My Most Popular Post

Since I began blogging nearly a year ago I have averaged between 20 and 30 readers a day. Obviously it's not the most read blog out there, but I am always amazed that anyone reads it at all. The blog was originally meant as a way for me to express how I felt living with depression although right from the start I said that it would also contain my thoughts on many subjects; and it has.

I knew that I didn't want to harp on about how I was feeling; that would have been rather boring and also self-centred. I wanted it to be more of an educational tool so that non-sufferers would perhaps get a better understanding of what it is like to have to live with mental illness.

I have regular readers, and some who dip in from time to time. Fortunately, readers will often drop me a comment, which as every blogger knows is a great comfort as it lets us know that someone has really read what we have written and not just pulled up the page and then passed on to another blog. I have even been fortunate enough to have met one of my fellow bloggers and we have become friends and correspond regularly.

As a blogger you wonder what attracts readers to your blog in the first place and the array of add-ons that are available for no cost that enable you to track your readership and how they have found your blog make this easy to do. One thing that I found out about these add-ons fairly early on is that they don't all register readers in the same way, and more importantly that they don't register all those who come to your blog. That is why I have four different examples of these widgets on my blog.

Over the last couple of months I have been taking a note of Google searches that have brought people to this blog and I have found that I am getting two or three visitors a day because of one particular post. I don't know how many of those visitors become regular readers, very few I would think, but I find it truly amazing that I have written a post that brings so many people here in their quest for information on a particular subject.

That particular post is What is a Shetland Hap Shawl? It was written in response to several of my regular readers who were interested in my knitting projects and when I started writing about the hap shawl that I was knitting at the time, asked me what a hap shawl was. This morning I thought that I would carry out a Google search for 'hap shawl' myself and I was amazed to find that my blog was the second result to come up, the one ahead of me being Heirloom Knitting, the company who got me interested in knitting Shetland lace in the first place.

I haven't knitted any Shetland lace for a while now, I've been too busy on other projects, but I am planning to design a Shetland lace shawl of my own from scratch in the next few months and it is as a result of the wonderful designs that are available from Heirloom Knitting and an incredible book of that name written by the company's owner, Sharon Miller. So, in the not to distant future I will be buying a huge sheaf of graph paper, arming myself with some pencils and a very large rubber, some suitable knitting needles, some yarn, and hoping that don't get too frustrated and despondent when things don't turn out quite how I expect.

Post Titles

Sometimes it can be almost as difficult to find a catchy and/or relevant title for a post as it is to write the post in the first place. And sometimes I can't think of what to write at all. Tuesday wasn't one of those days; I managed to add three posts to the blog, none of them particularly earth-shattering, but each of them having something to say about how I had spent my day and how I was feeling.

My visitor figures are never particularly outstanding, although it is nice to know that some people read what I say and take the time and effort to comment. I often wonder what draws people to the blog in the first place so I often have a look at what search terms people use that causes them to have their first look (or even draw them back again later).

I have commented in the past that the search terms "meeting under the clock at Waterloo", "what is a Shetland hap shawl" and "studying and depression" regularly bring readers to the site. Then there was the saga of the students in India who all arrived at the blog by searching for "procrastination is the thief of time"; I don't think that my post with that as its theme will have helped them very much.

Students studying one particular course with the OU (a course that I have studied and mentioned in my blog) arrive at the blog by searching for the subject of the extended essay that forms the final examinable component of the course. They will be somewhat disappointed with the results though because although I mention what the essay is about I don't give them any information that would help them with the essay.

On Tuesday I went out for the day in an effort to try to cheer myself up after a particularly difficult day on Monday. I wrote a post giving details of where I had been and what I had done. Later that same evening I added another post because I had forgotten to include one of the highlights of the day. It was a very short post compared with many on this blog, and it had what I thought was a catchy and relevant title considering the subject. Yesterday I had somebody arrive through searching "keyhole surgery". I don't think that they found what they were looking for though.

So should I be a bit more careful about what I call the posts or what I write about? I don't think so. After all, it may lead someone to become a regular reader, so I don't care how they find my blog; I only hope they take a moment to read it and maybe find something that is worth reading.

Musings And Strange Searches

I'm still suffering some of the after effects of the myriad infections of last week.  The chest infection is still causing me some problems; every now and again, for no apparent reason, I start coughing and find it difficult to stop.  It's a real chesty cough and occasionally it catches me so much that I end up gasping for air and with stars spinning in front of my eyes.  I'm sure it will eventually get better but it is still draining me of what little energy that I have.  I also seem to have a lot of catarrh and I will be glad to be rid of that too.

I have also been having to sleep quite a bit over the last few days. I expect that is as a result of the infections too.  Most of Tuesday was spent in the arms of Orpheus and I managed to sleep at night too, yesterday was a little better with me only sleeping for most of the morning, and today I slept until about 9am.  I shall have to set my alarm tonight because tomorrow morning I have to get up early for my psychotherapy appointment.

On Monday I went to make the video that was postponed a couple of weeks ago because of the maker's illness.  It was decided that to protect my anonymity in view of the subject matter of the video that my part of the video should be done as a voiceover of my presentation.  It all went fairly smoothly and I am now waiting to receive a copy of it to give my approval for its use.  It should be interesting because with my voice being very husky because of the chest infection it will be almost impossible for anyone who doesn't know me exceptionally well to recognize my voice on the video.

Today is the first time that I have actually felt inclined to update my blog, and prior to writing this post I have spent a little time looking at who has been viewing my blog over the last few days.  It can be very interesting to see what leads people to your blog in the first place.  Depression and psychotherapy are often the search terms entered into Google, but over the last few days there have been a number of searches from one country which have used a completely different search parameter.  For some strange reason there have been a number of searches from India for the search term "Procrastination is the thief of time", something that I wrote a post about a few days ago.  I'm not sure whether it is a school essay or one for university students, but there have been multiple searches.  Unfortunately I don't think that my blog will have helped any of them to write their essays, but it has amused me to have my blog come up in these circumstances.  And I'm not easily amused at the moment.