The Enigmatic And Unpredictable Blog Stats Theory

My post on 5 September 2023 was the first published in over a year.

So you’d think in that time, without regular new content, the readership, visits and page views of 35hunter would have dropped off pretty dramatically, wouldn’t you?

And then by writing five new posts in September, those stats would see something of a spike, or at least a healthy incline?

These are logical assumptions to me.

However, as I write this with only a handful of hours of September remaining, the views are about the same and the visits actually less than in August, when I’d published nothing new for the 12th month running.

So what’s this about?

I started delving deeper into the most read posts and pages, throughout my year of absence.

My post on the wonderful Helios 44 lenses actually increased virtually every month of the last year, and had its highest monthly views in August, over four years since it was published.

Another post, about the Pentax Espio range of 35mm film compacts, also received steady views over the this period, at around 1000 per month.

A third post, about shooting film without a light meter, also performs very consistently, averaging 300 views a month or more for over five years!

Are these my three best posts, or my three favourite posts I’ve ever written?

Nope.

Are they posts I specifically wrote to try to get views?

Nope.

They’re simply the posts that have proved most popular with readers, and have somehow taken on a life of their own, seemingly without needing a steady fresh influx of new posts to bolster them.

These statistics bring mixed feelings.

Of course I’m delighted that even without blogging for a year, 35hunter still gained a respectable amount of views, without me lifting a finger.

Anyone writing a blog that’s not private (ie it’s out there online) would be lying if they said they do it purely for themselves.

If you’re making your blog public, there’s a motive on some level that others will find and connect with it, and with you.

I’m also pleased that I must be finding new readers too, as those example posts above getting consistent views month after month can’t be the same readers just re-reading the same posts repeatedly.

But the more rational and analytical part of me would love to know what those posts have that get so many more views than average.

And where the new readers are coming from, and how to keep them.

But since 35hunter isn’t a blog for any kind of commercial ambition, and I don’t want to start to try to write for a specific audience whilst compromising the integrity of what I personally want to write, it doesn’t really matter.

I also recall that I’ve experimented in the past with writing and publishing up to a post per day, and it didn’t significantly increase page views or visits compared with writing every 36 or 48 hours.

So what’s the main lesson in this (latest) burst of stats analysis?

Just to keep writing, and keep posting what I want at a frequency that suits me, and to try to respond to every comment to keep these photography conversations with you the reader alive!

How about you? If you have a blog, what do the visitor stats tell you? As a reader, what’s your visiting pattern with your favourite blogs?

As always, please let us know in the comments below (and don’t forget to tick the “Notify me of new comments via email” box to follow the conversation).

Thanks for looking.

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