You might be surprised to know how much I think about my blog. I check my stats probably 10 times a day, and I am always looking for things to write about. I usually have one post idea working in the back of my mind and two unfinished drafts in the WordPress queue.
January and February are my toughest blogging months. So much of my blog is about things I’m out doing, but since January and February are the snowiest months here in Indianapolis, I’m not out doing very much! So when another blog I read posted about its most popular posts of 2009, I thought, “Hey, I can do that!”
2009 was a great year for Down the Road. My average monthly page views leapt by 86% over 2008! I have to tip my hat to copywriter Mike Roe, who gave me some great SEO advice that has really delivered the eyeballs. It also helped that I doubled my posting rate to twice a week for most of 2009 (which I stopped doing recently; see “January and February” above).
My posts about old cameras and vintage television got the most views in 2009. But a post about my radio days and one from my US 50 trip across Illinois cracked the top five:
- Vintage TV: Adam-12 – When I was five, I wanted to be Jim Reed.
- Voigtländer Bessa – I’d always wanted a Voigtländer in my camera collection.
- Vintage TV: A moment from 1977 – How TV was done 32 years ago.
- It’s a shame what’s happened to radio – Why I don’t expect to be a disk jockey ever again.
- Three abandoned bridges in a row – Steel truss bridges left to rot on US 50 in Illinois.
Another way to measure a post’s success is by how many comments it gets. I love to get comments on my posts, and I reply to almost all of them, so please don’t be bashful! Two posts from the most-visited list were among the most commented in 2009:
- It’s a shame what’s happened to radio
- Minolta X-700 – A really nice 35mm SLR.
- Vintage TV: Adam-12
- It happened at the Wall – Photos from a day I spent in Berlin, both east and west, in 1984.
- Worn out – A spent bridge being prepared for demolition.
My favorite posts share about my faith, ways I’ve grown, and stories from the past. Here are my personal top five from 2009. They didn’t get very much love, so go re-read them already!
- Three hundred square feet – I started to recover from my divorce in a tiny apartment in a bad neighborhood.
- Yes, Lord – God wanted me to know that he wasn’t going to place more on me than I could bear.
- Playing by radio’s rules – It was the most humiliated I’d ever been.
- The butterfly effect – How taking a high-school class in public speaking made my career in software development possible.
- Afternoon of awe – A story of how God can multiply our actions when we trust and obey him.
Here’s where I’m supposed to say something gushy about 2010, but I’m not feeling gushy. Just know that I intend to keep blogging, so if you like what you read here, subscribe already! You can get Down the Road in your feed reader or in your e-mail inbox.
