Armed with Needles

4. Jules Rushing

5. Janet's Fiber Artistry

I so appreciate others linking to my website.  I work hard to try and write about things that are of interest to my current and future readers.  Thanks for getting me to 10,000 visits and if you were really looking for information on extra-terrestials I hope you enjoyed you visit here!

Top 10 Rules for Blogging

I have been blogging for 10 months now and am a faithful reader of about 300 blogs. Over time I have developed my top 10 rules for blogging:

1. Define your reason(s) for blogging. Is the blog a journal, advertising, instructional, for profit, etc.?

2. Don't apologize. We are all busy; don’t waste the reader’s time with apologies just give them something interesting to read or see.

3. Be consistent in publishing. Define your blogging schedule: monthly, weekly, or daily blog publishing is okay as long as your readers know what to expect.

4. Use photos. I’m a very visual person (like the photo of my keyboard and mouse pad?).

5. Always give credit and respect copy writes. Golden rule applies here.

6. Provide hyperlinks. We are all busy; make it fast and easy for the reader to follow links.

7. Get to the point. Again, we are all busy.

8. No sounds or music without warning. Loud music is not a nice surprise when quickly reviewing blogs at work or a public place.

9. Remember the blog may take on a life of it is once it is published. Write like your mom/future boss/child is reading your blog. 

10. Have fun. If it is a chore to churn out the blog you may need to review rule #1 above.

Any rules you would add to the list?