Hey there people! How is 2022 treating you so far? Good, I hope! Last year I did a “Most Popular” post on my blog for 2021. Most of you know I love the stats that come with WordPress, and what better way to celebrate blogging than a “Best Of” post? Mei-Mei recently did a similar post which prompted me to do mine too. Check out her post here.
It’s weird the types of posts that get traffic. What’s even more strange is comparing all stats from one year to the next to see where content on your blog is progressing. One would think that posting more frequently would get more views, right? Well, I proved that one wrong last year by blogging a lot less than 2020 but still getting the same amount of views:
I was surprised to see this result because I had cut down a lot from blogging in 2021. In 2020 I was blogging almost every day. Last year, the only significant difference to my blog was that I introduced Yoast SEO for the first time. I finally gave in and upgraded this blog to a business plan to utilise the SEO plugins and tools for my site. If the stats I am looking at now are an indication, it is telling me that I am getting more or less the same amount of views on my posts and doing a lot less to get them.
In 2021 I wrote 191 posts compared to 2020s 306 posts. But as you can see by the graph, I got the same amount of views and a similar amount of visitors as well. That is all good news to me. It could mean that my blog posts last year were more interesting than the year before (not all that likely) but I’m leaning more towards the SEO plugin’s are doing their job.
My top post of the year was this one:
For some reason, people really wanted to know if Luke Skywalker was using force crush in that special episode of The Mandalorian. We saw him demolish the Dark Troopers. My post is mostly speculative because, at the time of writing, nobody knew. I searched multiple sources but I couldn’t find one that confirmed that light side force users could learn a dark side force power like force crush. IF YOU KNOW THE ANSWER to this question, let me know people!
What did you think about your blogging year in 2021? Did you have any significant changes occur or did you notice more growth or progress? Let me know what you’re getting up to on your blogs so I can check it out! Feel free to ask me about blogging or anything in general. I am more than happy to help out my fellow friends and bloggers!
Hit me up in the comments if you want to ask anything and I’ll catch you in tomorrow’s post.
darksiderconfessions.blog 
Hi Julie, I tried to follow my stats on YouTube since having posted an unboxing video of my new lightsaber I got…and wow do stats give me a headache. YouTube seem to have a “rolling average” thing going on where they show you a snapshot of the last 48hrs and to me hardly anything ever changes except the numbers going down (admittedly I’m not a YT creator as such). However I checked my basic WordPress stats and I’m happy to say I am seeing a steady upward trend in views and visitor numbers. I did have a slight anomaly with a spike in 2020 but that was due to the extraordinary amount of viewers that clicked on my Eddie Van Halen memorial post when he sadly passed away.
When I started this blog I was posting an article/design every day but eventually that got a bit much and when I switched to using Blender 3D which is more involved than the “lightsaber design app” I used before I cut down to posting one (hopefully better quality) article a week rather than cramming one a day. I still achieved the growth I mentioned so I really don’t delve into SEO and stuff.
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Ahhh that’s great FT! Oh yes, you make a very valid point when it comes to traffic. The SEO tool I use is designed to get your posts noticed more for particular topics when searched for in search engines. Since using the tool, my traffic has steadily improved over time. It hasn’t spiked or anything like that and my follower number hasn’t jumped into the thousands like some blogs I follow. But the trend has definitely continued and continues to grow even during “off” periods when there is nothing interesting happening in Star Wars. I usually receive an influx of traffic whenever a new Star Wars movie or TV show is released which is normal I guess and expected. But it’s interesting to see the hits and visitors to my website stay almost the same when I haven’t posted for a third of the year! I find that quite a significant statistic that I will need to monitor as I go 🙂
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Hi again. Yes Stats are a funny thing and I have noticed the “trend wave” around new show launches and film premieres etc…but I also know when people are playing MMO or rolepaying games as there are a few people that have linked to images on my site to use as avatars or as part of their “character sheet”. One person I know is using one of my sabers as their weapon in the game they play – but in this case I don’t mind because the guy actually posted a link to my site which was polite/kind of him!)Whenever a group get together online to play I see my hits go up 😎
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That’s very cool 🙂 Yeah trends are important for stats but not so much for SEO really. SEO should work regardless of any trend or particular online fad happening at the time, or even media release new TV shows and movies. Using SEO can really boost exposure to your content in search engines and that’s sorely what I need lol
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[…] I have been feeling super-inspired so far this year on the writing front of things. I think Tina’s enthusiasm to blog more has rubbed off on me, so I’m going to ride this wave while it lasts lol 😂🙂I dunno about everyone else, but my blog goes through ups and downs all year long. What happens is that I go through phases of extreme creativity, and then I feel totally unmotivated a week later. There is no point in me making promises to blog daily because I tried that, and it was the fastest way to burn out! I blogged almost every day in 2020, and I don’t think it made much of a change to my viewership or to my traffic. […]
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