...is a compendium, which is to say, a list, of my most popular posts.
In the nearly five years this blog has been in existence, I have published 1,043 posts, including this one. Some of them received very little attention. Some of them never received even a single comment. Some of them, however, continue to attract readers week after week.
According to Blogger, here are my top 20 posts in terms of the number of times they have been viewed:
Key to interpreting the information below:
Rank. / Title (date) / No. times viewed
20. My 869th post (Dec. 9. 2011), 393
19. Guest blogger Billy Ray Barnwell shares financial secret (Nov. 20, 2009), 433
18. Garrison Keillor’s favorite joke (Nov. 7, 2008), 457
17. Something is rotten in the state of Vrindravan (Jan. 12, 2012, 503
16. Happy 175th anniversary of the Battle of San Jacinto (Apr. 21, 2011), 535
15. Humpty Dumpty, Babe Ruth, and six degrees of separation (5/08/09), 555
14. What’s your sign? (3/28/11), 563
13. Who’s your Daddy, er, representative? (9/02/09), 615
12. I don’t know Nick the bartender from Adam’s off ox (6/26/10), 657
11. My dog has fleas, and other remembrances (4/13/10), 667
10. Electoral College for Dummies (11/3/08), 724
9. “Quaff, O quaff this kind nepenthe” (1/29/09), 1,022
8. Mica, mica, parva stella... (How insanity begins) (5/12/09), 1,109
7. Welcome, sweet Springtime, we greet thee in song! (4/19/10), 1,124
6. I meant to post this rebus yesterday (3/19/10), 1,303
5. Flannery O’Connor writes of peacocks (5/09/08), 1,938
4. Lazy Day (5/08/12), 1,988
3. I always loved the Waltons (1/30/09), 3,458
2. A B C D goldfish? L M N O goldfish! O S A R...C M? (1/20/11), 5,051
and my most-viewed post:
1. And now, for a complete change of pace, here’s... (9/13/10), 16,012
I have just enough smarts to realize that although clever titles may bring people to blogs initially, clever titles are not what bring people to blogs over the long haul. What bring people to blogs over the long haul are labels, those little tags you can add at the end after you have finished writing your post.
For example, on my A B C D goldfish? post, the labels are cursive writing, D’Nealian Script, handwriting, Palmer method, and Spencerian Script.
On my most-viewed post (And now for a complete change of pace, here’s...), the labels are Alfalfa, Ellen DeGeneres, and Gladys Hardy.
However, and this is why I even brought up the subject in the first place, my fourth-most-viewed post (Lazy Day) doesn’t have a single label. Not one.
Does anyone have a clue how or why Lazy Day made the list?
Help me out, people. The Internet may be dying for other reasons, but I’m dying of curiosity.
'Search Engine Optimisation' is a dark art! The one post of mine that consistently attracts visitors every day is D is for Dick Dastardly and I have no idea why.
ReplyDeleteI've no idea the answer to your question Robert. My top post is one entitled 'Fresh Fruit and Vegetables'. It has practically no words, only a picture. But in consistently tops daily, weekly and monthly figures.
ReplyDeleteI've never bothered to label my posts.
Ian, specialist posts like one on Dick Dastardly can rise because they don't have competition... (now all I can hear in my head is Muttley's wheezing laugh).
"Lazy Days" could be popular because you included a picture of a sexy man in repose. Is he a member of your family by the way?
ReplyDeleteI've never used these "tags" or "labels" before but I'm going to experiment with them now.
Dick Dastardly? If he'd been called Robert Dastardly or Mitt Dastardly, I doubt there's have been so many hits. It's all about the dastardly Christian name.