I’m back

I made it through Missouri Hope. The grand total was 135 role-players in 240 roles (some did multiple slots) over three days. In other words, a lot of work. I would call it the most intense weekend of my year, because I tend not to schedule intense work on weekends. I need my weekends to relax and write.

I have to admit the past couple posts were mainly to keep from losing my record, which is either 70 days or 90-something. The record-keeping software on WordPress has a glitch somewhere, and I don’t know whether the higher or the lower number is the glitched one.

Now is time to recover and work on getting ready for November. I will be writing my latest Kringle novel in the month of November with a goal of 50k words. I will not be participating in NaNoWriMo, for reasons I’ve laid out here. The wheel of the year keeps turning, with Homecoming and Halloween soon, then the holidays, and I am carried along with it.

Contractual Obligation

It’s actually my 91-day writing streak on WordPress. And I’m still sick.

See you tomorrow.

I’m sick.

I think I have the flu. You don’t need to care; I just don’t to break my 84-day writing streak on WordPress.

WordPress is a Mystery

How popular is WordPress as a blog, anyhow?

According to this source, WordPress.com users published over 52.3 million blog posts and more than 4.9 million web pages in January 2024. That’s nearly 2 million a day.

I didn’t realize that WordPress was so big. How does anyone get their posts seen? How do people occasionally find my page? I guess it’s all about hashtags, but I don’t know that my hashtags are all that special; yet I sometimes have those moments where sixty-something people find me. Even yesterday, 15 people found an older post of mine. How did that happen?

I suspect to really be seen, I would have to spend money on their SEO tools and advertising. I don’t have the budget for that, especially for the fact that this is not where I advertise books (at least not very often). I’d have to be a lot more serious and intentional for this blog to be something I promote. I guess WordPress’s workings will just have to be a mystery to me.

Hostinger Tutorials. (2024). Top 23 WordPress Statistics: Defining Trends and Insights for 2024. Available: https://www.hostinger.com/tutorials/wordpress-statistics?gad_source=1&gclid=CjwKCAjwl6-3BhBWEiwApN6_kgCefZ7YZq2h_l318pel9KTNgBKulOMO8vnDd-9-fbWuZwLA7sNG_hoCPdYQAvD_BwE [September 19, 2024].

Testing my Theory

I have a theory that posting at 8 AM on a Tuesday morning (Central Daylight Time, UTC +5) will yield very few hits. I’m testing it here.

In the app Loomly, the app can tell you which times are optimal for posting to each platform. It’s a strategy I use for determining when to post. Not always, but often. Loomly does not connect to WordPress, so it’s not useful for determining times.

Another thing is that WordPress has a more world-wide spread. I have readers on occasion from India, Cameroon, the UK, many other African nations, Bangladesh … This is not the case on other platforms. What is the optimal time for these places?

So consider this a test. Let’s see if I get even my normal amount of visitors.

Readers

Yesterday was my best day ever as far as engagement on WordPress goes — 65 hits and at least 24 (hard to count them) likes. I think I have figured out how that happens one day, and the next there’s hardly any hits. It all has to do with whether your post makes the front page. And by some strangeness, I think three of my posts found their way to the front page yesterday.

Photo of woman sits on the wooden bench and working on laptop computer outside

There are so many of us on WordPress, all wanting hits. There are only so many of us who can spend time on the front page. What is the algorithm and how can we take advantage of it? I honestly don’t know, or else I would. I would love to have a lot of readers.

I have about 100 followers, but they’re not regular readers. I think I have about 10 regular readers. What would I do with 100 regular readers? With 2000? I think I’d fall over, and then when I recovered, I think I’d occasionally promote my books.

Does anyone want to read my books? Here they are.

2001st Post!

This is my 2001st post! I missed post 2000 because I wrote in answer to one of WordPress’s prompts. But I’ve actually stuck to this for 2000 posts!

My first post was Calling All Creatives, and it had four views. I get a few more views now, but would still like more readership. My most popular post was an anniversary post which got 65 views. My 2000th post was on the prompt “My Most Valuable Lesson” today.

What have I learned from 2000 posts?

One doesn’t get to 2000 posts by deciding to get there; one keeps writing one at a time until it happens.
Posts are better with pictures.
Using the supplied prompts boosts number of readers, and some of them stay on as regular readers.
WordPress does a far better job of sorting out riff-raff than Blogger. I have no more links from webcam girls showing up in my feed.
I can’t predict which posts will become more popular.
Not every reader likes the post, but enough do.
2000 posts is a lot of posts.

Here’s to 2000 more posts!

A Lack of Pattern

I’m trying to analyze which posts of mine are most successful — prompted posts? My own ideas? Short posts? Long post? Personal posts? Posts about writing? I have come to the conclusion that I can’t predict what will get me more viewers.

I’ve always thought prompted posts performed better than non-prompted posts, long posts better than shorter posts, and posts about writing better than personal posts.

Yesterday, a short prompted post about what personality traits I disliked — with no title — performed better than any post I’ve had in the past couple weeks. This is expected because the prompted posts appear to get more circulation. Yet I’ve had other prompted posts only get as many likes as one I’ve written without a prompt.

My best performing post of all time had to do with my wedding anniversary. Other posts (even about birthdays) have gotten little attention.

There seems to be a randomness to what plays well and what does not, which means I’m learning nothing about how to improve my traffic.

5000 Views on my Blog? 2000 Blog Posts? How Did I Do That?

Yesterday, WordPress announced to me that my blog has had over 5000 views. That seems like a really big number. Then again, I’m a little over a week away from my 2000th post. I don’t feel like I have written two thousand posts. (Note: I believe this number counts the blog posts I transferred over from Blogger when I first moved here.)

How did I do this? A little at a time, without thinking of the number at the end. I didn’t think “Oh, I only have 256 more posts to write before I hit 1000!” I just wrote daily, and they all added up. I think the same happens when I write a novel. I don’t set out to write 80,000 words. I write the story until I’m done, and then count the words.

I’m sure this is a metaphor for life. Don’t count the steps; just go where you need to and check your progress later. This contradicts everything I know about resource management, however. Numerical goals (like 2000 blog posts or 80,000 words or 10,000 steps) are easy to track, far better than “when it’s done”. The goal has to be set so that one can tell whether they’re on track or not. But they’re tedious.

When there’s a great distance to the goal, the numbers can be daunting. This is where time management advice for procrastinators comes into play: Break the task up into smaller chunks. So the 2000 blog posts can be 20 chunks of 100 posts. That’s more manageable. Or the 80,000 words can be several chapters of 3000 words (which is the length of a chapter in my writing).

So there’s my advice. Don’t let the big numbers scare you — focus on the little numbers. Keep repeating. And then, eventually, they add up to 80,000 or 5000 or 10,000.