It’s true what they say. If you post more often, you’ll get more people reading your blog. Not really rocket science, is it? Since I started on National Blog Posting Month I’ve had upwards of 800 page views, which is comfortably more than I was getting: October was a quiet month, with noticeably fewer views per day than in the year as a whole. I’d like to think that is because this is my eleventh post of the month, having only posted eight times before in 2014, and that there is a direct correlation between the two factors.
It struck me that a large number of those who were reading my ramblings would probably be doing so for the first time, and may be wondering why I do this. It’s a fair question, so I thought I’d have a go at answering it. Hopefully by the time I finish I’ll understand it myself!
I’ve documented my reasons for starting this blog in several places. Briefly, I had a long spell off work with depression in 2011-12, and as part of the counselling I received I was asked to write several pieces about my experience. My counsellor suggested that I turn these into a blog partly because to do so would be cathartic for me – which it was – but also because many others suffer depression, and it can be very helpful to share experiences and to understand that you aren’t alone, that others know what you are going through. A slightly longer version of that can be found on my About Me page, and the full story is under the My Story menu, if you want to read more.
I had a huge response to this, much more than I anticipated, almost all of which was positive – again, the negative bit is covered in About Me. ‘I now understood what I had been told, that there were indeed large numbers of people affected by this horrible illness – and that most of them seemed to have been attracted to blogging and Twitter, as had I! It certainly helped me as I recovered and I like to think I’ve helped one or two others along the way. If you’re interested there are plenty of other pieces in this blog about aspects of the illness, so do have fun playing with the menus!
The question then was ‘where do I go from here?’ I could have left it at that, believing ‘my work here is done,’ but I had got the bug! I found that I enjoyed blogworld, the interactions it generated and the myriad of new reading that I found. So I carried on, posting a series of Dates To Note which I continue sporadically to this day, together with occasional thoughts prompted by life or the WordPress daily prompts. And since I retired last year I have also started blogging about that, albeit it not much yet.
So why do I do it? As I just said, being a part of the vast universe of bloggers is something I enjoy, both for the sense of community and the variety of blogs that I’ve found. If I’m totally honest with myself, there is something very satisfying about writing something, posting it and seeing how many people have read my humble offerings. And it’s even better when the readers are prompted to ‘like’ or comment on a post! But I’d like to think that self-gratification isn’t the only reason for blogging! We all have things we want to say, and blogging gives us a vehicle to do that. If people keep reading what you write it gives you a sense that they want to know what you say, that you are in some way informing or entertaining them – or both, if you’re lucky. Hopefully that means that you, the reader, also get some benefit from this exchange, or why would you bother to read it?
So, until no one reads anything I write I’ll keep going – but maybe not every day after #NaBloPoMo has ended! I shall probably carry on with more of the same, and hope you’ll enjoy what I do. Please, tell me, whether you do or don’t! And if you don’t already blog, why not try it and see how rewarding it can be? Come on in, the water’s lovely!
Take It Easy 