Three Years and Readers Like You

Today is the third anniversary of this blog.  Three years, 403 posts about my garden and gardening adventures and three hundred thousand pageviews from Readers Like You.

Thanks!

It's been a busy year trying to get a lot more done in the garden than in past years.  The focus recently has been pulling together the various parts to look like an integrated whole and I'll post some of those projects soon.  The last few days I've been preparing for visits from gardening friends including the Home and Garden editor of our local newspaper--no pressure or anything.

Today I'll be volunteering at Heather/Xericstyle's yard for the Watersaver Landscape Tour with a view toward having my garden on the same tour next year.  Again, no pressure.

Three years and 300K pageviews is an interesting statistical coincidence.  I'll save my annual look back until the end of the calendar year and share a few stats for the first time on my blog.  There are many ways to measure how a blog is doing and one way is with pageviews.  Much information on how to improve pageviews has been published and I've ignored most of it in favor of writing about what interests me.  That's what you seem to enjoy anyway.  I've listed a few of my most popular posts along with ideas on how they got that way.

My most popular post is a how-to on propagating barrel cactus pups from 2012.  The post was linked on a Gardening Know How Q&A thread which boosted it to 5,000 pageviews.  That's a lot of cactus pups!   I feel like a grand-pup-mother or something.  The original cactus is pregnant with twins again.  Anyway, it's nice to know my blog is providing useful information out there.

In a close second place is the shed how-to post.  When we decided to build our own shed we found very little DIY info out there so apparently we filled a niche with more than 4,800 pageviews.  Glad I could (ahem) shed some light on the subject.

My post on Jennifer and Fred Meyers' garden in Austin was linked on Paradis Express in January.  Quite cool since I enjoyed Paradis Express well before I began blogging.  She even gave my blog a positive mention in the text.  My first ever exercise in posting a garden on tour went pretty well with just about 3,000 pageview.

One of the fastest ways to see a jump in pageviews is for Pam Penick to link it at Digging or on her Facebook page.

It's Pam's birthday today so Happy Birthday Pam!  Thanks for the link love and blogging inspiration over the last three years.

So it seems the best way to improve readership is to post what readers want to read, link, or share.  Who knew?

The most important part is that I've had fun challenging myself to get out in the garden and around town more to bring my observations to you.  So thanks to for reading and commenting these last three years and I hope to see you around as I begin my fourth year of blogging.