Books in a whirl
We had a lot of fun in May at A Traveler’s Library, as I introduced some new books, shared travel plans and gave away a BUNCH of books. Actually, although we gave away the contents of that box of books we started with….we have already accumulated ten more brand new books, and more are piling up fast. We’ll be giving away those in a future contest.
Also, watch for a France book giveaway on Bastille Day when I make a July France Trip Planning post.
News Items now have their own page. I urge you to check it out.
In May,
- I added an opportunity for you to put your Twitter handle with your name when you comment
- A Traveler’s Library was listed as one of Top 100 Travel Blogs and as one of Top 45 Travel Blogs.
- Featured in blogs by Connie Ong and by Stephanie Yoder at Andy Hayes’ web site.
- My Three Best Travel Secrets of Greece were part of an e-book project.
- The Lonely Planet Blog Sherpas got their own Squidoo Page, so you can follow all the great travel blogs that Lonely Planet likes.
- And LaLa Corriere’s guest post on a cookbook in the Dordogne is featured in the e-zine, Feast.
MOST POPULAR POSTS
Two new books showed up in the most-viewed posts this month, along with a road trip, slides, an author interview, and of course the May Giveaway.
Since people who enter through the home page are lumped together, the individual posts do not get credit for drawing them to A Traveler’s Library, so these counts show entry points of visitors. (Also if you look at “Popular Posts” in the sidebar, you’ll see some additional posts listed–those are posts that were created before May, so they do not count for my purposes here.)
- The Great American Road Trip visit to West Virginia
- A Slide Show of LBJ homes near Fredericksburg, Texas
- The New Travel Book, Currency, about Thailand
- The May Giveaway main page
- The new book on Indian religions by William Dalrymple
- Steinway’s California: an author interview by Dr. Jessie Voigts
Frequent Commenters
Usually about here I list the most frequent commenters, however, because of the May contest, the pattern of commenting is not consistent with most months, so I’m skipping that this time. Next month, however, if you keep commenting even when you are not winning a prize, I’ll recognize you!
Traffic
I’m fascinated with the whole subject of blog traffic and how it works. How do links to a blog affect traffic? How can bloggers encourage traffic to their blogs? What kind of links are the most valuable?
It will come as no surprise that Google comes in way at the top. I not only get people coming to my blog from Google in America, but also from Google UK, Canada, Germany, Australia, Italy, India and France and probably other countries as well. (Did you notice the cute little world map in the sidebar? It shows you where in the world visitors are coming from RIGHT THIS MOMENT.)
Right on the heels of Google, comes Stumble Upon, and I do several things to encourage people to Stumble my blog. After those major sources of traffic, come:
- Bloggies (Still am getting traffic from their nomination of A Traveler’s Library as one of the five Best Travel Blogs for 2010.)
- Google Groups (Thanks WSBR and TravSocial–you know who you are!)
- Facebook Facebook traffic has increased since I’ve added that widget showing who is subscribed. You can subscribe by hitting the subscribe button under all those nice pictures over there→
- www.fisheracademy.blogspot.com (This is a home schooling site that mentioned my guest blog by Mara Gorman on the children’s book about Monet’s Garden. For the second month now, it is generating traffic.)
- Blog directories Blogger.com and Travelblogsites (no longer relevantg)help traffic, as does Lonely Planet, where I’m a Blog Sherpa and Wandering Educators, where I write a monthly column.
Would you like to make this list next month? Just mention A Traveler’s Library and link back to my site and see what magic happens.
The pictures are from Flickr, compliments of the Creative Commons license. Click on each image to meet the photographer.
PDF Tags: Blog traffic, Google, Link back, Stumble Upon
Twitter: chezsven
says:
That is cool to know where your visitors come from. Very impressed that you are so clever about blog traffic. Wish I were!
Alexandra would like you to read..Ocean-lovers, Unite!
Twitter: Melanie Haiken
says:
This is a great idea, to summarize recent activity and keep readers up to date in case they’ve missed posts. Makes it feel very family-like!
Twitter: pen4hire
says:
Melanie: I had not thought about the “family” feel of opening up my behind-the-scenes stats, but I appreciate your pointing that out. Yes, I like to point out popular posts that somebody might have missed. I know that I rarely get to read every single post of the blogs that I love. And since I write four a week, that’s a lot to keepup with.
I just love the way you are keeping your finger on the pulse of your blog!! You have such great ideas and resources- and I have much to learn.
Have been a bit busy and wasn’t able to drop in here the past few days- but just yesterday …guess what arrived…THE BOOK!! It came just as a luncheon was ending- so there were scads of women there to see the book come & of course EVERYONE wanted to know what it was about- and I told them of your blog- so who knows, maybe more blog traffic will be coming your way
Can I just say…I LOVE THE BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!! (is that enough exclamation marks)- thanks a million.
anjuli would like you to read..Blogathon comments
Twitter: pen4hire
says:
Thanks Anjuli. I’m hoping everyone will come back with reviews of the books I gave away. I’m always interested to see if other people’s tastes are the same as mine.
Twitter: urbanmusewriter
says:
It’s so interesting to see where blog traffic comes from! I’m always amused when I look at the keywords people use to find my blog. And that book graphic is fabulous!
Susan would like you to read..Open Thread: What’s On Your Reading List?
Twitter: pen4hire
says:
Susan: Glad you liked the picture. It really got me. If you click on it you’ll see the purpose was something far more serious than a stack of books!