Happy Birthday Blog: 200th Post!

Yay me!








So yesterday I reached my 200th post on the blog. Had I been paying attention, I would have written something a little better than a simple joke on how some teasers and pictures look like gardening equipment, but there we go!


Also, somewhat ironically, I'm writing this post at another parents evening... just like the previous birthday post.


First parent. Here goes!


Well that was quick. Let's do some stats to see how far we've come.


Post count: 200
Days active: 157
Posts per day: 1.27
Previous posts per day: 1.7


Not surprising really, as I've had the last two weekends off, but the post count per day has gone down. It will continiue to drop as well, as we get into higher numbers, but as long as the counts per day stays above 1, I'll count it as good.


Total page views: 5257
Views per day: 33
Views per post: 22
Prev. per day: 24
Prev. per post: 14


A bit of improvement here, which is good. The scale of increase has been nice as well, as can be seen by the following chart (graphs as well as numbers, you lucky devils!):

I'm pleased with this, as it looks like more people are reading.


I can see a parent glancing back and forth between me and a piece of paper. Think they're looking for me...



With more data available, we can actually see now that Twitter, which I assumed was responsible for most of the blog traffic, is not actually helping much. Whilst there is certainly growth from that platform, it doesn't appear to be making a huge amount of difference. Where it has come in handy is getting news and information, but not so much traffic.


The king of traffic drivers is Facebook. I think this is down to the nature of that platform. Whereas Twitter has a very short engagement time, Facebook encourages more thoughtful viewing of it's info streams. That's not to say I value any of you readers that have followed this blog on Twitter any less, it's just how the numbers have panned out. Basically most Twitter users engage with the photos rather than the blog itself.


Ah, next parent.


A bit of a lull in parents, so I can write more.




A significant boost to the blog has been from Disqus, where I think I left a link in a comment somewhere else. That may have to be the next marketing campaign. I know it seems cynical to be talking about that here, but I'd rather be honest in how I'm driving traffic in addition to putting up the best quality content I can.


A great addition to the places where the blog gets pinged to has been Table Top Gaming News. They were kind enough to pop Tabletop Teacher on their feeds, which means good traffic from there.


Another parent. One minute.


In terms of content, I've switched a lot from club shenanigans to more project work and hobby guides. Tabletop Engineer has been invaluable for this, doing some great work on his own project logs, and giving me a breather every now and then.


I haven't been doing any competitions lately, as the painting competitions at my local Games Workshop haven't lined up so well with my current projects. That wouldn't be an issue, but I don't have an infinite budget, so it's hard to get models and bits for whatever the theme is (particularly as the requirement is to buy the relevant models that month!).


Slowly losing voice now...


Oh no a guardian. You can tell because of the clipboard and iPad.


Ok they've gone. Guardians are always very thorough. They get paid by parents of boarding students to attend these evenings. Saves the parent buying a plane ticket.


I want to do more Age of Sigmar stuff for myself. I'm not too enthusiastic for the Stormcast Eternals, or the Khorne Bloodbound from the starter kits, so I'll be looking into a new army to collect. I'm thinking Orruks, but I do find those Khrardron very appealin- gah, parent.


... anyway, I find sky dwarfs quite appealing. I'm not sure though. I appreciate fast armies, and the Ironjawz look like they're deceptively fast. It also might be refreshing to play a sledgehammer as opposed to the rapiers I'm used to.


Ok, voice has nearly gone. Bottom line: blog continues, more stuff in the future.


I'm only going to hold out a little longer to say thank you to everyone who reads, comments, re-tweets, likes or otherwise responds to what I do here. Whilst it's easy to forget those page views translate to someone actually looking at what I've written, and it still boggles my mind that anyone pays attention to my mad ramblings and shoddy paint work.


Thanks very much guys. I really appreciate any time you've given me.


Okay last parent. Until next time!






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