Best of ProBlogger

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

February

March

April

May

June

July

August

September

October

November

December

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.