Blog Year #2 (a.k.a. 2018)

/ SueBC
Blogging at the Beach

A sunny place I blogged from in July

Hard to believe I’ve been doing this blogging thing for over two years now, starting at the beginning of 2017. Sometimes it seems like I’ve always been doing it and sometimes I feel like a newbie, especially compared to some of the wonderful long-time bloggers out there. This blog has been my first experience putting anything on the internet, as I’ve shied away from trying any social media — I don’t even have Facebook! It’s really nice to have this space that is truly my own, in the midst of work and other obligations, and I love the community feel of the blogging world and, in particular, the little slice of the Armitage fandom that we inhabit.

A year ago when I posted about my first year of blogging, I had some blogging resolutions for 2018:

  1. Try to write a bit every day, so that the twice-weekly posting schedule I’ve set for myself is easier to maintain. Nope. Didn’t happen. Work and family were the order of the day, and so number of posts dropped from 104 in 2017 (60,848 words) to 67 in 2018 (44,558 words). Funny, though, that the average number of words per post went up, from 585 in 2017 to 665 in 2018.
  2. Write down my thoughts on what I’ve watched, read, and heard more immediately. Unfortunately, “no” once again for the same reason. The resulting problem is that when I do have time to blog, I can’t remember much about the books I read or the movies I saw!
  3. Explore publicizing my blog a bit more. Not as much as I’d hoped. I signed up for Goodreads and put the widget on the front page of my blog, but then it’s remained pretty static as I seem to be too tired to read. As for Bloglovin’, I didn’t have to do anything to publicize the blog there — thanks to Herba who followed the blog through that website. (I didn’t even know you could do that!)
  4. Venture more frequently outside of my comfortable group of followed blogs to read and comment. I did do that, as you may be able to see from the number of Blogs I Follow listed on my front page. Mind you, the more blogs I follow, the harder it is to visit with all of you in your spaces!
  5. Daniel Waking Up 2Try to write some fiction. Again, time is not my friend. I had wanted to enter a particular short story competition, but decided I was putting too much pressure on myself to try to meet a deadline for something that was supposed to be fun! I did have a lot of fun writing a short RPF (real person fiction) for Valentine’s Day, though.

Despite not posting anywhere near as often or as regularly as I had hoped, I was surprised with the average of 228.5 unique visitors per month, or around 4% more than the previous year. That translates to 7,467 views in 2018. Thanks for sticking around! I really appreciate the support from my fellow bloggers and other readers. One of the things I always find interesting is to see all the countries represented by those total views (and I’m glad I put the Translate tool on my front page!):

views by country 2018

Diving now into the blog’s most-viewed posts of the year…

  1. Contest/Casting Announcement: “Wanderlust Travels & Cuisine” – My most popular post of 2018 was this April Fool’s Day tongue-in-cheek contest announcement. (Thanks to Serv at Me + Richard Armitage for all the referrrals!) These posts are fun to write, especially when you can connect it with a project that is buzzing at the time. In fact, I had so much fun that I also was inspired to post on another blog I sometimes contribute to, with a same-day post called As Easy as A.B.C. (Armitage Bootcamp Cruise).
  2. Alternative to GUY-liner? Interesting that this 2017 post still has so many views! In fact, it’s my number 2 most-viewed post since I started. Maybe it’s the title? Do you think people are looking for make-up tips? (Not that kind of blogger… just saying.)
  3. Movies over the Summer Well, here’s one that actually is NOT about Armitage. And it generated a lot of discussion, too, with over 100 comments. I love movies and I love writing about them… I should probably get on that — it’s been a while!
  4. Valentine’s Day I talked above about my little foray into RPF. Hmm. Valentine’s Day is around the corner again. I wonder if I’ll have time…
  5. Wanderlust: I Didn’t Hate It Audiobooks are something I was introduced to only through being a fan of Richard Armitage. And yet now I am listening to other narrators too. Somehow it makes my journey to and from work a little more interesting — especially that shower scene in Wanderlust!

So, I wonder if I should make any blog resolutions for the coming year? I’m afraid that anything too ambitious might be unattainable. Maybe just keep blogging as regularly as possible and enjoy interacting with all my blogging friends out there!

 

To 2019 and another year of blogging!

28 thoughts on “Blog Year #2 (a.k.a. 2018)”

  3. Sue
    Congrats on the second year!!! I agree the graphic is cool! How did you do that?
    Another short story for V Day would be grand!
    I love when you post no matter what so do it at your own speed. I hope the New Year brings many joys for you and less stress. You should be getting BS3 soon on a Canadian channel
    Orser tweeted about it a few days ago,
    Also glad you and I are non SM, I don’t feel alone in this world 😘❤️❤️❤️

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    • Thank you! As for the graph, you can click on the countries stat (and other stats) in WordPress and download the list for a particular time period into Excel and then make it into a graph. The one thing I’d like to analyse but can’t figure out how is the number of views in a year by category and by tag. I hope 2019 is a good year all around! And yes, BS3 starts Monday here. I’ll give it a try again. As for SM, I resisted a lot of things, not even having a smart phone until a few years ago. Now I use it so much! I still think if I had time to keep it up, id go on Twitter. Seems like it would be a bit of a burden though.

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      • Thank you for the info on the graph! I suck at Excel but I am so happy for you and it looks very impressive! I lurk on #richardsrmitagr Twitter plus Orsers Twitter for intel do I’m happy with that. I don’t think we are missing out on that much anyway on SM and I will be curious what you think of BS3 once you see them. Ep 5 airs here on Sunday. I got my first IPhone in 2013 at the urging of my sis and brother!

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        • It’s fairly easy in Excel, though. It downloads into two columns, save as Excel file, highlight the info, then choose Insert from the menu and choose the graph you want. I’m not an expert on graphs, so you have to play around with the graph settings to get the labels as you want them. Also, because there were 75 countries less than 2%, I put the total into the column instead of each individually.

          I think I got my iPhone in 2012, so not long before you. I’ll try BS on Monday and see if I can get through the whole episode this time. And then there’s Hannabil…

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  4. Congratulations – two years is great! And don’t put any pressure on yourself re. number of posts. I have found that any rule quickly becomes a chore. Not least because it creates expectations from the regular readers.
    So here’s to another year of using the blog as a playground – whenever you can, whenever you want to.

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    • Thanks! Your right, of course, that I shouldn’t put pressure on myself. But part of it is frustration. I always have lots of posts I’d like to write, but just no time or energy to do them. But I’ll try to just enjoy it when I can. Thanks for the encouragement.

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  5. Congratulations on such a productive year, despite the obstacles!

    I used to love the “most common search terms” stat, but now that everyone does secure searches it’s not that interesting any more.

    As far as blogging goes, to me anyway applies the maxim that I am always reading about jogging / exercise: committing to doing it regularly makes it easier to continue. That said — I don’t exercise but committing to doing it regularly would not affect my disinclination at all, i.e., the analogy may not be an especially good one. I also don’t think of blogging as writing so much as just being present. I do think there’s a potential trap in that your word count goes up because you do it less and then you do it less because it seems like this big task, when really it can just be a paragraph or so. I struggle with that, too.

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    • Thanks! Yeah, the common search terms don’t get you much anymore. Although I did find that someone had come to my blog via “Richard Armitage nude”. Maybe the BS2 shower scene that I capped? I also find some of the spam really funny. Like reading “This is the content I’ve been searching the Internet for!” on a Wolverine post called “Richard… Growl differently.”

      That’s a good point about post length and just being present. I often find I don’t feel like I have the energy because it will take too long, even though I have posts in my mind. Just jumping in with something might be a good idea. I’m with you on the exercising, although I might swim if the pool were open past 10 (night owl that I am).

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