In case you haven’t already figured it out for yourself, I’m not terribly tech savvy.
Sure, sometimes my 87 year old handyman neighbor calls me over to help figure out how to print his Christmas card mailing labels. But for the most part I only know just enough about technology to get by.
I probably barely scratch the surface when it comes to the things I could be doing with my new cell phone because I can’t be bothered to figure them out.
I’m also not willing to switch to vlogging rather than blogging because I don’t want to have to learn an entirely new skill; how to take good videos, and then use the software necessary for editing them (the real challenge).
All of that being said, I do mostly manage when it comes to blogging.
But there is one thing that I just haven’t figured out, and that’s how to know what is driving traffic to my blog.
For example, in the month of November my most visited post was my blogiversary giveaway.
That’s not surprising.
But my 2nd most visited post in November 2024 was from May 2020; the flower collector secretary.
Where did that come from? Why are so many people finding that post 4 years later?
And how in the world did that post become my most popular post in 2024 with over 4,000 views?
I wish I knew.
I mean, sure, that was a fun makeover. But honestly, that use of the Sea Glass color on the interior feels a bit dated to me now.
Sidebar: look how ridiculously large I made my watermark back then. That’s embarrassing.
I do have some analytics built in to my WordPress blog, but they aren’t terribly helpful. For example, my stats page says that February 16, 2020 was the day with the highest number of visitors to my blog.
Weird.
I didn’t even publish a post that day. That’s two days after I posted this dresser.
My stats page also tells me that my most popular category in all of 2024 was “happy holidays.”
That’s where I put all of my Christmas project posts, so that’s interesting. I feel like Christmas projects are just a small percentage of my content throughout the year.
My 2nd most popular category for 2024 is “furniture.”, with “toolboxes.” as a close 3rd. That sort of tells me what people are interested in. But as with all stats, there is more to the story. I need to know how many ‘furniture’ posts there were in 2024, compared to how many ‘toolboxes’ posts. That would have a significant impact on the number of visits each category received. But my WordPress stats don’t give me that number. So does that stat actually tell me anything?
I do get some very basic stats on ‘referrers’, so you’d think that would help tell me where traffic is coming from. My top referrer is still pinterest, but I don’t get any specifics on which pin is driving the traffic. My 2nd most popular referrer is google. Um, yeah. That doesn’t help either.
I could try using the free version of Google Analytics to figure out where traffic is coming from, but it looks rather complicated to use. As mentioned earlier, learning to use a new software is definitely not something I enjoy. Also, one source I found noted that “Google Analytics collects visitor data and analyzes it to provide insight into your website’s traffic and performance. Google then re-uses these data to power its extensive ad tech ecosystem. Like other Google services, it is a privacy-invasive tool that customers pay with their data- or rather, with their visitors’.”
That doesn’t sound good, does it? I definitely don’t want to invade your privacy.
So I guess for now I’ll just be left to wonder why a post from 4 years ago has become so popular this year. I wish I knew. Maybe you know? If so, be sure to leave a comment!
q is for quandie 
As far as the metrics on when people read your posts, I can tell you that I travel frequently, and don’t always have the time or internet access to read your blog when it is first published. Many times it will be months after it was written, I will do a mini marathon of your posts. And I save some, to refer to later, so that may affect the count for a posting made in prior years.
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That is good to know Kimberley, thanks!
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I Love all your posts but as to why that particular post …I am ignorant when it comes to analytics. Perhaps a blogger with a large following mentioned you? I love the sea glass interior-it doesn’t feel dated to me. Merry Christmas!
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That’s what I’m thinking as well. Someone somewhere shared that particular post of mine. I wish I knew who so I could thank them 🙂
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Ah, well you already know, I came for the furniture and stay because I enjoy your writing, although barely any furniture anymore. If it didn’t come up in my email, I hate to say (but just being honest here), I wouldn’t seek you out because no furniture makeovers. I do enjoy reading everything, not so much the travel, but still enjoy makeovers. I like that you are down to earth and funny and not all me, me, me like other blogs.
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Lately I’ve been missing the furniture myself. I have a friend who has asked me to paint a couple of pieces for her, but that won’t involve much creativity. Although she has picked some pretty colors, so I’ll be sure to share them here.
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There is so much I relate to in this post and I am laughing out loud and smiling over my morning coffee. I was always the one my family relied on to solve the tech problems in our home. I have a husband and 3 sons (now grown) and it is a scary scary thought that anyone thought it was a good idea to ask me how to remove a “virus” from their laptop (before we all went Apple) or why software I didn’t use wouldn’t work for them. They just expected me to know the answers and, of course, I would spend hours Googling and figuring it out. Fast forward to the present. I do not watch TV. I do not have any idea why we subscribe to so many streaming services/channels when we still have Cable and I don’t care to figure out a TV that is ostensibly smarter than me. Especially when our middle son is an aeronautical engineer in Arizona who does techy things for a living. So these days, rather than Googling for answers, I now text him for answers when my husband asks me why the headphones he wears to watch TV randomly disconnected or when we need to figure out that a “Smart TV” isn’t actually smart enough to connect to Bluetooth devices without an added piece of hardware that is tucked behind the TV. Or when neither one of us remembers how to access said Bluetooth device connector thingy when we have a a new device (pair of headphones). Yes, I could Google it. But why do that when son #2 can walk me through it in words I understand over text or phone? lol I sent him a meme recently not to complain about our tech questions because, after all, I taught him how to use a spoon.
Happy Holidays! Thanks for the smile and for indulging my reminiscing.
Also, do the analytics count the people who read your posts through email but don’t always open the blog to comment? Just wondering. And I love the pop of sea glass on the inside. Doesn’t feel dated to me, just very pretty. But then I love anything and everything blue or blue/green.
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LOL, I’ve seen that meme too! Amen to that. As for your last question, WordPress didn’t used to track how many people open the email notifying them of a new post but they do now. For that reason, in the past at lot of bloggers didn’t put their whole post in the email (there is an option to just include a teaser, or the whole thing), but I always did the entire post. I don’t like making people jump through unnecessary hoops just so that I can ‘count’ them.
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GOOD LUCK!! That’s why I never started a blog/vlog!
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I hear that!
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I’m clueless as well! With WordPress I have to enter password each time?
I don’t know the difference between blog/vlog either?.???
smiles, Alice
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I can help you out there Alice. “Blog” is short for web log, and is generally a web page. On the other hand, the ‘v’ in vlog stands for video, so a vlog is the video version of a blog.
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4 years ago is really unusual for a blog post to be so popular. I have a feeling some blogger with a lot of followers shared your picture and a link that brought them to see what you did, how you did , Etc. I had a blog when I did stamping up card stuff. Occasionally I had blog posts that had huge hits. I found that someone had shared my post. I haven’t done a Blog for a decade, too much chaos went on in my life. I gave it up. I thoroughly enjoy reading your blog, please don’t stop.
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I agree, 4 years ago does seem super unusual. And it continues, that same furniture post got 50 more new views this week. I think you must be right, someone with a very large following must have shared it. Also, no worries, I don’t plan to stop blogging anytime soon. What would I do with all of my spare time if I did? I shudder to think …
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I think what happens when something from a few years back shows it, it’s because someone shared it on Pinterest. As to how or why, it’s probably anyone’s guess.
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Yep, I just wish I knew 🙂
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Hi, Linda, I think I saw that secretary on Pinterest recently; that might explain the uptick in views.
Also, I use Google Analytics at work, very lightly and a lot less often than I should.
Don’t know how intrusive it is; it hasn’t been a problem for any of our users over the past several years. I mean, the tracking is probably taking place anyway; I don’t think there is much any of us can do at this point to secure our privacy. So just generating and looking at the reports shouldn’t affect your viewers much. The reports are very easy to run and interesting; you get to see where in the country/world your page views are coming from, and other interesting data.
I just signed off for a 12-day long-awaited seasonal break and hope to do some projects inspired by your blog. Merry Christmas!!
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Enjoy your break Melissa!
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