Happy anniversary, blog

A year ago today, I started this blog. It’s been really interesting. We all learn best by doing, and I have certainly learned a lot through this experience.

One of the more interesting things I have learned: About 26 percent of the blog’s visitors each day find it via a Google search for a few keywords. Site Meter allows me to see what these keywords are — they are quite wide ranging! Of course, folks find this blog by searching for multimedia, Flash, teaching, journalism or newspapers. Some people actually search for tojou ; yesterday one person found it via a search for sewer wireless!

I wish I had a better idea of how long people stay on each post. The average time spent per site visit is 2 min. 28 sec., and it’s clear that a lot of people pop in for a glance and then click out. About 1 person in 20 spends more than 10 minutes on the blog. (The average time people in general spend on a Web page is 43 seconds, according to Nielsen//NetRatings.)

People click on fewer links than I had expected. Learning that has caused me to pay closer attention to my own Web surfing behavior. I have noticed that I actually don’t click a lot of links either — I Google, I go, I glance, and I click the Back button. Probably only 1 click in 10 leads me, personally, to go on clicking further into a site or to follow the proffered external links. My online behavior is a lot like that of a hummingbird on the quest for nectar. Like the hummingbird’s behavior, mine is both deliberate and rewarding, even if I don’t spend a long time at any one flower.

I have also learned these things:

1. Link to others, and often, they will link back.
2. My readers send me great tips and links.
3. I can take a few days off and it does not hurt the blog.
4. Blogging can be like an addiction.
5. Site Meter can be like an addiction.
6. Some days I really do feel like I must “feed the blog.”
7. Just because I don’t get a lot of comments does not mean people are not reading.
8. Reader growth is slow but steady.
9. Post headlines count tremendously toward Google’s ranking of blog posts.
10. Some bloggers copy shamelessly and never link; some link but copy your entire post; either way, it’s not worth worrying about (but it bugs me anyway).

Feedburner tells me that 298 people are subscribed via RSS; 104 of them have done so through Bloglines. The others are using Rojo (19 percent), Firefox Live Bookmarks (11 percent), and a variety of other services.

The site met its 10,000th visitor on Aug. 21 and its 20,000th visitor on Nov. 16, according to Site Meter. At the current rate of site visits, No. 30,000 will probably arrive in mid-January.

About 40 to 45 percent of the visitors are people who’ve come here before, according to Google Analytics. That number has been consistent for at least three months.

I’d like to send out a big THANK YOU to all of you who are reading, commenting and sending me those great tips. I guess I’ll keep on doing this for the time being!

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