Happy 1st Birthday to Web-Strategist.com!!!

Categories: Ruminations, Social Media Measurement, Web AnalyticsPosted on June 20th, 2007

For some reason, this is more exciting to me than my real birthday.

These last few days marks the one year anniversary of this domain, web-strategist.com (read the first month). Previously, I was on blogspot, and before that Yahoo 360, and before that tons of forums and chat rooms. It’s been one hell of a ride, from Hitachi to PodTech. It’s also been with me while I traveled, spoke, captured conference information and became an extension of myself.

You’ll see that I’m certainly not an A-lister, my analytics numbers are not high, but I’m confident I reach the people that matter, those who make decisions for websites.

Here’s a few stats on the blog over the past year:
This is a mixture of quantitative metrics and qualitative, in one year from now, I’ll chart and benchmark.

-Technorati Rank: From millions to 1,708 (today)
-Subscribed readers: over 1500
-Average number of posts in draft: 50
-Total Blog Posts: 1,028
-Total Comments: 4,768
-Total Categories/tags: 61
-Google Page Rank: 6
-Photos uploaded to Flickr: 10,637
-Videos uploaded to YouTube, Blip, Revver, and PodTech: Over 100 (estimated)
-Google Analytics over 12 month period:

-Visits: 128,091
-Page Views: 233,350 Pageviews
-Average time on site: 2:18
-New Visits: 70.10%

Top viewed posts:

-Index page
-List of White Label Social networking sites
-The many forms of Web Marketing
-My Profile Page
-Social Media Optimization (which I sort of regret)

Interesting Posts:

-Most embarrassing
-Favorite post
-most self punishing

-Number of times my non-tech friends didn’t get it: 80% of the time
-New job: 1 great job
-Opportunities generated for my employer: Countless
-How many times blogging has helped my career: Countless
-New friends made directly from blogging: Hundreds, Thousands?
-Time saved by not repeating myself: days, weeks? (estimated)
-Weight Loss, Hair gain: none and none
-Fun, exhilaration, and self-satisfaction: 100%

That was scary
Wow, that’s me totally naked. For some reason, I felt hesitant to release my analytics numbers, I think it’s like telling someone your salary, even in this industry of transparency. The visitor graph looks like a ramp, so I know that next year’s numbers will be higher. Ok, done, I feel better now. (I encourage you to try it, regardless of the numbers, it will help you benchmark and set goals for the future). Update: I think it would be interesting if everyone released their blog stats for public usage, perhaps a toggle in Google Analytics. We’d get a greater sense of stats rather than relying on browser embedded tools like Compete and Alexa.

Tell me how can I improve!
The most important thing to me is to continue to be 1) interesting, or 2) add value. I’d like to hear from you how I can improve this blog, feel free to leave a comment, and if you want to be anonymous, that’s fine too. I really want to practice what I preach to corporations, I’m open to your ideas to make a better website. (I started this blog with community feedback DURING the design process). If you get stuck, you can think about User Experience, Content, Focus, Technical details, style, or whatever else, I’m listening.

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 20th, 2007 at 12:26 pm and is filed under Ruminations, Social Media Measurement, Web Analytics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Jeremiah, I’m curious as to why you regret the SMO post. Can you expand on that?

Posted by Cameron Olthuis on June 20th, 2007 at 12:34 pm

Because I don’t consider myself a social media optimizer, take a look at my blog. I’m so raw, I just believe that I should write frequent ‘how-to’ type content and people will find it, link to it, and share it.

The things that I ‘optimize’ are I pay attention to my titles, and I’m particular on the categories I use. I don’t have a row of delicious, digg, reddit, newsvine and whatever else.

Lastly, I believe that Social Media is about humans connecting to other humans and growing collectively. The emphasis on humans, rather than optimization.

When I added to the Social Media Optimization post, you’ll see that I was actually giving some very ‘human’ recommendations.

I realize that SMO is a legitimate profession, will only increase in demand, and is not going away. There’s a place for it, but it’s just not my focus area.

Make sense? (waiting for flames)

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 20th, 2007 at 12:38 pm

Congrats on the birthday. Those are some pretty impressive stats! By the way, I love the photos you have been posting to Flickr while you are in Singapore. Take Care.

Posted by Shannon on June 20th, 2007 at 12:44 pm

Jeremiah

Happy Blog Birthday! I think your numbers are great. It is my opinion that your blog contains interesting information and is an incredible value to me and my work.

I have told many collegues about your site and will continue to do so in the future. I really enjoy your contributions and think you have a great perspective.

I don’t have any suggestions for you today, but as I continue to be a subscriber will always give you feedback good and bad as I feel it could be constructive.

I would also like to say Thank You for sharing your experience with the rest of us!

Regards

Sal

Posted by Sal DiStefano on June 20th, 2007 at 12:47 pm

Shannon, thanks.

Regarding the Photos, I have it on my all the time, I’m a “guerrilla photographer” and take out my 300 dollar Canon consumer camera, Palm it (I can hide it in my hand) and able to take shots when people don’t expect it…it gets them acting more human, rather than posed.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 20th, 2007 at 12:51 pm

Sal thanks, you know I’m listening!

You helped me get started blogging. In fact, my first trackback was from you. For that, I will always be grateful. Happy Blogday, man.

It’s interesting… I used to comb through every word of your blog, jumping up and down. Since you joined Podtech, I haven’t had the same experience, but I have still had a very good one. See, you have blogged a LOT more… and a lot of the newer stuff isn’t really in my sweet spot of reading.

BUT, and this is a very big BUT, I still get a lot from reading just the titles of those posts. It gives me a very quick look at what is going on outside my sweet spot. And that is awesome. I can read what I want, skim what isn’t 100% for me. Perfect.

And, your titles of your blog posts are wonderful for this skimming approach.

Don’t worry, still a complete fanboy though.

Posted by Adam Darowski on June 20th, 2007 at 12:55 pm

Thanks Adam

I wondered what changed? I was told by Allen Stern at centernetworks that I “Pimp podtech” too much. Do you think this is the case?

Or, was it more interesting me telling my story when I was in corporate, living the dream (now I just talk about it in retrospect)

Or, maybe you’ve matured quite a bit more, and we’re all learning from you!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 20th, 2007 at 12:57 pm

It would be interesting if Google Analytics let a user publish their numbers to share. I’d do it.

Think of the collective knowledge we could get from everyone sharing real data and trends, rather than relying on tools like Alexa that are hit and miss.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 20th, 2007 at 12:58 pm

I don’t feel that’s the case. I mean, when do you talk about them? You talk about them when referring to events that Podtech is part of. It would just sound dumb if you said “That company that I am part of will be attending the…” etc. And you mirror the media players of a lot of Podtech’s shows. But you don’t just do that to say “hey look at us!” You provide text after that media player that complements what your colleagues are producing (specifically thinking about Marketing Voices here).

Haha, I guess it was a similar situation as me. I was with a defense contractor, trying to do all this. Now that I’m with BatchBlue, it is all second nature. Blogging and transparency are as much a part of the culture as coffee and flipflops.

Sure, that must be it.

Well, perhaps it had to do with the fact that I was looking for a job doing this “stuff”, so I was soaking in anything I could. Now I get to pick and choose the content that aids my specific problems and tasks.

Perhaps it is some of the content is very West Coast-oriented… and I don’t know all the players, companies, and locations involved.

Still, you’re on my “must reads” list and always will be.

Posted by Adam Darowski on June 20th, 2007 at 1:21 pm

CONGRATS! Has it been a year! Wow

I ponder the stats of Weight Loss, Hair gain: none and none to include Weight gained and hair loss?

Once again congrats,

WaiLi

Posted by WaiLi on June 20th, 2007 at 2:08 pm

Thanks Waili. Just a year with THIS domain, I’ve had previous ones.

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 20th, 2007 at 2:15 pm

HAPPY BIRTHDAY WEB STRATEGIST!!!!

Posted by Estee on June 20th, 2007 at 7:57 pm

Indeed, for a span of one year, your blog has taken roots pretty quick. As you’ve said, it’s all about valuable content.

Posted by Kevin on June 20th, 2007 at 8:42 pm

[...] Happy 1st Birthday to Web-Strategist.com!!! A blog birthday for Jeremiah, a friend of mine for the last few years. This is one of the best blog birthday posts I’ve read, as he gets specific with his numbers (which are not typical, of course) and is very open with his past successes and mistakes (r (tags: jeremiahowyang podtech webstrategist blogbirthday) [...]

Posted by Practical Blogging » Blog Archive » links for 2007-06-21 on June 20th, 2007 at 9:22 pm

Well done - great stats indeed! Keep up the great work - web-strategist.com is a definite must read for serious web pros.

Posted by Pete Prestipino on June 21st, 2007 at 5:59 am

Happy blog B-Day,

Thanks for takin us along for the ride with you.

I greatly admire the level of transparency you bring to the web. That being said I can’t say I’d open up the stats so readily for other to grab.

lookin forward to another year
Hershel

Posted by Hershel Reese on June 21st, 2007 at 11:38 am

Thanks Hershel and Pete!

Posted by jeremiah_owyang on June 22nd, 2007 at 3:58 pm

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Posted by Web Strategy by Jeremiah » “Pay yourself first” and “One thing leads to another” on July 6th, 2007 at 3:11 am

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