State Of The Blog Address

Before I really dig down into the garden this year, I thought it would be fun to do a little state of blog post.  I think it's always fun to see the numbers and comings and goings behind things and blogs are no different. Statistics and trends can be fascinating I think, and I'm often surprised at what turns out popular and what does not.

The majority of my site traffic comes from Google.  No shock there. Because Charleston is a tourist town I get a decent amount of traffic from that word alone.  Charleston, Charleston, Charleston.  Just adding it a few more times for the Googlebot!  It works too.  Many times I've seen visitors come by looking for "Charleston Gardens" and stay long enough to check out half the pages on my site.  These types of visits are very obvious to the blogger and make us feel so good!

So starting with the basics, Children of the Corm, on an average non-post day gets about 50 visits, if you don't count the mad bombing hits from Pakistan and the like.  On a post day, and the day after, it can vary dramatically from 100-250 visits.  Nothing stupendous, but not terrible either, considering my very first month of blogging Jan 2010, I had an entire 9 visits. Also I only post 2-3 times a month on average.  I have noticed that if I post 4-6 times a month my traffic increases dramatically, about 3 fold.  But realistically, I'm really not capable of keeping that up on an every month basis.   The very best day on my blog statistically speaking was the day it was linked in Apartment Therapy, also not surprisingly.  I was famous for a day!

Besides from not posting on a Friday, I have given up trying to figure out when 'best' to post a blog to maximize readership.  Because it is a garden blog it can be extremely weather dependent.  If the weather is clement in the USA, UK, Australia, and Canada its going to be crickets on the blog, particularly on a weekend.  If the weather is crappy over most of those land masses, its going to be a high traffic Saturday and Sunday.  I have also noticed that posting the day before a holiday or the holiday itself will ensure light visits, however, the day after a holiday seems to be a high traffic day.  I guess all that turkey in the belly is keeping people on the couch 'surfing.'

I don't mind people downloading my photos, and as I have yet to have someone hijack my blog content, at this point I take it as a sort of compliment.  That said it is very surprising what people really are interested in saving. Despite that this picture was posted in reference to its ugly side, this is the #1 currently downloaded picture, and #2 overall:

In 2012 alone, 21 people have decided they needed to keep
 a permanent copy!

The current #2 (and #1 overall):

Followed closely by another from the same post:

Next up are a pair of my cat, Siggy:

So it basically takes til pictures #s 6 and 7 to get to something mildly garden related, also both from the same post:

And just a quick jump back to Geography, about 50% of my visitors come from the USA, 10% from the UK, 5% each from Australia, Canada, and Germany, and the other 25% from everywhere else in the world.  Except for China.  I have only had one lone visit from non-Hong Kong China. Apparently I must be blacklisted over there. In the USA state-wise, Texas leads the way with a whopping 11%, followed by North Carolina at 8%, South Carolina at 7%, Georgia at 4% and with New York at 3% rounding out the top 5.  Come on home State!  Texas is beating you!

My top 5 posts are:
1)"You Might Be A Weed If..."
2)"10 Shade Tolerant Roses"
3)"Brugmania Mania" 
4)"How To Age A Brand New Cement Statue"
5)"When Wildlife Won't Stay Put"

My least popular post was my very first one :( which I thought pretty good.  Check it out sometime if you want to make me feel better about it :)!
For The Love Of 4 O'clock

My top Google search terms are: "shade tolerant roses", "how to build a trellis", "white garden", "brugmansia" "Charleston gardens" and the persistent "ballerina rose" coming in at #1.

On the live and learn column, one thing I wish I hadn't done was put the word naked in a post along with lady in the same post, as well as children in the name of the blog.  Some of these searches that I get are amusing, i.e. "Naked neighbor lady in my garden", but others are downright sicko. I don't want those people even looking at my blog!  I'll just say that there are bad people out there.

I am very fortunate to average about 15 individual comments on each of my posts, and I am very very grateful for them.  I have quite a few frequent commenters, Grace, Masha, Holley, Kyna, Deb, Marguerite, Casa M, Phillip, Clare, Catmint, Ursula, Donna, Gina, Daracia, Carolyn, Jim, Heidi, Christine, Jean, and I'm sure more, plus I've had some new commenters recently that I hope will continue to stop by! Thank you all very much.

Also, in the thanks giving, my top referrers are:
"The Idiot Gardener"
"Charleston Daily Photo"
"Compost In My Shoe"

...but I get so many referrals from so many of you, so again, thanks so much.

Well, that about sums it up! One housekeeping issue: I finally got around to creating myself a blog facebook page, so for those that prefer to follow on facebook, you now can.  There's a link in the sidebar.

Cheers to another year of fun blogging, blog reading, and gardening adventures (with plenty of mishaps by you all because those make amusing post!)  I have made it into the beginning of my 3rd year, so maybe I'll be a long-timer after all!

Jess