So when I went to post my post on Thursday, I realized that it was post #99… and so the next post would be #100. It’s a bit of a milestone for beginner bloggers. Our Next Life also just posted their 100th post a little while back and did a fun stats & numbers based post about it. I love numbers… so I hope you don’t mind, but I’m going to do a little copy cat (imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right?) and to a bit of a summary of some of the numbers and stats on my blog to celebrate #100.
Now, to be honest, the blog over at Our Next Life is super well done, much more professional than mine, I don’t really consider them beginner bloggers… and well… their blog is more focused and probably a lot more interesting to read than mine… (If you haven’t checked them out yet, you totally need to do that! I’ll be here when you get back… if you come back…)
So, anyway, a lot of what they posted for their blog stats don’t really apply to me… for example, let’s take a few of the first stats that they mentioned…
Number of Logos: 0
I don’t have a logo… I should probably design one, eh? Any ideas for me?
Average Number of Posts per Month: 8
That’s actually not that bad of a stat for 12 months of posts… but the gap between some of my highest month (March) with 13 posts, and my lowest months (Sept, Oct & Nov) with 5 posts is pretty big…
Number of Mondays Missed: No comment…
And then I can’t even really comment about the stat that they had about number of Mondays they’ve missed… I have never had a posting schedule. Does that bother anyone? If you look at the post calendar thing from WordPress I’m all over the map:
My favourite days to post seem to be Tuesday and Friday, but no day is excluded or safe from posts being published. Every day is a potential “work” day for my blog. I think I’d like to have a regular posting schedule… I think trying to post 3 times a week would be too much for me… maybe I’ll try to stick to 2 times a week… Maybe a Tuesday + Thursday schedule will work out?
Number of Featured Posts: 0
Number of Big Award Nominations: 0
Number of Twitter Followers: 0
No surprise here. This is what differentiates the “advanced” bloggers from us “beginners”… I don’t write anything well enough to be featured anywhere, and I am not concerned about that. And I don’t deserve any awards for my half-hearted attempts at keeping a blog going on minimal content, so again, no worries there… And Twitter… I’m not on Twitter… so it would be a miracle if I had followers! I’ve considered joining Twitter… not sure about it…
But enough about that… Let’s move on to some of the stats that my blog has that I can share:
Most Viewed Post: My First Liebster Award Post (with 83)
Least Viewed Post: My Phone Dilemma Part 2 and my Mondays Suck post. (both tied with 6)
I guess nobody wanted to know about my struggles getting rid of my landline, or read about me complaining about a bad morning…
Day with the Most Views: Saturday, July 18th (with 116)
I had just posted that week about Wedding Planning and an Update on my Decluttering Challenge.
Most Commented Post: My Fall Fitness Plan (with 20)
Top Commenter: Gin Is My Comfort Food (with 27)
We started our blogs at about the same time, and seem to share a bunch of the similar goals, so it has been fun following along with her.
Total Comments: 474 (almost half of those are me…)
The Future of My Blog…
So, now that we’ve explored some of my stats, and I’ve made it to 100 posts… where do I go from here? Well, hopefully up… but I’m not too concerned with that. I would love to have a wildly successful blog, with 1000s of followers, but I’m not sure I’m willing or able to put that much dedication and time in to my online life. That being said, I have been really enjoying writing, definitely want to continue with it and would like to make my blog better in the hopes that I can maybe someday get there.
Getting an Address…
I told myself when I started the blog that I wouldn’t pay anything to blog until I had proved that I would stick with it for a year… and while I’m not quite there yet (my first post was December 22nd 2014) I think that it is safe now to start the planning for that transition to a “real” blog with a proper address and a paid hosting service. I have no idea how to go about doing that… so please bear with me as I attempt to make this transition (I’m also not 100% sure that I can easily just transition my existing site over… I’ve got some research and learning to do…)
Having More Focus… or Maybe Not…
I’m not sure that I’ll ever be able to truly feel like my blog fits in to any one category of blogging. I’m not sure I’m a personal finance blog because while I discuss my finances, I also talk about fitness and decluttering and other random things about my life… I admire the bloggers that choose a topic and stick to it. They are focused and know the audience that they are going for… But I don’t know if I want to focus. I don’t want to have multiple blogs, and I am definitely not a person that only has one interest, so for better or worse, I am going to keep the randomness of my blog topics. Hopefully you can find something on here that interests you and that you can relate to…
Being Honest…
And while we are on the topic of relating to me… There have been a lot of posts around the web about being honest on blogs and social media, rather than posting the ideal version of yourself… and I know that I am guilty of it, but I’m so proud of myself when I do something and it works out well (like the baby showers I put on this fall), but I hope that I keep it honest enough on here that my readers (that’s you!) can relate to me, and don’t feel like I am being fake. The original idea of this blog was to work on being a better me, so there will be struggles and successes along the way. I hope to report back about both equally. Please call me on it if I ever seem to be skewing in the direction of “too perfect”…
So there you have it… my 100th post… Did you celebrate your 100th post? Or do you plan to if you haven’t got there yet?
Also, if you have any tips or pointers for me as I attempt to make the transition to a “real” blog, please don’t hesitate to share with me!
All-Round Better Me 
What a fantastic idea! I never even thought about celebrating my 100th post… Bummer now! But I think I didn’t really take it too seriously as I have so many posts with just pictures on them from Silent Sundays and Worldless Wednesdays, so those are not real-real-posts, if you know what I mean 😉 Oh, if you do transit to another place – make sure to blog about it with all the tips and tricks!!! It’s in the back of my head as well but as you say, not for the moment and I’d need to research more into it… 😉 Well done for you and congrats for your 100th 😀 !!!
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Thanks. If I do move the blog, I’ll definitely let you know how I did it and what I learn from it. 🙂
You can pick a different milestone to celebrate, there are no rules! 🙂
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…I could also just celebrate some random meaningless number – just for the heck of it *lol* 🙂 Would be funny 😉
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Congrats on #100!!
We are also beginners and not sure we want to progress to a “real” blog too. It might increase our traffic, but is that really the end goal of our blog?? Not really.
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Thanks!
I totally get where you are coming from. The goal of my blog wasn’t traffic… but I feel like the skills that I would learn by doing the process of going self hosted might help me with other aspects of my life… plus I just like learning things! 🙂
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Congratulation on your 100 🙂 Here is to a 100 more! I too have wondered about a self hosted blog, but haven’t quite dared it… (Yet) I’m kinda afraid it’s like starting over as if it is a new blog… But then again, I haven’t really spent the time on researching it all.. If you do it, please post about how you go about it and the challenges.. Then maybe some of us will join u 🙂
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Thank you! I will definitely let you know what I find out in my research and the ins and outs of doing the swap if I go ahead with it. 🙂
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Thanks for the super kind notes about our blog. 🙂 It’s not our first blog, which made some pieces easier this time around, but we definitely keep learning more all the time! In terms of growing and your posting schedule, you’re doing a great job of posting often, so my suggestion is to set a regular posting schedule of Monday/Wednesday or Tuesday/Thursday, or even Monday/Thursday. Supposedly regularity is the best thing you can do to keep readers coming back, since they’ll always know when to expect a new post. And WordPress lets you program the posts, so you can write them whenever you feel inspired, but then set them to post on your set days. On your hosting plan, we aren’t self-hosted, but do have WP Premium, which includes a custom URL. The best thing about going that route is you won’t lose any followers — it will all transition over. And if you feel swamped by your to do list already, don’t add something new, but we really do Twitter because it’s another fun way to interact with bloggers and readers (who we really just think of as friends now!), and it’s something we have come to love in a big way. And on logo — do one if that’s fun for you. Our first one was one we made for free on Canva by playing around with the free text tools, and our current one was made by us in Photoshop (also for free, but took a lot more time to play around with ideas and get it right, and it’s still not perfect!).
Big congrats on hitting post #100! It’s a big milestone, and worth celebrating! 🙂
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Not your first blog? What did you blog about before?
Thank you so much for all the tips and suggestions! I’m trying for a Tuesday/Thursday posting schedule now… but it has only been two weeks of doing that… we will see if I can keep it up. And I really appreciate knowing how you’ve got your blog set up, so thanks for sharing. I haven’t done any work in photoshop before, but I have a good friend that is a graphic designer, so maybe she can help me out…
Thanks so much for all your inspiration over at Our Next Life. Here’s to another 100 posts from both of our blogs! 🙂
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I’m new at this in 2015 too and don’t always have enough time to develop the followership I’d like to. I started it as a countdown to early retirement from 15 months out to my planned exit date on 4/1/16. I’m just 4 months away now and wish I had found more followers along the way. The good news is I have really rediscovered my joy of writing. I’ve found it very enjoyable to reflect on my early retirement plan and meet some cool folks online. (Just found your blog today!)
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