Well, 2007 is in the books, and 2008 is off and running. Today, I’ll take a quick look back at some of my more interesting posts, and stats from last year concerning this site.
Popular Posts
My three most popular posts were Truck Stop Dining, Redeye and Twins v. Hunter.
Truck Stop Dining was picked up by MNspeak as one of the local blogging sites of the day. As a result, a high amount of traffic cruised on over, and visited my site. In fact, it spawned a sprawling conversation about truck stops on MNspeak. It’s difficult for me to tell if any of the MNspeak readers have stuck around. However, I’m hoping I gained some readers from this link.
In Redeye, I seemed to strike a nerve about traveling, and needing to suck it up. Not only does this post have the most comments of any post, it also has the most number of unique commenters. Needless to say, it was a fun conversation that got people talking.
Twins v. Hunter contained my comments on Torii Hunter signing with the Angels for 5 years and $90 million. At the time, I thought it was a good move on the part of Bill Smith. Today, I still hold that opinion. However, it’s becoming more crucial, two months later, that Smith address the gaping hole in centerfield.
Popular Traffic Sources
My three most popular traffic sources were Google, direct visitors and MNspeak. In 2007, Google accounted for about 30% of my visitors, direct visitors accounted for 28%, and MNspeak accounted for 15% of my visitors. The remaining 27% came from a variety of other sources.
Popular Search Term
Often, search terms used to reach a site from a search engine can be entertaining to look at it. In my case, that’s not true. The top three keywords used in searches to reach my site were variations of my name: john d schultz or john schultz.
Popular Locations
In 2007, I had visitors from 14 different countries or territories. The only country with repeat visitors was the United States. Within the United States, Minnesota, unknown, and California are the top states. I wish I knew more about the unknown state, as they’re among my most loyal readers. But, I don’t. I do know my United States visitors viewed 2.55 pages/visit, spent an average of 4:24 on my site, 51% of the time were new visitors, and 63% of the time never left the page they came in on.
Total Traffic
As you might imagine, my site does not get a ton of traffic. From November 16, the launch date of the site, until the end of the year, I received 578 visits from 314 unique visitors who viewed 1,451 pages. On a daily basis that breaks down to 12.8 visits per day, from 7.0 unique visitors who viewed 32.2 pages. As the year progressed, those numbers grew, and are continuing to grow in 2008. In fact, 2008 shows, on a very small sample size, an increase of nearly 40% in traffic. That seems like a big number. However, when you consider we’re comparing the 2008 numbers to rather small 2007 numbers, it makes some sense.
2008 and Beyond
My goal is to continue to post 5 or 6 times per week on a variety of topics. As you saw last year, some of my favorite topics include sports, the economy, politics, random life updates, and a spattering of random musings. I’m sure 2008 will be similar. Look for the addition of commentary about auctions and the industry, and also for more political commentary – especially now that we’re in a presidential election year. Other than that, I’m confident the traffic numbers will continue to grow and increase, as I continue to make regular posts. In the end, popularity isn’t as important to me when compared to the importance of having the conversation.
Here’s to a great 2008.