I want to take a look at how a blog grows, what does and does not affect it, what you can do to...
Okay, that's a lie. I just want to geek out about statistics.
This blog has been running since May 2008. Other than the spikes, you can see that it has had a pretty steady growth. Let's take a look at the spikes, the dips, and things I think should've affected this growth but didn't.
THE SPIKES
Both spikes were a direct result of someone linking to a post (
this one in Oct 2009 and
this one a year later, though I think that first spike is a fluke ... as I recall, most of those visitors came from Google looking for
this picture).
Although I definitely gained readers both times, there was no significant, long term change in the blog's readership, no matter how big the spike. This is almost certainly due to the lack of swearing, drinking, and scantily-clad women on my blog needed to keep people coming back.
MORAL: Swear more, dammit.
THE DIPS
The dips are usually when I posted less, like last August when I
disappeared for two weeks. Makes sense in a graph that shows monthly readership as opposed to per post.
MORAL: Post more often to artificially boost my number of readers per month.
STUFF THAT DID (ALMOST) NOTHING
In Nov 2008, I started posting blog links on Facebook and Twitter. There's a little growth, but not what I'd call significant.
In Sep 2009, I started posting on a regular schedule. Again, there's growth, but that's more easily explained by the fact I went to 13 posts/month instead of 8 (see moral to THE DIPS, above).
In Apr 2010, I got published and ran a contest. I got a few extra page loads that month (usually indicative of new people checking out old posts), but otherwise no big change.
MORAL: Nothing matters. Give up.
CONCLUSION
I don't really believe nothing matters. The graph obviously shows growth, but it also shows there's no single event to magically boost your readers (at least not this side of being agented). I'd say the growth correlates more with me getting better at social media than anything else--commenting on blogs, interacting on Twitter/Facebook, stuff like that.
Not that I'm awesome (I'm SO not), but I try to figure out what people do and do not like to read, and then give them that while still being me. And I'm slowly learning how to actually talk to people, even if it's just over the internet. Honestly, this is stuff anyone can do.
So do you keep track of your readership stats? Have you noticed any trends in what works or doesn't?