Why I blog

Mike Hostetler — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 13:47:29 +0000

I came across a post from Seth Godin about loading your blog up with a bunch of traffic. After blogging for over a year now, I've struggled with trying to write posts that chase traffic versus writing about things I truly care about. The problem is that I measure the success of my blog with traffic, and I'm addicted to watching my traffic.

I track my blog statistics in several places; Google Analytics, Performancing Statistics, BBClone, AWStats, and Drupal statistics. This obsessive compulsive stats tracking really takes the pleasure out of blogging. When I have a bad stats day, or when I realize that 90% of my traffic comes from the trackback spam problem I had, I personally have a bad day. I'm letting my blog statistics rule my life!

So, in a strained moment of personal development, I hereby am going to give up my Performancing, Drupal and BBClone statistics. The other statistics I will resolve to look at only once daily (because that's how often they are updated, and GAnalytics is just cool). I'm also going to list the reasons why I blog. If you struggle with this as well, write the reasons why you blog on your blog and let me know. I'll link to as many 'Why I blog' posts as I can.

I blog because I want to improve my writing skills
I blog because I believe I have information that I can share that will help other people
I blog because I want a place where I decide everything
I blog because I want to provide a record of my life for myself
I blog because I want to build my online persona.

I'll add to this list as time goes on.

A Mountain Top - Why I blog - Comments

Why I blog