{"id":1898,"date":"2011-12-30T13:05:16","date_gmt":"2011-12-30T18:05:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/?p=1898"},"modified":"2011-12-30T13:10:37","modified_gmt":"2011-12-30T18:10:37","slug":"quick-thoughts-on-a-year-of-blogging-a-few-changes-for-2012","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/12\/30\/quick-thoughts-on-a-year-of-blogging-a-few-changes-for-2012\/","title":{"rendered":"Quick thoughts on a year of blogging; a few changes for 2012"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"3\" style=\"float: none; margin:0px 0 0px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* 468 x 60 Banner bottom *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"3159198192\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 468;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 60;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n<br \/>\nI&#8217;ve learned a lot about online consumption of news and information in this year of blogging.<\/p>\n<p>A few quick notes on the past year:<\/p>\n<h3>Most used search terms to find this blog from Jan. 1st to Dec. 30th, 2011:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>bill dawers \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0349<\/li>\n<li>corey smith chattanooga \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0244<\/li>\n<li>kenimer mound \u00c2\u00a0 192<\/li>\n<li>www.billdawers.com \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0188<\/li>\n<li>bill dawers blog \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0135<\/li>\n<li>savannah music festival 2012 \u00c2\u00a0 111<\/li>\n<li>westboro baptist church savannah \u00c2\u00a0 95<\/li>\n<li>scad graduation concert \u00c2\u00a02011 \u00c2\u00a0 81<\/li>\n<li>cold war kids scad \u00c2\u00a0 80<\/li>\n<li>savannah movie trailer \u00c2\u00a0 76<\/li>\n<li>cold war kids savannah \u00c2\u00a0 59<\/li>\n<li>williams sonoma savannah ga 54<\/li>\n<li>westboro baptist church savannah ga \u00c2\u00a0 49<\/li>\n<li>wayne cauthen \u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a043<\/li>\n<li>scad cold war kids \u00c2\u00a0 41<\/li>\n<li>mayan site in georgia \u00c2\u00a0 40<\/li>\n<li>maya site in georgia \u00c2\u00a039<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Why would someone search for www.billdawers.com rather than just type it into the address bar? The mysteries of the human mind and of internet use . . .<\/p>\n<p>Regular readers are probably shocked to see &#8220;corey smith chattanooga&#8221; so high on the list, and I&#8217;ll bet the overwhelming majority of regular visitors have no idea what &#8220;kenimer mound&#8221; is. <\/p>\n<p>Months ago, I posted a brief blurb on a Saturday morning about Corey Smith getting shut down at Track 29 in Chattanooga as he began his encore &#8220;Fuck the Po-Po&#8221;. The local press was slow to pick up on it, so people searching for information about the incident landed on my blog. In retrospect, I should have known that post would attract internet searchers in large numbers. People crave basic information and increasingly are going online to get it. Duh.<\/p>\n<p>Kenimer Mound is the site in north Georgia that just last week was mentioned in spurious claims that the Maya migrated there after their civilization collapsed. <\/p>\n<p>If Wayne Cauthen rings a bell, he was one of the four finalists for the city manager position in Savannah. He was easily qualified for the position and I&#8217;m still puzzled by how little attention the public gave him.<\/p>\n<p>Search traffic has increased dramatically over the course of the year. As I write this early on the afternoon of Dec. 30th, exactly half of the site&#8217;s hits today have come from search engines.<\/p>\n<h3>Most viewed posts:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/05\/02\/westboro-baptist-church-picketers-headed-to-churches-synagogues-schools-in-savannah\/\" target=\"_blank\">Westboro Baptist Church picketers headed to churches, synagogues, schools in Savannah<\/a>3,172<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/12\/22\/is-there-an-1100-year-old-mayan-site-in-north-georgia\/\" target=\"_blank\">Is there an 1100 year old Maya site in north Georgia?<\/a> 2,521<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/09\/10\/venue-censors-shuts-down-corey-smith-show-in-chattanooga\/\" target=\"_blank\">Venue censors, shuts down Corey Smith show in Chattanooga<\/a> 1,419<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/05\/05\/cold-war-kids-booked-for-scads-new-alumni-concert-in-forsyth-park\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cold War Kids booked for SCAD&#8217;s New Alumni Concert in Forsyth Park<\/a> 927<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/10\/08\/thoughts-on-the-denial-of-ruel-joyners-candidacy-for-savannah-city-council\/\" target=\"_blank\">Thoughts on the denial of Ruel Joyner&#8217;s candidacy for Savannah City Council<\/a> 713<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/01\/31\/a-recap-of-the-3rd-annual-junk-2-funk-fashion-show-at-savannah-arts-academy\/\" target=\"_blank\">A recap of the 3rd Annual Junk 2 Funk Fashion Show at Savannah Arts Academy<\/a> 655<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/03\/13\/see-the-trailer-for-feature-film-savannah\/\" target=\"_blank\">See a marketing trailer for the feature film &#8220;Savannah&#8221;<\/a> 552<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/07\/25\/lord-i-want-to-thank-you-for-my-smokin-hot-wife\/\" target=\"_blank\">&#8220;Lord I want to thank you for my smokin&#8217; hot wife&#8221;<\/a> 484<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Most clicked link:<\/h3>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/shapiro.anthro.uga.edu\/Lamar\/images\/PDFs\/publication_47.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">ARCHAEOLOGICAL TESTING AT THE KENIMER SITE, 9WH68<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 \u00c2\u00a0126<\/strong><\/p>\n<h3>Most referrals from other sites:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Facebook \u00c2\u00a0 20,747<\/li>\n<li>Twitter \u00c2\u00a0 1,017<\/li>\n<li>That&#8217;s Just Peachy \u00c2\u00a0 560<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Total page views:<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>71,524<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>A few changes for 2012<\/h3>\n<p>I haven&#8217;t made any headway in finding other writers for the site, although that remains a possibility.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m going to start putting more videos up (mostly embeds from YouTube and Vimeo), and if I don&#8217;t have a lot of commentary, I&#8217;ll make those viewable directly from the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\" target=\"_blank\">homepage<\/a>. I&#8217;ve got a couple there now. I&#8217;m not sure why I&#8217;m not already doing that.<\/p>\n<p>I use Google Adsense ads, and have also been using the Google Affiliate Network. Those GAN ads are in the sidebar (mostly 125 x 125 banners). I get a percentage of sales generated by those GAN ads, but they have performed very \u00c2\u00a0poorly. So I&#8217;m now selling ads for those spaces directly. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cindyrentssavannah.com\" target=\"_blank\">Cindy Rents Savannah<\/a> took over one of those slots a few weeks ago, and a handful of other local businesses will likely appear soon. I realize that these ads might create apparent or actual conflicts of interest; I&#8217;ll do my best to address concerns that come up. If you&#8217;re interested in those ad slots, go <a href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/media-fact-sheet\/\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I don&#8217;t plan to let this blog become overly obsessed with national politics, but I&#8217;ll inevitably be writing about the national elections in 2012.<\/p>\n<h3>A thank you<\/h3>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to extend my sincere thanks to those of you who have been reading my blog in its first year. It has been for me a much more interesting and productive outlet than simply posting to Facebook, and it has afforded me the chance to cover a wide range of topics that I cannot cover in my Savannah Morning News columns (which are linked in an automatically updated feed in the sidebar).<\/p>\n<p>My best wishes for 2012.<\/p>\n<div class=\"e26b170012445c56d240655bdd03f7bf\" data-index=\"4\" style=\"float: none; margin:4px 0 4px 0; text-align:center;\">\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"><!--\r\ngoogle_ad_client = \"ca-pub-5595881567027133\";\r\n\/* Another large rectangle *\/\r\ngoogle_ad_slot = \"0042810896\";\r\ngoogle_ad_width = 336;\r\ngoogle_ad_height = 280;\r\n\/\/-->\r\n<\/script>\r\n<script type=\"text\/javascript\"\r\nsrc=\"http:\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/show_ads.js\">\r\n<\/script>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<div style=\"font-size: 0px; height: 0px; line-height: 0px; margin: 0; padding: 0; clear: both;\"><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;ve learned a lot about online consumption of news and information in this year of blogging. A few quick notes on the past year: Most used search terms to find this blog from Jan. 1st to Dec. 30th, 2011: bill&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/2011\/12\/30\/quick-thoughts-on-a-year-of-blogging-a-few-changes-for-2012\/\">Read more &rarr;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8],"tags":[27],"class_list":["post-1898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-livingsavannah","tag-blogging"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1gN9R-uC","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.billdawers.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}