Last night WordPress sent my Annual Report and according to the WordPress stats helper monkeys (their words, not mine) approximately 11,000 prying eyes viewed 20/20 Hines Sight in 2014. However, me being the anal retentive person that I am when it comes to numbers, I can’t deal with approximates.
As of this write up my total views are 10,788. Thanks stats helper monkeys for rounding up. That was a great ego boost. My best month was April, which I’ll talk a little more about that in a bit.
I’ve been viewed by people that live in 119 of the 196 countries in the world. The United States led in views with 6,291. The United Kingdom and Canada rounded out the top three voyeurs with 773 and 658 respectively.
There are 61 countries that have under 10 views and of course and 77 countries that have yet to visit. There’s a lot of white space on the map that needs to be filled in and I’m definitely going to try and get as many new viewers as possible 2015. And I don’t mean one time views either. Prepare to be stalked.
As you can see April was my best month. Why? Because OM from HarsH ReaLity worked a little blogging magic. He helped me build a blogging audience. Granted the monthly numbers have dramatically dropped, but I’m happy with them.
I’ve already done some reflecting on 20/20 Hines Sight with The Beginning and my Blogiversary posts. Hopefully, I won’t recycle to much of that here. Anyway when this blog first hit the scene on December 15, 2013 it was called A Chick’s Opinion, and I wasn’t happy with the name nor was I particularly happy with the initial posts. So, I took a step back and decided there needed to be a clearer thought on what the blog should and would be about and it needed to have a fun and funky name. Well, I don’t know how fun and funky the name is, but it’s clever and I like love it.
As I look back at A Chick Making the Most Out of 2014 and what I wanted the blog to be, I realized that it’s very little of what I wanted it be. But not in a bad way. It simply morphed into something I hadn’t planned and I’m happy about that.
A lot of things went well, but a lot of things didn’t go as I hoped.
What went well?
- The 2014 April A to Z Challenge
- Having Guest Bloggers – I really enjoyed them and I recommend you taking a gander at their blogs.
- Amanda – has had several guest posts
- Sabina – Skip A Grade
- Sarah – Mental Illness & My Hometown, Fresno, CA
- Kylie – The Violence of People with Mental Illness
What didn’t go so well?
- 20/20 Five – I was advised to hold off on doing this until I amassed a following. I didn’t follow said advice and pulled it because maybe three people participated, but most often it was just me.
- Having Guest Bloggers – I know it’s listed as one of the things that went well, but it definitely wasn’t as successful as I wanted it to be. I hoped more people had some taboo topic they wanted to talk about or maybe they wanted to share their hometown with the rest of world.
- This question was asked as part of the Zero to Hero challenge and what I feel didn’t go so well.
What topics do you think you’ll write about? Anything and everything from religion to politics to kids to health.
Welp, that didn’t happen. At least not a whole lot. There were a lot of topics I shied away from and I kick myself for that.
What’s on the horizon for 2015
I alluded a little to what I was thinking for 2015 in my Blogiversary post and now I’m pretty sure I know what I’m doing.
You’ve gotten to see the fun and whimsical side of me with posts like Gummi Bears, Counter, Tourists, and the creative side with Friday Fiction and My Hometown. You’ve also seen the slightly introspective side with Monday Inspiration, but what you really haven’t seen is the gal who can hold her end of the conversation from politics to religion to sex and anything else controversial; and that is the side you’re going to see more of. So, buckle up and hold on tight.
There’ll be some surprises next year, which I hope you’ll enjoy. A new theme and a logo will be unveiled in the next few weeks and I’m so excited about them.
There are some changes to the Editorial Calendar:
- 20/20 Five link up is coming back. I hope you won’t be shy and ask a question or two and of course join the Link Up fun.
- Breaking Taboo is every other month
- My Hometown is biweekly
- There’s a monthly Opinion article, which is new, called My P.O.V.
- I will have guest bloggers quarterly (7 Bloggers, 7 Days), so stay tuned for that
- I’m thinking of doing a weekly Express Yourself Question, but haven’t quite settled on the logistics yet
Posting Schedule
Weekly & Biweekly
Sunday – Anything Goes
Monday – Monday Inspiration
Tuesday – Anything Goes
Wednesday – 20/20 Five
Thursday – Anything Goes
Friday – Friday Fiction
Saturday – My Hometown (biweekly)
Monthly (Third Week of the Month)
Sunday – My P.O.V.
Wednesday – Breaking Taboo
Quarterly (Guest Bloggers)
7 Bloggers / 7 Days
The following question was asked as part of the Zero to Hero challenge.
- If you blog successfully throughout 2014, what would you hope to have accomplished?
Revisiting this has made me question my success as a blogger. Not if I was successful, but what constitutes my success as a blogger. I may not have been Freshly Pressed and I may not have been a guest blogger for anyone, and I may not have broken 1000 followers by my blogiversary and folks may not comment or click like on all of my posts; but what I can say is that the connections I’ve made while blogging have been great and I value them. Blogging has been a pretty fantastic experience.
Through your eyes I’ve learned so much about where you come from – the non-media portrayal. It’s been confirmed that no matter what part of the world you’re from people have the same wants, needs, and desires.
So, in that regard, I consider myself pretty successful. Hopefully 2015 will bring more connections and strengthen existing ones.
20/20 Hines Sight 