As I journey forward into 2013, I take all the good advice to travelers:
- take lots of detours
- make new friends along the way
- wear clean underwear (are there actually people who need to be told this?)
- remember where you came from
We’ll know soon how I’m doing with the first two. Take my word for the third bit of advice. And join me as I look back on the past year.
LOL Cats Unthreatened by Something Wagging in 2012
I spent some time looking through my stats. What posts are popular? How do people find us? And where do they go next?
A quick look tells me that people really do prefer funny posts that don’t make them think too much. How do I know?
Most Popular Search Term
“Dog’s Diary Cat’s Diary” takes people to a post not original to me that I edited and posted in 2010.
Most Often Clicked Link
Thanks to my shameful, trash-talking performance in the Pet City for Pet Travelers competition, more people clicked links to Go Pet Friendly than any other website.
Lesson? If you want a small boost in hits, host a competition that stirs up Pam’s competitive juices.
Most Viewed Posts
To my embarrassment, my most viewed post was 10 Things Your Dog is Most Thankful For, written in 2011. Time to step up in 2013.
Many views behind, my most popular 2012 post was 7 Reason to Hire a Dog Trainer in a DIY World, thanks to lots of retweets and shares by, yes, dog trainers.
Most Referrals
After search engines, Twitter, Facebook, StumbleUpon, and feed readers, more people came to Something Wagging from Rescued Insanity than any other site.
Woo hoo! Thank you, Kristine. You can disagree with my posts anytime.
Tweeted Link Most Often Clicked
5 Things Dogs Do That You Need to Learn. Hmmm, seems I’m not the only one anxious to learn from my dog.
How do you feel about journeying into 2013? Any good advice? If you’re a blogger, have you looked back at what you’ve accomplished? What kinds of posts do you most enjoy reading?
Sadly, there are people who need to be told to wear clean underwear. Let’s be clear– I am not one of them.
Wishing you, Mike, and Honey amazing explorations and fascinating detours in 2013. I hope one of them brings you north my way.
I sheepishly admit no need to be told to wear clean underwear. But underwear without holes in them (some, to be honest, are foster puppy teeth holes; I wear them as a badge of honor)–well, that’s another matter. 🙂
Would love to trek North to visit. I have fond memories of honeymooning in your home town.
Happy New Year to you and your family.
Okay so now I’m gonna go change my undies, find my dog and head out for our first walk of 2013–despite the fact that it’s now a balmy (windy, too) 18 degrees here in Chicagoland. I’m pretty sure we will not be taking any detours–or meeting any new folks, unless they’re made of ice! LOL Looking forward to reading your blog in 2013!
Loy, you rock! Hope you had a great walk even if the best part of it might be cuddling on the couch with a hot drink and pup.
Wishing you lots of New Year’s blessings.
Your post title had me cracking up…I remember a friend’s mom when I was in High School (a million years ago)…Before we went anywhere she always told us to make sure we had on nice underwear in case we were in an accident and had to go the hospital…we wouldn’t want to be embarrassed…ah, for simpler times when that’s all we had to worry about
I guess if I were in an accident, if my underwear was the only thing I had to worry about I’d count myself lucky. 🙂
Hi Pamela. I’m amazed you can even figure out all that stuff about your blog. I have no idea how the back end of any of that works. Guess that’s something to add to my list of things to try and figure out this year too. 🙂 I actually enjoy reading the posts that make me think….but you are right, a lot of people seemed to like my funny “Toby” posts rather than my own thoughts…except for one person. Me. So now I need to figure a way to say the important things on my mind, but do so in a entertaining way. Tough one for sure. Thanks for letting me know about the Pet Bloggers challenge – and hope you have a wonderful 2013!
Tech stuff first: If you go to the site stats page available through JetPack in WordPress (hopefully you’re at least looking at your daily counts), you’ll see below it the search terms, links people click, etc. At top and right of each section is a link that says “summary” or “summarize.” Click it to see info for the past week, month, year, or all time. It’s kinda fun.
As for the more important thing, can I put in my two cents about your writing voice?
I also preferred the “Donna” posts to the “Toby” posts but I was impressed at how well you created a new voice and personality for the Toby posts. I don’t read many blogs where someone writes from an animal’s point of view but the ones I do are because the writer creates a convincing voice.
That said, I’d ask yourself what you want to do with your blog. If you want to sell it some day or make lots of money with ads, videos and cute links are definitely the way to go.
But if you want to create strong relationships with someone, it might not be the case.
I find that a funny post will get a lot of hits. For instance, the 10 Things Your Dog is Most Thankful for got more than 1500 hits in one day. And continues to get attention. But all those hits didn’t result in more regular readers. These folks came for a laugh and moved on.
Some of the talky, reflective posts I think are only interesting to me get the most engagement with other readers. They won’t make me rich, but they strengthen my friendships.
If the blog is a platform for future writing, you have to ask yourself if you want lots of hits or lots of engagement. And then see what kinds of posts meet your goals.
BTW, that’s the very question I need to answer for myself. So thanks for letting me “think out loud.” I think you’ve posted some important questions that many of us have asked ourselves.
First – thanks for all the tech info – Nick informs me that we can see all the same types of reports through Google Analytics, so that will be something for me to learn soon. I was occasionally checking my RSS subscribers, and on that page I could see if my most recent post had a lot of looks, but I had no idea how to look back, or compare, that sort of thing. Nice to know I can. 🙂
As for your thoughts on my writing (and yours too apparently), I’m glad to know I’m not the only one who struggles with such things. It also seems a lot of my older readers liked “my voice” better, while Toby’s voice attracted a whole new bunch of readers. Guess we shall see if they will stick around. It was fun to write in his voice, but I felt I needed to leave a lot out. Like why would he write about the other dogs issues, or their training challenges – the sort of thing readers might be interested in. That was just ONE of the reasons I switched back. Thanks again for all. 🙂
Wishing you and yours
A Very Happy New Year
A Wonderful 2013 filled with fun and laughter and much joy.
Best wishes Molly
And the same to you. I’ve already experienced some joy reading your horoscopes. 🙂
I love looking back on the year and my stats. It’s always interesting. Thankfully, Wordpess.com does it for me.
It came as no surprise that a post I wrote in 2011 continues to get traffic. I think it’s been in the top 5 all year long. The topic? Pitbulls.
I’m looking forward to the new yer and the Pet Blogger challenge. Here’s to another great year Pamela!
I’m feeling anxious and excited about 2013. Big life changes ahead, I hope.
Dog’s diary, cat’s diary! I remember that well.
Happy new year Pamela! X
Great advice and interesting insights, Pamela. We’ll be doing the March Madness tournament again this year, and I’m looking forward to your trash talkin’! Seriously, thanks so much for your support, it really means a lot to me. I’m also looking forward to the Pet Blogger Challenge. I’m toying with some changes in my philosophy of blogging and I’ll have it all worked out in my head by the 10th. Your advice to Donna is really timely – right on track with what I’ve been thinking.
This is off-topic, but I do think I finally got this Triberr feed working and I’ve been able to share a couple of your posts. Are mine finally showing up? I’m going to reach out to more of my followers and see if I can gather more tribe members. woo woo!
Hmmm, my Jetpack stats are not working for some reason . . .probably a good thing since I have been such a slacker!! I’m looking forward to a productive year and reading all about what happens around your house 🙂
I’ve already started on my post of the tenth. I’ve enjoyed pretty much all of your posts, but my favorites are definitely the ones with some humor to them or that made me think about my own situation in some way. You always have such great insight, I love that!
I like the funny posts personally, but I love inspiring informative posts. I have a blog where I do animal interviews and have had some guest posts last year and I’m hoping to have more guest posts this year. I’ve got some other activities planned for the blog, but I was told by another blogger from the Blog Paws community not only is it important to post and post often, but go find other animal related blogs and comment so you can get noticed. I think that’s wonderful advice because you never know who may have some advice or who will end up guest posting for you in the future.
I’m excited/nervous/scared about 2013 because it’s like writing on a fresh sheet of paper, sure you can look back on the other things you wrote but you want this page to be more meaningful and for others to feel as you do. I hope I can accomplish that this year with my blog. =^..^=
I always love your thoughtful posts. You never fail to show me something I hadn’t considered.
We just finished our site review for the year and we were surprised by what we found as well! There are some changes coming to our neck of the interwebs based on what I learned and I think we’re rather excited about them!
I need to get this stat thing down.
While I like the funny posts, I also like the ones that make me think. I’ve had a saying of yours in a draft form for months, and I’m just waiting for the right time to pull it out. :-0 Whatever you write this year, I’ll be here reading.
I love me some Something Wagging. 🙂
After six years of blogging, I know some things. Everything else I need to know is bookmarked for some time. But I did finally go through that and deleted everything more than two years old. Some day, I am going to really get it!!! This is an awesome blog and the comments are great. Thank you and Happy New Year!
Clean underwear: 1) EMS/ambulance crews notice if your underwear coordinates or not;
2) When I worked in the ER long ago, a young man came in due to an MVC (motor vehicle crash). He basically was OK but he cracked me up when he, in spite of his pain, he said his mom would be happy to know he wore clean underwear (turquoise briefs – I still remember!).
I’m not up on the back end tech stuff either though I know I can use Google Analytics. I just don’t care that much – oh, is that anathema in the blogosphere? I so admire those whose blogs are polished and well linked – like yours, Pamela – so am looking forward to learning a lot at Blogpaws :).