Popularity

My Top Ten Posts

~ beetleypete ~ 64 Comments

For the last few years, there has been little change in the most-read posts on this blog.

No matter how much fiction I write, or how much I love to post about films and cinema, none of that gets close.

As Julie is watching ‘Dancing On Ice’, and I would sooner sit out in the rain than watch that, I just checked my stats again.

Here are those top posts, with number ten first.

10) My Blog: Privacy And Cookies Notice. It has had 677 views.
This was published on the 31st of May, 2018.
It was a very short post, complaining about issues with WordPress, and the notice in question.

09) Beetley Village. It has had 840 views.
It was published on the 16th of August, 2012.
This is a detailed post about what you might expect to see if you ever visit Beetley.

08) Birds Don’t Like Cornflakes. It has had 857 views.
This was published on the 31st of August, 2013.
It was about feeding birds in the garden, and how they had refused to eat the cornflakes I had scattered on the lawn.

07) Ollie: A dog’s like and dislikes. It has had 864 views.
This was published on the 12th of September, 2016.
It was about things that my dog likes, and other things he doesn’t.
It is the only post featuring Ollie in this top ten.

06) Beachlands: Pevensey Bay. It has had 924 views.
This was published on the 24th of March, 2016.
It is a photo post, featuring photos of Modernist and Art Deco bungalows on a 1930s housing estate in Sussex.

05) The driest county in England. It has had 1,623 views.
This was published on the 29th of August, 2012.
It is about how I was told that Norfolk was the driest county in this country, and it hadn’t stopped raining since I moved here.

04) Dereham: A Norfolk Town. It has had 1,820 views.
This was published on the 17th of April, 2014.
It is about the nearest town to Beetley, the market town of Dereham.

03) Whatever happened to? : Jimmy Somerville. It has had 2,071 views.
This was published on the 10th of August, 2016.
It is about the singer and front man of Bronski Beat, and The Communards.
It features pop video clips, and asks why we never hear of him now.

02) About. It has had 2,925 views.
This was published in 2012, and is regularly updated.
It is about me and my life, and features a photo of me with Ollie.
The popularity of this post shows the importance of having a good ‘About’ page.

The number one post will come as no surprise to regular followers.
It has been at number one since shortly after publication, and is read at least once every day.

……Drum Roll……

01) Whatever Happened to?: Jamiroquai. It has had 4,298 views.
This was published on the 4th of September, 2016.
Since then, it has been the subject of many more posts remarking on its popularity.
It is about the British Acid-Jazz band of that name, and asks why they had disappeared.
It features pop video clips, and discusses why they dropped out of the music scene.
After I published this, they released a new album in 2017. It wasn’t very good.

So, there you have it. Do you know what your own top posts are? If you fancy it, why not do do something similar?
Then link it to this post, and we can all find out what are readers out there are enjoying the most.

My two most popular photos

~ beetleypete ~ 76 Comments

I have posted a lot of photos on this blog.

Those of Ollie are very popular of course. Then there is the one on my ‘About’ page. That gets a lot of comments.

Holiday snaps, old buildings, and photos sourced from the Internet to illustrate posts or stories.

Photo prompts, used as inspiration for fiction, with the photo in the post.
Unusual or historical buildings, even ancient ruins. I like to take photos, and I often like to feature images on this blog too.

However, recent research (clicks on media) has shown me which two are the most popular photos on this blog.

The most viewed. Every day, seven days a week, since I published this post in August.

Bad Taste? : Wedding Photos

After seven years plus of blogging, this is what it comes down to, image-wise.
1)

2)

Naturally, I am at complete loss as to why these two photos are the most popular. 🙂

Photos and Dogs

~ beetleypete ~ 38 Comments

It has not been that long since I started to add photos to this blog. You may recall my protracted debates about which camera to get, and the toe-curling decision-making process. Since adding photos, I have been generally happy with the results, and only occasionally disappointed. File size has been discussed, as I am already using 18% of my free blog allowance, in a very short time. I will however be happy to ‘go Premium’, if this ever becomes an issue.

There have been some photos that have pleasantly surprised me with their quality, and in some cases, composition. I may well have chosen the exact camera that suits my needs, after all. On the downside, a few shots have been less than inspiring, and lacking in technical execution.

Not long ago, I fiercely resisted the need to ‘go photo’ with this blog. I stubbornly held to the belief that words alone could tell the story, and good prose would suffice. Some followers confirmed this back then, asserting that my descriptive powers were worth more than images to convey moods, or the sense of a place and time. Others were less concerned with the lengthy descriptions, and craved photographic evidence of the many and varied exploits described.

With some mixed feelings, I purchased the camera, and set about recording my local excursions on memory card. The results, in terms of blog appreciation, were staggering. Every post that contained photos, however poor they might have seemed to me, attracted 100% more views than posts which were not illustrated in this fashion. A similar trend had been noted by me previously, when any post featuring writing about my dog, Ollie, always guaranteed an increase in views by more than 50%.

As I like to think of myself as a writer first, and a photographer of average ability, I am not at all sure if I should be pleased by the sharp climb in viewing figures, or depressed that blog readers prefer to see photos, and to read about dogs. On reflection, I hope that I have got an acceptable balance by this time. There were a lot of people reading my fiction piece last week, and twice as many looking at photos of Norfolk over the last few days. Ollie’s photos, and my writing about his antics, always return a good response. Then again, he is unusual to look at, quite endearing, and his escapades are sometimes amusing.

Am I happy with the outcome of all this? I am not sure. My writing is important to me, more so than postcard-style photos from a digital camera. My vanity makes me want people to think more of my personal journey, than whether or not my dog rolls in mud, or chases a rabbit. Yet it is all part of the same whole, so must be joyful, after all. Expect more of the same, I think.

The wrong door

~ beetleypete ~ 23 Comments

I was recently notified that I had a new follower on WordPress. As is my habit, I checked out the site. He seems to be a pleasant young man, and is studying in his last year at university. His site seemed to mainly consist of photos of attractive women, some well-known apparently, (though not to me) in various states of undress. From the comments, I deduced that many of the photos were possibly ‘Internet fakes’, shots of popular women, with the naked attributes of someone else manipulated onto the original. In amongst all this, I found other posts scattered, on very different subjects.

I replied to one of his posts, thanking him for following my blog, and indicating surprise that he had done so, as his style of blogging, and featured content, was so remarkably different to my own. I wished him well, and left it at that. However, he replied soon after, informing me that the reason he featured so many naked ladies, was to attract traffic to his blog, so that the more serious content might find an audience. He added that he had achieved over 250,000 views in less than two years, and was currently experiencing a daily view rate of 500+, so would soon reach the magic figure of 1,000,000. He asked me how many views I had received on my own blog, after more than three years. I replied again. If he had that many daily views, surely he could make a good income from advertising, if he left the WordPress platform, and converted it to his own site? I also told him how many views I have accumulated, less than 40,000.

He soon commented on this, telling me that he did not have enough money to start his own website, but as soon as he graduated, he would do just that, and start to earn a very good income from the increasing number of visitors admiring the naked ladies on his blog. I will refrain from naming him, or posting a link to his blog, but I do wish him well with his future. It would appear that he has a good future to look forward to.

This got me thinking about the world of blogging once again.

We all blog for different reasons of course. These have been discussed previously, here and elsewhere, so do not need further elaboration. But I was struck by the success, in terms of visitors, of the young man I mention. Almost a third of a million people, all wanting to see photographs of naked, and near-naked women. This on a web already overwhelmed by images of nudity, and sexual content. I am not a prude, and do not judge anyone who wishes to look at legal images. Censorship is a slippery slope, and is a scalpel to be wielded with some precision. But I could not help feeling apart from this. In a community of bloggers trying their best to be heard, expressing their innermost thoughts and desires, or artistic aspirations, the success of an intelligent young man is measured on how many people want to look at naked women. We can choose not to look of course.

I was reminded of an incident from some years back. I entered a restaurant toilet, and had a feeling something wasn’t quite right. It looked familiar, but somehow different. It slowly dawned on me that I had gone into the Ladies by mistake, and I hurriedly left. It was an easy mistake to make.

I had opened the wrong door.