Blog Update: Happy Anniversary, Depeche Mode, and other tidbits …

It's three years today since everythingsgonegreen took its first tentative steps online. It’s fair to say I had no idea at all where the blog would go, or how often it would go there. I didn’t even know if I had much to say (and still don’t) … or how long it would take for the novelty of blogging to wear thin (and still don’t).

But I’m still here, and if anything, the blog has been gathering some momentum over the past year – a very quiet January period excepted. It remains very much a hobby blog, a place to dump stuff, a place to rave or vent about the small – mostly music-related – things that make up my world. I’m not the greatest or most entertaining writer in the world, I get that much … but I write about this stuff purely for me. To help satisfy my near OCD-level of obsession to document shit. And if others come to visit and want to read it, well, I like that too.

If I’m learning anything it’s that the key to getting others over for a visit is to keep the content consistent and fresh. Weeks and weeks without posting not only defeats the purpose of having the blog, it also kills the prospect of repeat visits. I’d still like a few more comments I suppose, but feedback has increased markedly over the past 12 months so I can’t really moan.

Some statto tidbits (for posterity, of course!):

It took everythingsgonegreen two years to achieve the 10k “page hit” mark – something it managed around a year ago, but only another 10 months to pass the 30k “hits”, a threshold passed in December. When I’m blogging regularly with two or three posts per week, the blog consistently surpasses 100 hits per day. When I’m not, it sits at around 40-50 per day. Not big numbers, and I won’t be giving up my day job anytime soon!

But I did blog a lot more during 2013, more than doubling the number of posts across the calendar year at a rate of more than two posts per week. So increase in output = big increase in traffic volume. It isn’t exactly rocket science.

Of those 30k hits over the life of the blog (190 posts) – one blogpost is now responsible for nearly 10% of them … the classic album review for Depeche Mode’s Violator, published in April of last year. Any keyword combination of Depeche, Mode, and Violator also account for the three most common searches directing traffic to the blog.

NZ-based readers account for 40% of page hits, with the USA at nearly 21%. Visits from Germany increased noticeably over the past 12 months (are Depeche Mode big in Germany?) to the extent that it now accounts for more hits than the UK – which surprises me a little, given how UK-centric some of the blog’s content has been.

Internet Explorer is the browser of preference at 36%, followed by Safari (21%), Firefox (19%), and Chrome (17%) … and yep, I have been very bored today …

So anyway, happy birthday to everythingsgonegreen, and happy anniversary to us, dear reader.

Let’s celebrate with something relevant, something Depeche Mode … here’s Policy of Truth, off Violator …