Halloween 2019 Post-Mortem

Well, another Halloween has come and gone.  From the outset on October 1st, Halloween seemed so far away and publishing a post a day seemed such a formidable task, but both happened nonetheless.

I always take a little time after the hectic posting schedule to review how my blog did throughout the month, and it's that time again.

I don't pay much attention to statistics, but they do provide a little insight.  The way I measure this blog's success is if I see new commenters, of which there were a few.  Joining the usual crowd this month was Guillaume from the UK, Matthew Schmeer from Kansas, Pik-Cor from Canada, Mason from parts unknown, and CraveCute from Minnesota. Thanks for stopping by all!

I had the most site hits since May of 2017, even beating last October by a nearly 2,000-hit margin.

The most popular post of the month was "You're So Vain, You Probably Think this Blog is About You".  It was boosted by another reader who shared it on their site.

The top-referring site continues to be Google showing my best chance of being discovered is still by accident. The 3rd from lowest referring site comes from my Facebook group page for the site, which makes me less than optimistic about continuing the effort there.  If you found me through Facebook, drop me a line and let me know.

The top-referring keyword for the month was "www.scholastic news spooky skeleton".  One thing that makes these statistics seem dubious to me is the low number of total Search Keywords that show up.  If my top number of common keyword referrals is 6, how did 690 people wind up finding me through Google?  I guess they could all be finding me by unique keyword strings which I guess gives testament to the variety of topics I cover on this blog.

And finally, let's take a look at how wide a reach my blog had this past month. As is probably expected, I scored highest in the United States.  I'm a little suspicious of the number of hits from Russia, I just assume those are fishing hits.  If someone from Russia is reading this, let me know.  Coming in 3rd is our neighbors to the north, Canada.

I ended up leaving 4 or 5 posts on the back burner for next year due to having more than enough content and some subjects that needed more research and time to fully develop as a post.  So stay tuned for next year.

October is my most blogged month and it tends to burn me out a little, so I always take a hiatus in November, though I'll try to get a few posts in.  I'm always optimistic for my December posts since I pick up a lot of vintage Christmas items as well, but December is always a hectic month as it is, so we'll see.  The first part of the year and the winter doldrums tend to send me into hibernation, but when late May comes along with garage sales, I will start to pick up again.  So check back occasionally and see what I'm up to.  And leave me a comment or two, I always read them and always try to respond in some way.

Have a great year and here's to next Halloween!