My blog analysis

dashboard
Originally uploaded by aafromaa

In reflecting on my blogging efforts over the last year, I want to consider and report a few web metrics. The history of my blog is as follows:

January 24, 2007 I began blogging.

April 24, I claimed my blog in Technorati.

Mid-may, I created my own domain and the Technorati rating started over.

Currently, Technorati rank is 587, 893 and Authority is 14. Until last week I had an authority rating of 16.

dashboard
Originally uploaded by aafromaa

May 22, I started using Google Analytics. In an 8 month time period, the number of visits is to my blog is shown in the graphic.

The most frequently read pages are:

1. My entry page. Time spent on page 2:55 minutes.
2. Extension in Web 2.0. Time spent on page 3:31 minutes. Most of these views came from direct sources. In fact the spike in my visits occurred when Iowa State Extension professionals were directed to this article through an email.
3. A Summary of Advantages of Facebook. Time spent on page 4:57 minutes. Most of these views came from Google searches.

Early Fall, I started using Feedburner. Feedburner reports 92 feeds being subscribed. According to Google Reader, there are 42 subscribers through Google Reader.

Though in terms of number of visits and feeds, these numbers to some may not seem like much. However, the target audience for my blog has been quite narrow. Many of these professionals are just now becoming aware of that social media tools are applicable to their work. I expect the number of subscribers and visits to increase in the next year.

Looking at it differently, I have never in my career have I had the ability to communicate and discuss technologies in a way that reaches this many people this easily, not through email or any other method.

What does this mean for the larger organization? Consider the effect we would have as an organization if a conservative 1/5 of our educators were to start blogging (and linking to each other's materials). Our educational knowledge becomes spread in ways we have never been able to do before now.

If we blogged what we are already doing--the newsletter articles, the everyday questions, and the success stories--the effective and range reach levels we have never experienced. We can do this with fairly little effort . Blogging expands our ability to build communities and improve lives. That is really exciting!