Faith is putting all your eggs in God’s basket, then counting your blessings before they hatch. ~Ramona C. Carroll
This morning I am grateful for having 1,000 subscribers to my blog. I am asking, I am believing, and I am receiving that it happened, in fact as you can see I am already celebrating this fact!
It is not enough just to ask for these things, it is not enough just to believe it, but you have to truly receive it, and I have just not really done that yet. I can say all day long that I believe this site will grow in traffic, and subscribers, but my faith has been faltering. Every day I look at the Feedburner Chiklet that lets you know how many subscribers I have to the site. Every day I go through my google analytics account to see how many hits I had the day before.
No more. Starting today I will no longer check my stats, or display the Feedburner Chicklet, and then six months from May 1st, I will report on the growth of this site. Currently I have 14 subscribers, and my traffic as of March 28, was 17 visits. Below are a couple of screen shots of those stats:
Why am I doing this?
Well, I am not exactly acting in faith, and receiving, if everyday I am desperately looking at my stats just to find even a little bit of growth, in fact when you act in this manner, you are doing exactly the opposite of believing and receiving because of the dominant feeling you have when you do this is…fear.
Think about how every time you step on a scale while dieting, and remember the thoughts that go through your head as you do so. For me, in the past, it was always something like, “I’ve worked really hard, I had better not have gained any weight.” Or, “I screwed up and ate a bowl of ice cream last night, I probably gained some weight.” There isn’t a whole lot of faith, and believing going on in the few seconds I have before I step onto the scale. The dominant thought is usually on the exact opposite of what I want to happen. So I stopped weighing myself, and what happened? People are still noticing I have lost weight and telling me that, shirts that fit properly a few months ago are getting a little baggy, so yeah I am still losing weight. It reminds me of the old adage, a watched pot never boils.
So from this point on, until November 1st, I will not be displaying any stats, instead I will just turn this all over to God, the Universe, and let them worry about it. In the meantime I will continue to post, and put forth the ideas that I am inspired to either write about, or act upon, and I will have my 1,000 subscribers.
I am asking for it today, and I am believing it, and today I receive that it has already happened.
By Garry Conn on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
Hey Cary,
I can totally see where you are coming from. However, I would look at your stats from another perspective. To me, I use my stats to assess how I can improve and recognize hot areas of interest.
While you might not get that information from FeedBurner, you’ll get it from Analytics. Commonly I evaluate my statistics to recognize previously published content that has captured a high level of reader interest.
I then use that information to develop future content based on the previous content that received the most interest.
I know that looking at stats can be discouraging at times, believe me I would know.
The area where most bloggers need a little help is in marketing a promoting. The old saying of “It I build it people will come” doesn’t exactly hold true with blogs and web sites.
I recommend that you invest more time into marketing your blog. If you invest say 10 hours per week writing 10 posts per week, I would recommend only posting one post per week and use the other 9 hours towards marketing.
You can promote and market your content in many places.
1.) You can interact with other bloggers simply by reading their content and publishing a comment.
2.) You ask friends to help you with submitting your posts into social media sites such as, Digg.com, StumbleUpon.com, and propeller.com.
3.) You can join social networking sites such as Twitter.com and MyBlogLog.com.
4.) You can contribute photos and videos into sharing communities such as Flickr and YouTube.
The list and the possibilities are seriously endless. I would keep your chin up and just recognize that traffic is not going to just funnel in without placing the proper efforts towards getting your blog exposed to people.
I personally enjoy reading your blog and account for one of the 14 or so in your RSS. Good luck and I look forward to continuing reading your blog.
Best Regards,
Garry Conn
By Naomi Dunford on Mar 29, 2008 | Reply
I have no idea how I found myself here, but good for you. I wish you the very best and you can include me in the subscribers you’ll be counting in November. Rock on!
By Cary Darling on Mar 31, 2008 | Reply
Hey Garry,
thanks for the tips.
I am currently implementing some of your other ideas that I read a few weeks back on increasing your feedburner numbers, and I’ll see how that goes.
Thanks as always for stopping by.
Naomi,
welcome to my site. I appreciate any and every comment, and I have taken a look at your site and love it.
I will too be following your blog for future tips on making money out of the house.
Thx!