I have been a little tardy with my blog lately. I received the WordPress annual blog report almost two weeks back, and it’s only now that I am able to talk about it here.
As per WordPress, my top five posts in 2013 were some oldies but goodies:
- Gulliver’s Travels – A Book Review
- A Simple Way to lose weight?
- David Copperfield
- Q and A/Slumdog Millionaire-A Book Review
- Khalil Gibran’s Poem on Marriage
I suspect a few of those hits on Gulliver’s Travels and David Copperfield are from students trying to take a short cut with their school essays 😉 .
Apart from the above posts, this one post – Disneyland – The Happiest Place on the Planet went viral on April 17th raking in almost 462 views. I have no idea what happened on that day for a personal travel post (to Disneyland no less) to rake in such high (for me) page views, but there you go, some things can never be explained.
I also want to give a shout out to some of my blogger buddies who regularly comment on this blog. They are also great bloggers whose posts I always enjoy, so why don’t you hop on over and give them a visit:
- Madhu from dreamzandclouds
- Cleo from Cleopatra Loves Books
- Jenny from Reading the End
- Veens from Our Ordinary Life
Are you wondering how come I have only 4 on this list, well the report added me to the list as well. I am satisfied as one of my blogger goals last year was to respond to comments in time and acknowledge people who are nice enough to say hi.
Curious what my other blogger goals for 2013 were? I never mentioned it on my blog as I really didn’t think I’d follow through but I am pleasantly surprised by what I was able to get done.
- Go self-hosted – Done
- Create a Facebook page for my blog – Done
- Recover my Google page rank after my domain name change – Done. My Google page rank is back up to 5, the same as during my old wordpress.com days.
- Use more graphics on my blog – I haven’t done as much as I would like to do.
- Try my hand at vlogging – I heard my nasal voice on the first vlog I recorded and I didn’t dare publish. This is probably one blogger goal I am better off missing 🙂
- Increase my blog follower count – When I went self-hosted, I think I lost a few followers, I hoped to regain them back soon, but so far no dice.
Do I have any blogging goals for 2014? I am not sure, really. I need some help from you on this.
I’d like to know what kind of posts you like the most/least on my blog and what you’d like to see here in 2014.
So, what do you like the most about this blog? What do you like the least?
Your responses could be anything – look of the blog, too many book reviews, too few book reviews, too many personal posts, too few personal posts, pet peeves, peeves with the commenting system, the look, the widgets, whatever you feel like.
I am looking for honest truths, so go ahead and let loose in the comments. I have a pretty thick skin 🙂 .
Thanks for the shout out dear! I love what you write…..keep up the good work! 😀
@dreamzandclouds you’re welcome :), thanks for visiting and commenting
So honoured to get a shout out and well done for answering all the comments. It is so nice when people respond but sometimes it is my fault for not locating my answers 🙁 I really love your blog and as you know I’m in awe of your self-hosting 🙂
I don’t know that I have any useful feedback to provide! I love it when you share news of what the little ones are up to (esp when the Snubnose has done art!), and I also love hearing about what you’re reading.
@Jenny: Thanks for the feedback. I love to post about the littles so it’s nice to know it’s appreciated 🙂
I never thought about blogging goals so now you’ve made me wonder what improvements I need to make on my site. As for your request for feedback, I like the way you make it easy for people to contact you and connect with you, I’m wondering whether its a good idea to have your email address written in that way – cd open you to lots of spam. I see many people use the format of
Name at emailprovider dot com
@bookertalk: You know, I haven’t thought of that. That’s an easy fix, I”ll get it done pronto.
Regarding your site, I think it’s perfect as it is. It’s niche, but I love its focus.
Great job, Nish! I just started blogging last December so I don’t think I can do a blog stats post just yet. I think it’s great that you take time to reply to comments. While I like reading your book reviews, I also like that you review movies too (when I don’t read I watch them tirelessly). Maybe book-to-movie reviews will be something you would like to consider? Anyway, just a suggestion 🙂
@fiveeyedbookworm:disqus: Thanks so much. Actually for a fairly new blog, you’re totally up to speed. It took me years to even figure out my voice and find an audience. You rock!
The books vs movies sort of posts is a great suggestion. I should really sync up my reading with movies. My movie watching tends to be very sporadic and scattered.
Thank you so much for your kind words, Nish! I watch a lot of movies but do not review them. I joined the Book To Movie Challenge this year and I will *try* to review books together with their movies. A huge challenge for me!
I LOVE it when blog-writers take time to reply to comments. Really it is mandatory, and I am known to stop commenting, if I do not get my replies 😉 And thanks for the shout – out, much appreciated 😀
@veens:disqus haha, thanks. Yes, I don’t like it either if a blogger doesn’t respond to my comments, but so often I am guilty of that myself. Last year, I really made an effort 🙂