Where We’ve Been - Where We’re Going

Where We’ve Been - Where We’re Going

Dell’s Bottom Line Blog Update



By Dell Hill

Keeping it all in proper perspective and seeing what the future holds.

That’s what I’m doing today.  Analyzing blog statistics.  Trying to discern the postings that carry the most reader interest, and at the same time, organizing and evaluating blog features that are available but not in current use.

73 days ago I launched www.dellsbottomline.blogspot.com in an effort to continue the work that was being done by the late Jane Jamison at Uncoverage.net.  I knew that task would be daunting because Jane and I had two distinctly different writing styles and even though we wrote about similar topics, her style was a lot more “in your face”.  JJ focused squarely on issues surrounding the State of California, national issues and international issues in that order, and she pulled no punches in doing so.  She was a “Patriot’s Patriot” and I knew my more laid-back writing style would never attract the massive audience that she built up over just three years time.  But, I had to try.  I promised her I would.  She is still my daily inspiration and, like so many of you, her loss is extremely difficult to accept.

Initially, I had hoped to utilize Facebook and about fifty Email friends to attract Uncoverage readers to this new venture.  My hope was to “start me with ten, who are stout-hearted men” and build the readership from there.  One hundred page views per week seemed like a reasonable goal, so that’s how I started.  I was pleasantly surprised when the first week page views jumped to 100 per day!

I keep a simple set of statistics on a daily basis, so I was even more surprised when the numbers blossomed up to 150 page views each day and showed signs of very strong growth.  For instance, on one day during only the second week of blogging, I recorded 301 page views! That day gave me a rush of adrenalin just when I needed it most.  

Researching, writing, editing and posting ten to twenty items each day is tiring work.  And I was tired.  I don’t mind telling you.  I was dedicating about 14 hours each day to the blog and stopping just long enough to gulp down a sandwich, take a shower now and then, and half-hour “naps” quickly turned in to two-hour rest periods.

Very early on I signed up with the Alexa blog statistics service, which ranks various blogs by world and country of origin standings.  I wasn’t surprised - nor was I disappointed - when the very first ranking for Dell’s Bottom Line came in at 4,109,520th position world wide.  In the US, I was ranked 720,344th.  Everyone got a good laugh when those numbers popped up...and then I decided “there’s nowhere to go but up”.  

And up we went.  As of today (December 14th) we have passed 521,337 blogs on the international scale and overtaken 133,712 blogs in the United States.  Not too shabby, if I do say so myself.  At the start, we had no blogs linking to us; today we have at least 15 doing so.  We started with no blog “followers”; today we have 22.  We’re now on Twitter (@GoldenEagle) and continue to promote the blog on Facebook.  We haven’t enjoyed the massive influx of visitors from what’s known as an “Instalanche” (an avalanche of visitors caused by a major blog writer picking up a story and linking to it), but that, too, I honestly believe will happen.  If and when it does, the blog hits total can jump by as many as 100,000 in just hours.

If, for instance, this man likes one of my blog postings and mentions it on his blog, it literally rains visitors for about 24 hours.  This is Glenn Reynolds - The Instapundit - ( ← That’s “Linky Love” - a direct link to his blog).




Attract “Insty’s” attention and good things happen on your blog.

The same could be said for big name bloggers like Michelle Malkin, Matt Drudge, Andrew Breitbart, Ace of Spades HQ, The Other McCain, etc.  Bloggers call it “Linky Love” and it’s how an upstart blog like mine survives in the war zone known as the Blogosphere.

Dell’s Bottom Line has made significant strides.  The daily average of page views, for instance, has gone up for 72 consecutive days.  The mathematicians among us will tell you that’s difficult to maintain.  You have to exceed the existing daily average by a large enough number to bump the next day’s average.  I know that string won’t continue forever, but it’s fun to see just how far it will go.

We’re currently averaging 269.32 page views each day and have a single day record of 475 established December 10th.  We’ve been over 400 page views four times - all four within the past two weeks.  Another very good indicator.

70% of the visitors to the blog have come from the US, as expected, but you might be interested to know that the country with the second most visitors is Russia!  That’s where English to Russian language translation software is put to good use.

It’s impossible to say how many hack attempts the blog has experienced.  Attempts that are thwarted by my security software show three “suspected” hack attempts and one of those attempts got past the first layer of security.  Fortunately, I recognized what was happening and stopped the attack before it did any serious damage.  That attack came from Kiev, Rumania.  I have since added a more expensive security software program to the mix.

All things considered, the future remains bright.  As long as I don’t burn myself out trying to blog every news event that takes place in the world, I’ll be fine.  It’s a tough habit to break, but I’m working on it.

As always, if there are topics you’d like to see covered or expanded, or if you just have a comment on something you like or dislike, don’t hesitate to let me know by using the comment box.  All comments are moderated by me, so you can make suggestions on any blog posting and, at your request, the comment will not appear on the blog.  You can also comment anonymously.  However, I will not post any comments that use hyperlinks as a user name.  If you wish to promote your own blog, do so in the body of text and I will consider each on a case-by-case basis.

As always, my personal thanks to each and every one of you for your readership.

DRH