Like most of you, I tend to check out my stats a few times a day.
Why do we do it? We love the love of course!
We want to know that someone out there in the world is looking at the very important things we want to say. Sometimes we want them to think we are funny, sometimes we want them to look at the cool pictures we took, and sometimes we hope that something we say will help another human being. Or at least their cat. We have a lot of people who like cats and kittens on here.
The point is, stats are like crack to bloggers. We want that sh*t. And we want it now!
It starts off all noble… I blog for me. Then we get that first hit. We smile. Then the fourth and fifth roll in a few days later. We swear it is our family & friends. After all it looks like we 100+ followers but we secretly know it is our Facebook group. But hey, they are gonna follow whether they want to or not!
Soon we are up to almost 15 hits a day!! We are checking in every hour now to see if we got a new one.
Our new goal is to get up to 25. I know I can do it!
When we do hit that 25, it isn’t enough. We want 50. Oh we can’t wait to hit that 100 a day. We know we will just pee our pants.
So now we are checking every 15-20 minutes. We sneak a peek on our computer at work, or log in on our phone if we aren’t home. I know these people are going to love me! They just don’t know it yet!
Depression starts to set in. Why don’t they love me? Why aren’t they coming? We are sad. 🙁
Sure we love our 22 people who actually “visit” that day (although I think 5 were trollers, 6 only showed up because I used the word butt crack, and the other 11 are the true readers). But dang it! I’m counting them all!
OMG!!!! Someone loves me! I just got my first Award!! You do the Snoopy dance and tell everyone that one of your 32 visitors yesterday loved you…. Oh wait, that is a post for another day….But you get the point of the journey….
Then one day we write a post about something that maybe wasn’t that spectacular but hey, we needed something to put that day and we had writers block. So we right about how the dog poo in the backyard is piling up and your brother tripped and fell face first into a warm pile of…well you get point.
Then one morning we wake up and we jump from 72 hits to 514!!! What the heck!! Did I get freshly pressed and didn’t know it???? I know it has to be about when I wrote how I hated Peas. Everyone hates peas. It has to be that one that got freshly pressed. I know just it!
So you check your comments real quick expecting them to be off the chart. Hmm, only two this morning and none about the gross smell of peas. Wow, these freshly pressed people don’t seem to leave a lot of feedback. So you head over to the freshly pressed page and look everywhere. No where are you to be found. Hmm, you scratch your head.
So you head back over to your stat page (after all you never close that tab since you look every 10 min or so now). What post is so popular? It has to be about the Butt Crack. Afterall it is my most viewed post. It gets half my views everyday. Man these people are obsessed with butt crack. Personally I think it was the picture I used. Oh, it could have been the Girl Scout one where she set the house on fire….
But no, not them. What on earth caused me to jump from 72 to 514 over night? The Love Keeps a Coming. That post??? The one I wrote on a bunch of blogging love I had received? That is the gift that keeps a giving? I wrote that days ago… (actually way back in June).
My point is this……..And I do have one…….
We all go through this crazy obsession with our stats. But let me tell ya something. It takes one post to show you the reality is to just write and they will come. I literally was getting about 400 – 600 hits a day in June and July. Eighty – yes 80% of which was for one post. This love one I did. Turns out I used like every blogging award picture under the sun and for some reason it links folks to my site a lot.
Trust me, it doesn’t gain you readers. Then again, I wish it was the one I wrote about not liking peas. That one is one of my favorites. (hate those little suckers!) But instead these tons of readers are directed to one of my least funny posts. They never stick around long enough to check out the other great stuff (if I do say so myself) that occasionally gets put on here.
Watching these hits now amuse me as it fluctuates so much. It is like people only want to know about love for a few days then it overwhelms them and they take a few days off. See…
That roller coaster of readers is due to 3-4 posts that people find due to a picture I put in it. Cracks me up. I have learned that I still do check my stats often. But the reality is, it is the comments I treasure the most. Sure I love when you click the like button (ah, hmm, hint hint don’t forget to click when you finish – shameless I know) but the comments show me you stuck around and actually read it. (or at least skimmed the good parts).
So, next time you start to obsess over your WordPress stats. STOP! Just be you, just visit other blogs, be sincere, be you. If your blog is meant for greatness it will happen when it is supposed to.
If you are lucky, one day you will write a post about how Whack Butt Crack is and you will have a spike too. Or at least use this picture. They love it!
Oh who am I kidding. This post isn’t going to get you to stop obsessing over your stats! So obsess away! Go crazy, go nuts! But don’t come crying to me when you face plant from 692 (my high) all the way down to 115 which it did a few days later. You have been warned.
And if you would like to check out any of the posts I shamelessly mention through out this post just click on the links to the left. I think it says what people are check out now. Or use the search tool.
OHHHH, except the peas. It never gets there. But here it is. I really do hate those round balls of puke! PEAS My Mother’s Favorite Torture Tool
Please read as many as you can. I really need to get my stats back up!
~~~till we laugh again~~~
