Best of ProBlogger – 2007

Happy Christmas – I hope that you’re having a good one. I’ve got a bit day of family fun planned – but wanted to leave something here on the blog for those of you with a little more time on your hands to enjoy.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to look back on the year that was. Sure we’re a few days out from New Years – but I thought I’d bring my end of year review forward a little. This post contains some stats for this blog, highlights from the last 12 months of archives (in terms of popular posts) and a quick look forward at the year ahead.

So grab a cup of coffee (or eggnog as it may be), sit back and lets take a look back on the year that was on ProBlogger.

2007 – Another Year at ProBlogger

As 2007 draws to an end I took a few hours earlier in the week to look back over the archives of this blog and to do an annual review. I do this every year, mostly for my own purposes, but last year also shared some highlights with readers so thought I’d do so again.

The year was a big one. On a personal front we moved house (bought/built and sold houses) and traveled in the US for a month as a family (as well as survived becoming parents of a toddler). In a business sense it’s also been massive with considerable growth in this blog and DPS (which has grown considerably faster than ProBlogger), b5 growing incredibly, redesigning ProBlogger and some wonderful opportunities to travel, write, speak etc coming my way.

Some Stats:

• Posts: 895 (with a few days to go this will end up being around 300 posts less than last year. This decrease is largely because in 2006 I had a lot more ‘group writing projects’ and other series (like blogging for beginners) which had a lot more ‘bitsy’ posts). It is also because I traveled a little more this year (when I travel post levels drop to about 60% of normal levels).
• Comments: 40,519 (nothing to compare it to from last year – but it’s way higher). This of course doesn’t include the million or so spam comments.
• Visitors: 3.02 million (according to Sitemeter – AWstats show it as 4.4M – realistically it’s somewhere between the two figures). It’s around double last year.
• Page Views: 5.86 million (again according to SM – AWstats shows it as 15.3M)
• Subscribers: Currently sitting between 36,000 and 38,000 most days. This is up from around 10,000 a day this time last year.

Hot Posts:

Picking the best posts that you’ve written in a year is virtually impossible – so is picking favorite ones. This year instead of listing them by most commented upon and other notable posts I’ll just list 5 or so posts for each of the months that either caused good discussion, got attention on other blogs or that got a lot of page views.

January

• 23 Ideas for Finding New Readers for Your Blog
• How To Market Your Blog in 2007
• 6 Tips for Adding a Forum to Your Blog
• How to Find Your Reader’s Questions and Improve Your Blog
• How Steven Bradbury Can Make You a Better Blogger

February

• Secret Confessions of a Link-A-Holic
• How to Add to Blogging Conversations and Eliminate the Echo Chamber
• What a Buddhist Monk Taught Me About Blogging
• How to Make Your RSS Feeds POP! [series]
• 11 Ways to Find New RSS Subscribers for Your Blog

March

• 34 Reasons Why Readers Unsubscribe from Your Blog
• 10 Ways to Make Your Blog More Attractive to Advertiser
• How Simple Posts Can Find Your Blog Readers
• The Balancing Act of Where to Pitch Your Content
• How to Get Backlinks

April

• Blogging is About Writing
• Tim Ferriss Interview – Part 1
• Long Posts vs Series of Posts
• Being Discovered vs Slow and Steady Blog Growth
• Finding Advertisers for Your Blog

May

• Do You Kiss on the First Date? The Art of Courting as a Blogger
• A Glimpse Behind the Scenes of Successful Blogs
• The Secret to Increasing Amazon Associate Earnings – Time
• 9 Attitudes of Highly Creative People
• How to Be a More Creative Blogger

June

• RSS Feed Counters – Should You Reveal Your Numbers
• Help! I’m Addicted to Checking My Blog’s Stats
• How Long Should Posts Be?
• Should Links Open in a New Window?
• 9 Reasons Why I am an Amazon Affiliate

July

• Why StumbleUpon Sends More Traffic Than Digg
• Seasonal Traffic and How to Capture if For Your Blog
• 5 Things You Should Know about My Dad the ProBlogger
• 7 Days to Rediscovering Your Blogging Groove [series]
• Differentiate Your Blog
• How to Keep Momentum Going on Your Blog with a Points System

August

• 31 Days to Building a Better Blog [series]
• What Everybody Ought to Know About Blogging – 97 Blog Tips
• How to Draw StumbleUpon Users Into Your Blog
• ProBlogger Redesign – Bedding Down for the Night
• Why Does My Feedburner Counter Fluctuate?
• Create a Sneeze Page and Propel Readers Deep Within Your Blog
• First Impressions Matter on a Blog
• When it Feels Like Nobody is Reading Your Blog
• 10 Ways to Hurt Your Blog’s Brand by Commenting on Other Blogs

September

• Forget About Page Rank and Build a Better Blog
• Building Your Blog With StumbleUpon
• Full or Partial Feeds – The Great Feed Debate
• When Going Off Topic Can Help You Find New Readers
• Learn How to Get Your Blog Ranking High in Search Engines – An Interview with Aaron Wall

October

• Why I Don’t Use AdSense on ProBlogger Anymore
• ProBlogger – PageRank 4
• Your First 10,000 Blog Posts are Always the Hardest
• What I learned Giving Away $60,000 of Prizes in a Week
• Are 125 x 125 Pixel Ads Right for Your Blog?
• WidgetBucks Review
• How to Pitch to Bloggers

November

• How I Make Money Blogging
• 11 Tips for Getting Your Comments Noticed on a Popular Blog
• Grip Your Readers With These 7 Knock-out Opening Sentences
• Using Images to Take Your Posts to a New Level
• Haiku Blogging

December

• 6 Steps to Making Money Because of Your Blog
• Are Affiliate Programs with Small Payouts Worth It
• Why You SHOULD use AdSense on Your Blog
• Discover Hundreds of Post Ideas for Your Blog with Mind Mapping
• How to Develop the Habit of Writing Posts in Advance
• Sometimes Blogging is Like Watching Grass Grow

Thanks

Finally I want to thank a few people (or a few million).

b5media – For starters the team at b5media who have enabled me to continue to develop Problogger. When you cofound a company that grows so quickly it can be difficult to know where to put your attention. b5’s been very patient with me and allowed me to keep a high priority on this blog. The tech team at b5 have also done wonders on the back end of this blog while the ad sales team have done a great job of monetizing it.

Guest Writers – This year has seen me rely more heavily upon a very talented group of writers. I’ve introduced new voices to ProBlogger both to help with my work load but also to add variety into the mix here at ProBlogger. Including the periods that I’ve been away there have been over 50 guests write on this blog this year – thanks to all of them. Particularly I’d like to thank Skellie who has become my first staff writer on ProBlogger over the last months. Her posts have been among the most popular on the blog this year.

Readers – This year has been an incredible journey for me here at ProBlogger. I’ve learned so much about blogging, communication, community and life – largely through the wider readership and their comments, emails and other contact points. I’ve met more of you in person this year than ever before (at different meetups) and I have to say that I’m really proud of the caliber of people who read this blog. Thanks for your suggestions, patience, encouragement and support in 2007.

2008 and beyond

Every year my wife and I set a little time aside on New Years Day to reflect upon the last year and to look forward (we write a few goals). Every year since we’ve been married (six years) we’ve said something like ‘maybe next year will be a little quieter’.

As I look at 2008 I immediately shove the thought of a quiet year aside – because I know it is going to be even busier. I already have some new projects in the wings (both personal and blogging related) which I hope to reveal in the coming months (although some of you have stumbled upon one of them already) and I’m sure if the last few years are anything to go by there will be plenty of other opportunities coming up.

What will ProBlogger look like in another 12 months?

I’m not quite in a position to share the next phase of the journey – but there will be continued development of this site in the year ahead. My top priority is to keep adding useful content to our archives (we’ll go past 4000 posts in the next few weeks), to facilitate community among bloggers and to resource them with as many helpful services as possible.

Stay tuned for the next steps in the journey.

Let me finish by wishing you all a happy holiday period.