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It's time for another update on how my foray into the realm of writing is going. At the end of July I talked about my experiences in blogging to date and set some new goals for the rest of 2008. To recap, those goals are:
- Establish and maintain a clear focus and purpose
- Build a loyal base of subscribers
- Raise my profile and reputation
Let's look at my progress towards these goals.
By the Numbers
I'm pleased to report that my traffic stats have improved in every metric in September as opposed to August. My traffic levels are still very small and almost statistically zero in internet terms, but any growth is good. Here are the graphs...
More people are coming to the site, more of them are new visitors and more of them are staying to check out more of the site before leaving. There are also some modest improvements when you look at where visitors are coming from...
A decline in the share of Direct Traffic is actually a good thing. Direct visitors are ones who type the site address directly into the browser or access it from a bookmark. They are most likely regular visitors or people I know personally. It's not that the number of these visitors is falling, it's that there are less of them compared to people who are finding my site either from other sites or through search engines. Also, regular visitors are encouraged to subscribe using an RSS reader, and RSS subscribers do not show up in these traffic stats at all.
The big news here is that more people are finding me through search engines, the most common keywords being 'danu poyner', 'technological blog' and more recently, 'bankruptcy'. I can anticipate the series of bankruptcy articles I am writing becoming quite popular as time goes on.
Writing Style and Focus
I seem to have settled into a steady rhythm of posting an article of 800-1200 words every few days on a variety of topics with the aim of giving readers something to think about. Themes of technology, media and politics are still readily apparent, but the focus is really more about raising awareness, self-development and thinking in general.
The Digital Migrant
I haven't written a great deal more of my book over the last month. I struggled to find an introduction to the 4th chapter for several weeks, and more recently have been occupied with other things, particularly the impending culmination of the US presidential race which I have been following for the last 12 months. I anticipate making a solid effort on the book once that is done with and still aim to have it finished by the end of the year.
Freelance writing
Last month I mentioned I had been approached by Nine MSN's travel department to see if I was interested in writing a travel guide to the Gold Coast. That didn't end up coming to fruition as they chose one of the other people they had approached. Looking at their travel site it doesn't really seem to be my style anyway, but nevertheless it was nice to be considered.
Where does writing fit in the scheme of things?
Writing is something I have always enjoyed but have only really rediscovered this year. This has been a year of introspection for me as I work out where to go next in my life. While I still don't have all the answers yet and change my mind every second day, I know that writing is going to be a large part of whatever I do next.
I will be back next month with another update on how it's going.
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