I don’t chase after visits to my Tuesday Column site—I know that some online writers monitor their traffic daily and write more of whatever gets them the greatest number of visits. As for me I write whatever I’m thinking about regardless of readership and frankly I have all the readers I need to satisfy me.
However, writing on the web gets one fewer responses than preaching at a church (well most churches at least ;-). When preaching I can see the crowd and know for sure they at least listened to some of what I preached. On the web most folk read but never comment—I have learned to live with that. (Those who DO comment get read by about 350-400 people each week so the commenters have a following too.)
Yet, sometimes I wonder if anyone is reading. That’s when I check the data. Today I had an extra half hour so I looked at the data. Here is what I saw concerning the last two weeks.
-825 of you visited this week’s column on homosexuality--thanks for coming by!
-657 visited the column last week on Grandparenting--thanks (even though it applied to few)
The vast majority of the rest of the readers these last two weeks came directly from a Google search that brought them to one of the past columns. The most popular past columns by the family (besides the weekly Tuesday Column) are invariably the same:
-My own most visited past column was my speed-reading article
-David’s past column on Leadership Movies
-John’s past article on How to Write an Exegesis Paper
-Sharon’s booklet on Leadership Theory for Pastors
In total 13,692 unique visits occurred the past two weeks, which is about the average for the year (900-1000 per day). In the last two weeks readers visited from 92 countries--so it is nice to "see" you guys from other countries too.
Well, I don’t suppose these figures mean anything to anyone but me—but I thought I'd resport them to myself here anyway. ;-)
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9 comments:
Keith - I must confess that I am one of those regular readers that does not comment. The majority of the time, I don't think I can add value by commenting. Usually somebody has already expressed some of my thoughts in a much better way than I could articulate. So thanks for writing and helping me think. I am regularly stretched from reading the column and comments.
Alan Williams
I read your column every week and have for quite awhile.
If you were the pastor and I was the congregation it would go like this,
Some weeks you hit the nail right on the head and I am challenged.
Other weeks I am ready to lead a congregational vote and need a few days to calm down and pray for your soul.
Thank you for your willingness to serve in this way.
I read it every week, just as I have been for the past several several several years. :)
Keith--I first found your writing from links on "Sites Unseen" to a couple of columns you wrote a few years ago on "Gen-X Worship" and "Alternative Worship." College ended 37 years ago for me, and it wasn't IWU, nor have I ever even visited a Wesleyan Church. But I check in every few weeks to see what else you've had to say, without doing a lot of commenting (I don't get many comments on my own blog either, which is probably poetic justice). I do appreciate many of your "takes" on what is going on.
Phil Hawkins
I read every week- actually, I usually check two or three times a week when I open my blog tabs. I usually don't comment unless I feel like I have something actually GOOD to contribute to what was said, which is usually rare.
I'll report in as others have done ;-)
I read every week, eventually. Meaning sometimes a few weeks go by before I come to your site and read a few articles at a time. This generally describes my blog reading approach across the board at this point.
Thanks for writing! Always provocative.
Wow!! This is motivating to write, isn't it? I remember Steve Lennox saying a long time ago that writing was a much better way of influencing people than teaching, because it lives long after you, and it can circulate to more people than one could speak to. Thanks for the report. :)
As confirmation of Christy's comment about the long-lasting influence of writing, I just read this post today--ten months after you wrote it. And this is my very first comment on the blog ever. :-) Thank you so much for your online ministry, Keith!
As confirmation of Christy's comment about the long-lasting influence of writing, I just read this post today--ten months after you wrote it. And this is my very first comment on the blog ever. :-) Thank you so much for your online ministry, Keith!
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