Happy Birthday!! – State of the Blog
Happy Birthday!! Today marks the seventh birthday of Dice and Dragons, and with it the opportunity to take a look back at the last year to reflect on what was done and to set another round of goals for the upcoming year.
I mentioned this milestone last year and I thought I would do a similar review this year. I’m going to look at the data I’ve collected over the last 12 months to see where the blog stands as well as review the gaming goals I set for myself.
Last Year’s Goals:
- Post more frequently – Looks like my trend of not posting continued in 2012. A quick count of the posts made so far this year, including this one, is an unbelievable seven – one less than last year. I’m beginning to see a pattern of neglect here and I’m not happy about it but I also know that it’s something that I can, and should, take care of.
- Game more frequently – Another year, another look at a full gaming table without the roll of a d20. It’s not that there isn’t talk of gaming, it’s just that we seem to gravitate toward card and board games now. I think this is a goal that can be salvaged but not without some work.
- Increase blog traffic by 10% – I missed this one by so much that I’m not sure I’m in the same realm anymore. I won’t go into the numbers here (see them below) but I will say that I am a not surprised at how the year stacked up.
- Participate in a blog carnival – This is one I actually hit. The first of the year the folks over at Gnome Stew ran a carnival with the topic of New Year, New Game, and I posted not about a new game but the new campaign I was hoping to run.
So, unless my math is really off I went one for four, not really what I was hoping to see but better than last year when I didn’t hit any of my goals.
The statistics:
I’m going to continue the tradition of sharing the site’s statistics with you – some would say I’m crazy for doing this but I’m a firm believer in transparency where it will do some good and I think this is one area where it is warranted. I will say that over the next year I’ll be evaluating things a bit more closely, not just on the numbers themselves but also with the tool I’m using to collect them, as I’m considering changing my analytics program.
Total visits: 4,113
Now, for a blog with the size this one is and with the readership it currently has that’s not a terrible number. What is terrible is that it represents a 44% drop from last year. I’ve been looking at the numbers and this year has been fairly consistent month after month but last year saw a couple of fairly heavy spikes which pulled the number for the year up. I think this year’s number is a bit more realistic looking at the trends and one I’m going to use as my base going forward.
Pageviews: 7,668 (1.86/visit)
A drop of 32% from last year’s number. Again a number I’m not thrilled about but taken in the context of this year’s visitor’s number it looks about right.
However, the pages per visit is up 20% and that’s a good thing. One of the items I had on my list of ways to improve the blog was to make sure that there was better access to the material already posted. This number appears to be showing this as folks are looking at more of the site when the visit.
Top five post of the past 12 months
To be honest there really wasn’t much of a change in the top 5 from last year so I’m going to skip this section this year. It’s not surprising that the top posts haven’t changed much – I haven’t posted much.
Goals for 2013
- Post more frequently – I know I keep placing this on the list and each year I miss the mark but such a wide margin it might as well be called a critical miss. I’m going to make another stab at the weekly posting so we’ll set the bar once again at 52 posts for the year.
- Start a new campaign – The last few years I’ve set the goal to game more frequently, which is all well and good when you’re already gaming. My group needs to “reboot” and to get gaming so I’m changing up this goal to getting a new campaign started in 2013.
- Increase blog traffic by 10% – This past year saw a HUGE drop in traffic to a level that I feel is more in keeping with the posting frequency and readership of the blog. For 2013 I’m going to set the bar to once again raise traffic by 10%.
- Participate in a blog carnival – This was a goal for 2012 and it was the only one I hit. It was a good experience and it’s one I feel I should repeat in 2013.
As always I keep my goal list short as you never know what curves life will throw at you and I do have goals that aren’t RPG related so they wouldn’t be shared here anyway.
Do you have any RPG related goals for the upcoming year? Why not share them in the comments below or if you have a post about them on your blog post the link.
May your dice roll well.
Photo by Todd Sanders. Licensed via Creative Commons.