Every year, I try to beat my numbers from the last. I thought 2014 blew past 2013 and I’d say, “So long sucker!” while smirking at it in the rear view mirror. More followers + more blog posts = more views. That’s logical, right? Pshh!
Here’s what WordPress sent me this year.
The concert hall at the Sydney Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 49,000 times in 2014. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 18 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.
I checked out my 2013 report and guess what? My blog was visited 49,000 times that year too! That’s the exact same stinkin’ performance at the Sydney Opera House two years running. I came up short. GAH!
What do I have to do to hit 50,000?
WordPress figured I would be bummed. Those crazy monkeys suggested I write new posts about the topics which scored huge views.
I scrambled through my stats. What was most popular in 2014? Boobs! Of course! NOTE TO SELF: Write more posts about boobs. Everybody loves boobs. I love boobs and I don’t even have boobs. I have silicone replacement bionic boobs. Yep. I’ll write a few more blog posts about boobs. That should put me over the 50,000 goal line in 2015!
Wait! My most popular post ever was written back in the day when we got views every time someone liked, commented, or sneezed on our blog. In 2012, What’s In Your Future got an amazing 16,000 views.
I had a EUREKA moment. If I combine them, I bet I’ll double those views! I know! I’ll write how Boobs are in your future. Some of my male readers a and a few female readers might like that. No… Or make predictions about your boobs, like, “Your boobs will rock in plunging necklines this spring.” No. I’m not a fashion blogger and I have a lot of readers who are men. Or I could write about, “The future of boob jobs and what it means for women.” No… That’s too heavy for this Wild Rider. I’ll leave that to Esquire and Cosmopolitan Magazines.
On second thought, I better keep them separate. A nipple post has been simmering in the back of my mind right next to the one about about horoscopes. I think both are in my future. Maybe one of them will catch a few views in 2015…
Are you a stats person or could you care less?
Susie Lindau's Wild Ride 
I no longer care anymore to tell you the truth. I write for two local newspapers, a very small magazine, and now write when I feel the urge online. I love to write– make no bones about that–it is my joy in life and the people I have met through my journeys like yourself are now with me for life.. But, I figure if just one person made the effort to find me and read me then I am thrilled. Weird isn’t it? The process of putting it all down completes me now. Weird isn’t it?
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That is so wonderful, Linda! I would love to write for a newspaper. I agree about the friendships formed online. They are as dear to me as any real life bond.
I can’t help myself. I’m always hoping for improvement and I thought it was so funny to end up with the exact same numbers. Real readers will always be more important than views or hits.
Happy New Year!
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I pretend I’m not a stats person but I long for numbers like yours. Even my boob stories don’t get that kind of numbers.I have stat envy. Where is that dang “Like” button.
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It’s hard not to compare. There is always someone out there who has more of everything. I would like to see my blog continue to grow for how much work I put into it. Blogging has it’s limitations, unless you’re the Bloggess!
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How amazing you got the same number of views both years! Maybe just write a post a week titled “Boobs! Boobs! Boobs!” ?
By the way, how did you find the stats on your most popular subjects? I’m kinda a techno-idiot…..
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I think I’ll include the word “boobs” in all of my posts.
If you go to your classic stats page and find “Top Posts and Pages” and click “Summaries” and “All Time” you will find the stats for your most popular posts.
Happy New Year, Darla!
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Hey some repeats are good. (Unlike reruns where you groan “Oh, not again. When do the new shows come on?)
Congrats on the staying power
(and yeah, Boobs in titles, in content, and constantly repeated in comments should do it!)
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Thanks Phil!
It’s funny. I thought my title would be a cheap way to bring in views and my stats were through the roof this morning, but not from this post. Someone shared my “Singing Happy Birthday is Risky Business” on Reddit and it’s blowing up over there. Ha! No boobs at all!
Happy New Year!
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It is so weird what gets picked up. If the right person notices it, it’s crazy.
But, hey, we function best in crazy, right? May the new year’s dance whirl brighter than ever for you and yours!
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Awww! And yours be more spectacular than you can imagine.
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Close to 50,000 views is amazing! I’m sure getting Freshly Pressed was a big factor, no less than 4 times! Any secret formula?
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Thanks Aidan!
I throw my blog onto Stumbleupon and once in a while it takes off. I had one that got 1000 hits that way. The last 15 have gotten 0. One post was Freshly Pressed this year. It had been a while. I’ve had some posts I thought for sure would get Pressed and didn’t. It’s like playing Russian Roulette. It depends on who the editors are the day that pick them and what interests them. There’s a lot they don’t ever see. There are a million blogs posted a day. Readers who bring a post to the editor’s attention on Twitter is HUGE! Two of my readers did that for me last time I was FPd.
Just keep on writing! Happy New Year!
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I should add that someone shared an older post, “Singing Happy Birthday is Risky Business” on Reddit and it’s blowing up today! This is a Reddit first for me.
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It’s not the views, it’s the engaged readers (says the guy who doesn’t blog anymore.)
Here’s to a…perky and…shapely…new year, to all the Lindau family!
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You are absolutely right. They are the ones who may consider buying a book. (Getting published is still on my list for 2015 New Year’s Resolutions!)
Miss you Guapo! You should come back to blogging and skip Fridays. Those blog posts were epic and must have taken hours and hours! Of course, I’m assuming that’s why you quit.
The girls are always ready to go! Thanks Guapo! Happy New Year to you and yours!
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The only stats I find interesting on my year end are the top five blogs, because it’s always a surprise. I love boobs and stories about boobs, so I’m looking forward to your blog in 2015. Happy New Year.
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Boobs ROCK! I really appreciate them now that I only have totally fake ones. There are a few more boob posts in the works….
I find the top blog posts interesting too. One of them was a post about camera distortion from two years ago! It’s one of the few posts that gets SEO’d or searched.
Happy New Year Timothy!
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My Zipper Spider blog has been in the top 5 every year since 2011. My Chicken Spinner blog fell out of the top five this year, but Chicken Spinner was the most popular search term that brought people to my blog for a couple of years. That was a mystery to me until I looked up chicken spinner in the Urban Dictionary.
Cheers to boobs, real a fake! Have a great NYE! and Happy New Year, Susie!
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Now I have to look up Chicken Spinner with Urban. Oh! Eeeuwwwww! Hahaha! I’ll have to look up your Zipper Spider blog post.
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I’m not much of a stats person, and I’ve learned not to use photos of celebs if I can help it. They may attract views, but they don’t attract actual readers. I’m more about the interaction. Then again, having a post with good stats certainly doesn’t suck. 😉
Happy New Year!
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Using celeb photos can be risky depending on where you get them. A few of my friends had to pay fines for copyright infringement. Back in the day was so much fun when I could steal anything I wanted off Google Images. Now I am super careful. Dang!
It’s too bad that WP doesn’t tell us how long our readers stay on our blog. I wish they would put more time into analytics than “jazzing” up our stats page. If you go to Alexa.com, it can give you a guessitimate.
Happy New Year!
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Thanks for the info. I’m careful about the photos I use, too. I try to either use my own or get them from Microsoft Clip Art or Wikipedia where they’re in the public domain.
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Same! There are new free sites popping up too.
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I just popped in to hobnob with the person who has close to 50,000 views! Do you see all those zeros? I’m not into stats, but that is pretty darn impressive.
Happy 2015!
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Thanks Lisa!
What makes me happier is friends like you who stop by! That’s more important than any numbers.
Happy New Year to you!
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With my main blog, I only care about getting enough stats to see that someone out there is reading what I wrote. However, I’m in the process of launching a second blog that will offer the most advanced writing challenges I know of around here. With that blog, me getting high stats means that my participants will get higher stats.
If you want higher stats, check it out sometime. The URL is http://blacklightcandelabra.wordpress.com and the first writing prompt appears on January 5th. There won’t be any topics about boobs but there’s surely a way for you to work boobs into a post on any topic.
Also, happy new year.
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Good luck on your new blog! It is all about community, that’s for sure.
Boobs is a subject which can be dropped into almost any post, I think… 🙂
Happy New Year to you!
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I’ve avoided looking at my stats summary for 2014, because I know it will only depress me. I do know from past looks into my stats that posts which include references to a certain body part of mine (but NOT mine specifically!) tend to get lots of hits. The all time hit leader remains Life Lessons From Gilligan’s Island. I’m not even going to entertain the possibility of merging those two topics, I’m not that much of a hit-slut.
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Oh! And Happy New Year Susie!
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Hit Slut, I LOVE it!
I also think the more you blog the more views you get. I only blog 2-3 times a week.
I mentioned this in earlier comments I thought my cheap title would bring in some extra views, but it’s a really old post that is blowing up today. Someone shared it on Reddit. It’s about singing Happy Birthday could cost 10,000 dollars. Not one jiggly bit mentioned anywhere!
Happy New Year to you!
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Be proud of your 49K! You have orders of magnitude more readers than I. Interestingly, my most popular post of 2014 had the words “naked flesh” in the title: http://audreykalman.com/2014/09/24/for-going-viral-naked-flesh-beats-naked-emotion-every-time. I guess we are all just visceral beings.
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Thank you! I put a lot of time into blogging. More than I probably should. 🙂
That is so funny! I bet you get a lot of searches from horny toads… If I use the words “Naked Boobs” in a post it could really go viral!
Social media can blow up a post too. My “Singing Happy Birthday is Risky Business” was posted on Reddit today and it’s getting tons of views, but I think “hits” is more accurate. Depending on how long it stays up there, it could be a record breaker! I wish I knew who posted it so I could thank them.
Happy New Year Audrey!
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I couldn’t even figure out how to get past the fireworks.
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Oops. Scrolling. Really? xD
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Your stats are down below, but I bet you figured that out. 🙂
Happy New Year!
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Booooobs. Gooooood.
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Hahahaha! Right?
Happy New Year to you! May there be many boobs in your future.
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I love stats. I enjoy interpreting them and the story they tell. But they are not even close for my love of boobs! 🙂 All of them.. Looking forward to your 2015 then Wild Susie! I wish you great health and happiness for you and yours! Thanks for all you do!
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Thanks so much! Happy New Year to you and your family. I wish you a year filled with amazing health!
Boobs are pretty special. 🙂
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Well alrighty then – here’s to a boobalishih 2015! Let’s see how the Sydney Opera House handles that.
Patricia Rickrode
w/a Jansen Schmidt
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Happy New Year Linda. Best to you for 2015
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Happy new year to you, John!
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That’s a great idea, Susie! I can’t rely on my stats because I moved blogs and it went right down. Happy New Year!
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HappyNew Year, Catherine! Stats are so crazy. Ironically, I’m having my best stats day ever because some nice person from Japan shared an old post on Reddit
2015 will be all about sharing!
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Congrats on the “Reddit-lanche” and on the 49,000 hits for 2014 – lots of blogs never get near it! And you might well have hit the 50,000 anyway because WordPress’s system misses some views – for instance, if the browser won’t execute java, WordPress doesn’t count it. I also suspect it doesn’t properly capture views from the phone app. I’ve had posts where the “likes” soar way ahead of reported “views”.
I do wonder about stats and whether they mask the important reality of blogging, making contact with some wonderful people around the world – the 21st century ‘penfriend’. Which can be as lasting and real a connection as meeting people in person (my mother has a penfriend in Minneapolis who’s been in regular contact since the 1960s). I’ve made contact with people from South Africa to Australia to the US to Canada to Britain through my own blogging, and to me, these people are way more important than anonymous readers or drive-by ‘likers’ who make the hit-counter click up one more notch.
Happy New Year, and here’s to a great 2015 to come for all of us WordPress bloggers. And to hitting a clear 50,000 views, this year, even by WordPress’s funny counting! 🙂
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Here! Here!
I may end up with 49,000 views in ONE day! It’s gone viral and hasn’t slowed down. I think the trick with Reddit is always sharing others especially if they’re informative and controversial. It’s so crazy ironic given today’s post!!!!
They used to count stats like that and now people can like without reading which SUCKS!
I took all the likes off my home page scroll yesterday. It was messing with my SEOs. Apparently it looked spammy!
I’m definitely getting a ton more hits than views, but at least they are being introduced to the Wild Ride! YeeeHa!!!
Happy New Year Matthew! We’ll rock 2015!
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The people who flock to your site solely because they’re hunting for “boobs” are very likely boobs themselves, Susie. As for stats, I’m sure you’ll cross the 50,000 threshold in 2015. Since I reduced my posting two years ago from three times a week to one, my stats have plummeted, but my posts are better, I like to think. I also have more time to read, comment and interact with fellow bloggers, what blogging is about. Have a happy New Year and a great 2015!
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I already did! You won’t believe it. An old post was shared by someone on Reddit and it has gone viral. I may hit 49,000 views in one day! Believe me, they are mostly hits, not views. Is that the most ironic timing or what????
I do think stats go way up the more often a writer blogs, but I’m with you. Quality, not quantity. It’s the community that’s most important and friends like you!
Happy New Year! Are you going out in the fray???
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How about one about boob piercing? lol I don’t care a whole lot about stats. I just blog for me. Happy New Year!
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Boob piercing makes me cringe! Youch! I think that is the best way to blog!
Happy New Year!
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Me too my belly button was enough when I got it done years ago. How about tattoos?
It takes the pressure off blogging for sure.
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I had a double boobectomy a year and a half ago and have Barbie boobs. I’m thinking about getting nipple tattoos. Should make for an interesting post! 🙂
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I read some of what you went through. I’m sorry you went through that. Are you doing well now?
Oh wow nipple tattoo’s that’s a great idea! It would definitely make some awesome blogging material.
I have three tattoo’s and want more. Once you get one, (or two) you’ll want more.
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I’m totally fine, Thanks! It was hell, but looking back more of a speed bump than a complete roadblock. I’m almost afraid to say, but I have knee surgery this Monday. I know! I’m too young. An old ski injury finally caught up with me. Dang! Should be on the slopes again in six weeks!
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That’s great news! Oh man is it arthritis? If it is I’ve just been diagnosed. I’m in a lot of pain.
I hope that your surgery goes well and your back to skiing with a new knee and maybe tattooed nipples while you’re in surgery anyway? 😉
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I’m all about boobs too! They are so fun to talk about. And just the word BOOB is da bomb! 🙂 Boob, boob, boob, boob, boob, boob. Okay, I got that out of my system for a few days, Susie. The truth is that I love all your posts regardless of the topic. The more wild the better. Will you promise to get even wilder in 2015??? Thank you for your entertainment and friendship, amiga! Love ya!!! 🙂
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I promise! 🙂 It will start out pretty wild. I’m wired to be wild! 🙂
And boobs are pretty great too. Happy New Year Chica! Love ya too!
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Happy New Year Wild Rider! You are like a rock star selling out tons of stadiums, even if it’s the same one…you’re like Garth Brooks, The Boss, Jon Bon Jovi, and The Rolling Stones wrapped up in a mega concert of awesome storytelling. I’d come see you 🙂 and your boob report 🙂 Always look forward to hearing your stories and just wanted to thank you for your inspiration. I finally made it!!! 50,000 words and just before the New Year What-Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat! It was the last post of the year, a great one too. Have a GREAT New Year.
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Woohoo!!! Duuuuuude! I’m happy dancing for you! You are right there with me on stage! I love your posts too. They say great minds think alike, but I think we are twin daughters of different mothers. Ha! I’m so glad we met! Give your kids a hug!
Happy New Year! 🙂
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Here’s wishing you and your family a boobtastic New Year!
Yeah, I look at my stats, and they are pretty good. I won’t tell you as you might de-friend me! Maybe you should launch a new BEWBS blog, written in the third person who is actually your Bionic Boobs doing all the writing. Might be a boobtacular hit!
Have a healthy and happy 2015!
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I bet it would be boobtacular! Ha! They do have a lot to say…
By the end of today, my year end views will have doubled. One of my old posts went VIRAL! I’m sure that I’m still not close to your views, but sheesh, I bet I pass 49,000 in a day!
Thanks so much Phil! Have a fantabulous New Year too. I’m always glad to “see” you!
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I used to care about the stats – not now and have forgotten how to check all that anyway – alas I am a lost stats cause!
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It’s probably a lot less stressful!
Happy New Year, Julie!!! 🙂
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