Apart from the universal, default strategy of continually growing its customer base, another key element of WordPress’ business model must be to keep their band of bloggers happy, motivated, and writing.
Having already gotten me to sign up (= growth strategy), WordPress immediately shifted to inundating me with announcements about how I could make money from all my ramblings (= motivational strategy), something that has thankfully abated in the meantime. Instead, they’re now appealing to my artistic side / pride to keep me writing. Case in point was my 2023 Year-in-Review summary that they sent to me the other day.
How did I do?
Well, this being a site about admin, let’s call a spade a sweat-inducing, personalized appliance for dirt excavation and admit that my stats for 2023 were not great. (And even that is an extreme euphemism.) I’m not complaining though. It’s hard to advertise an anonymous blog through word-of-mouth and this is all much more of a fun, vaguely therapeutic hobby of mine than some desperate attempt for fame and fortune.
Instead, what’s silly about all this is the amount of empty hyperbole WordPress is putting on some very mediocre numbers to try and motivate me. It has, but by giving me more material for this blog, which is probably not what they really intended.
So let’s break all those stats down …
360 page views: A crowd of viewers has engaged with your content, a testament to its appeal and reach.
Nice little bit of sleight of hand that actually suckered me in for an embarrassingly long while: the number of page views is not the same as the number of viewers, but do make those “crowds” seem larger. Instead, the actual 188 viewers do not even approach being a crowd, especially when you consider that it works out to an average daily crowd size of just over half a person. Otherwise, in terms of testaments, these numbers are really only appropriate for last ones, making WordPress the only one to be doing any reaching here.
29 posts: You have added to your body of work and shared your thoughts with the world.
Actually surprisingly bland and factual to match the numbers.
1 like and 3 comments: Your writing has resonated with your readers, and they have shown their appreciation.
Unfortunately, the stats would indicate that my writing seems to resonate in the same way that mashed potatoes dropped from a third-story window do. If numbers like these don’t underline the aforementioned engagement of my crowd of visitors with my content, nothing does.
Best day—March 30, 2023: With 14% of all visits for the year, it seems March 30, 2023 was your day in the digital spotlight.
The “your” here is actually particularly telling because that was the day I kept calling up the site to see how some formatting changes looked for everyone else.
Popular countries—USA, Canada, and Croatia: Spanning continents, your site resonates with an international audience.
Ah, more resonance. But, again, it’s resonance of this kind. Break down the numbers and everything breaks down. Canada and Croatia are where most of my family live and Americans will click on almost anything to ensure that America is #1 at everything. Instead, I find it more interesting that my blog got hits from undoubtedly befuddled people from up to nine different countries (Germany might be all me), including the big three above, all begging the question as to how they landed there in the first place.
Traffic source—facebook.com: facebook.com has been a major contributor to your site’s traffic, a nod to our targeted SEO and marketing efforts.
Oh. That’s how …
Thank God for Facebook and its whopping seven referrals. Major has never been so minor before. But, in the end, it does justify the millions that WordPress undoubtedly spent in its targeted marketing efforts just for my blog. (Just nod …)
99.999% uptime: Almost perfect! We’ve kept your site live and accessible for 525 595 minutes out of 525 600 this year.
The only decent number in the whole bunch (even if it has a ridiculously unnecessary number of digits behind the decimal point) and one that really has nothing whatsoever to do with my blog. Pity that those five minutes of downtime were probably exactly when everyone else was trying to call up the site.
Kinda all explains why WordPress isn’t telling me how much money I can make with my blog anymore, doesn’t it?
The Blog About Fog 