Good morning!
(Yes, I know; it won't be morning for everyone who reads this, when they read it, but I am typing this at 9.00 in the morning, just before I'll start work, and therefore, good morning it is!)
Quite a long time ago, I posted about the blogs I follow, and a bit about the stats regarding my own blog. Strangely enough, that particular post has proved to be, to this day, the most popular one on my blog, even though it only received four comments back then.
A lot has happened since then; I have started following many more blogs and the number of those who follow my blog has increased to 60 (although I must admit one of them is myself, and some others never show up and have probably long left the blogosphere since having clicked the "Follow" button on my blog), something I am well chuffed about!
I have published 240 posts (this one being No. 241), and there have been a bit over 20.000 page views.
What I still find really interesting, and I do that about once a week, is to check on my stats under "traffic sources" what search words people have used that eventually lead them to my blog.
Presently, the search words are:
old armchair
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porto empédocle
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my bikini friends
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old armchairs
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talk to the hand lynne truss
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armchair reading
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old arm chair
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palermo
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polishing shoes
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small castle
Interesting, isn't it? I am especially intrigued by "my bikini friends" - to my knowledge, there isn't any post about "bikini friends" here, unless I am suffering a severe bout of blog-amnesia. That so many people have stumbled on here while looking for old armchairs is funny - and I did indeed post about my grandma's armchair from the 1950s which was given to me by my parents in the spring of last year. It still is my preferred reading and eating place for my lunch break, when I am not going out.
And now for the questions, which I hope some of you will take the time to answer:
1. Would you like me to change the font size on my blog? Would you prefer my typing to be larger? Or smaller?
2. Someone recently asked whether my blog was turning into a cookery column. The question surprised me, because I actually have not that many recipes on here; a lot less than some of the blogs I follow. But it made me think, and so I am asking you:
Should I sort my blog into categories, such as "recipes", "book/film reviews", "travel reports", "general musings", "shallow fashion posts" etc.?
After all, my blog is called "From My Mental Library", and every library should have some kind of systematic to it, some order to allow the reader to find quickly what they are looking for.
3. If your answer to #2 was "yes", please tell me how to do that. I've seen it on some of the blogs I follow, but I have not discovered yet how it works, although I have looked at all the options under "layout".
And now, it is your turn!
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Hi Librarian,
ReplyDeleteI had the same thing with your blog but Perpetua told me how to fix it.
You need to go into my blog and under "join this site" you'll find, "already a memeber? sign in" so you need to sign in.
Once signed in you need to pull down the "options" menu and select "site settings"
and click on "stop following this blog".
Then...you need to "rejoin this site", when the new pop up box appears, click "follow this blog" and the important bit is...click "done".
It worked for me...hope it does for you because it early drove me crackers!
SP
Thanks, SP, I'll give this a shot next time you (or anyone else from my long reading list) disappears :-)
ReplyDeleteHi Librarian, like you, I'm always puzzled by my stats and for what reason some bloggers find their way to my blog. It would be nice, if like yesterday, when the 26 veiwers dropped by they had just say hello and thanks for the cuppa, it would have been nice to know who there were.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy your blog as it is, but other may tell you otherwise. Happy Blogging, :-)
I enjoy your blog as it is too, and don't mind you straying into cookery or whatever takes your fancy. My only very little niggle is that the blue 2012 diary at the top of your page is a little large, and I always have to scroll down quite a bit before I get to the blog. But otherwise, stay as you are.
ReplyDeleteThank you, Jarmara! Yes, not everybody leaves a comment all the time, which is OK - I sometimes read other blogs and simply do not have anything to say about the topic, or (very rarely) what I would like to say could offend the author, and so in those cases, I rather say nothing.
ReplyDeleteMaggie, thank you! I know what you mean about having to scroll down because of the large header picture; it happens to me on some other blogs, too. For the moment, I have removed my header picture; 2012 is already 4 weeks "old" anyway :-)
Hello:
ReplyDeleteAs we are so myopic, we should love the font size to be bigger. However, other than that, we love you just as you are. We love the joyful, endlessly varied jumble of topics, never knowing what we are going to find. That seems to us to fit perfectly with your title as it is certainly how our minds work!!!
It is most intriguing that someone seeking 'my bikini friends' should stumble across you. Perhaps this demands a post of its own in order not to disappoint!!
"Old eyes" would really like a larger font, and maybe even black print.
ReplyDeleteI really like your blog and read it every morning with my last cup of coffee after completion of the NY Times crossword puzzle...I'm a creature of habit.
Yes, the size is fine but please can we have it in comic sans as it is a most maligned font and I feel sorry for it.
ReplyDeleteNo, only joking.
Do you get many hits from that blinkin domar.ru domain? I get loads, and from other spambots. Its most vexing.
I like pictures of food. As long as it not Bavarian as even pictures of semmelknoedel make me put on weight.
Jane and Lance, now, there's an idea for another fashion post - "me and my bikinis" (I have three, so it wouldn't be a very long post) :-D
ReplyDeleteThank you for liking my blog for precisely the reason I like writing it!
Thank you, Jill, I am glad to be part of your morning routine - maybe one day it will be the other way round, with your blog being the perfect company for my morning coffee?
I'll keep your suggestion reg. font size and colour in mind.
Perl, I think I'll stick with Trebuchet, I have grown quite fond of it. And since I mostly show pictures of food when it is something I have prepared myself, you are not likely to come across anything Bavarion on here anytime soon, since I am Swabian ;-)
And yes, I do get a lot of hits from domar.ru, but I am happy to report that there haven't been any all of last week! Instead, 50 hits alone were through google.com, while the rest of last weeks page views were from google-with-various-endings and some of my fellow bloggers.
ReplyDeleteI haven't been following you for long, but I have to say your blog does not disappoint. I really enjoy the variety. In answer to your questions; I would enjoy bigger font, categories are good, especially when searching for other posts on a particular topic. x
ReplyDeleteI could not read or write any comments to your blog for quite some time. To answer your questions: what I like about your blog is, that it seems that you just write about what comes into your mind, therefore I like that you do not use any categories. The font size you use could be a bit bigger, but it is readable as it is.
ReplyDelete12
Diane, thank you! I have been thinking about sorting my blog into categories for some time now; Nan's blog is so neat, and usually, I am a rather neat person, too, so I think my blog should reflect that. But I have not managed to work out how to do that yet.
ReplyDeleteYes, 12, the comments feature was very buggy here on blogger as of late, I could not even read my own comments when I was looking at my posts with IE, it only worked in FireFox. Glad it works for you again :-)
11
Hey!
ReplyDeleteI didn't get to comment yesterday but it looks as if you have changed it up a bit, so I hope you are pleased with it. "Fashion For The Shallow Minded", that's funny!
I am still stumbling along with my blog so I don't think I can give any advice. I just figured out how to put a header photo on mine!
Whatever makes you happy, I will read you no matter what!
Oh, it looks better already. No need to scroll right down any more. Thanks for that Librarian and keep up the good blog.
ReplyDeleteThanks, Kay - and you know the same is true the other way round :-)
ReplyDeleteMaggie, I will use a header picture every now and then, but I'll try to downsize it so that you won't get tired from all that scrolling.
I like your blog just how it is. I know what you mean about Nan's blog looking so neat. I don't think you can categorize anymore than you have. The pages at the top are about it. Your blog is very user friendly and always interesting to read. I will try to comment more so you know I am here! The font could be bigger but I have found that it is hard to get a good size, the next size available is too big. Trebuchet is a nice clean font and one of my favs too.
ReplyDeletePeggy, by the time you arrived here, I had already done those changes - it didn't look like that this morning :-) Yes, I managed to work out that it is through the "label"-feature that I can sort my blog, and sort it I did!
ReplyDeleteYou are right about the size, the next size really is rather big and would make my posts seemingly endless...
I like it too, Meike. The content is more important than format in your case, its a very personal, fun and 'specific to place' blog, which is why I like it so much.
ReplyDeleteI am proud to say I was one of your first followers! I think that when I have trouble leaving comments, its because of blogger, not you.
Font size/ well mabye a tiny bit bigger, but this is not that difficult to read.
Yet!
xx
julie
julie
Indeed you were one of my first regulars, Julie, and I am always pleased to "see" you here! Thank you :-)
ReplyDelete1) The type right now seems to be a great size (btw, thanks for comment on my blog about the type being small when I changed templates. it was really helpful feedback. I have now kept my font size to large - hope it is easier to see).
ReplyDelete2)Sure, if you want.
3)They only way I know how is a bit time consuming unless you have tagged each post under a name (like recipe, book, etc). If you have 'labeled' your posts then all you need to do is go to the design template. Add Gadget & there should be an option for posts.
Congrats on all your hard work!
e
Thank you, Elizabeth! Yes, I have noticed the change in font size on your blog, and it really is a lot more easy for my eyes :-)
ReplyDeleteAs for # 2 and 3: it's done - I worked it out on my own (just never thought this could be what the "labels" feature is all about) and spent a good part of Saturday morning labelling ALL my 241 posts.
I have absolutely no idea how I missed this post because I've been following even though I was away for a few days. So I have returned to change.
ReplyDeleteFrankly so long as you keep blogging the interesting things you post then I'm a happy bunny. I love the unpredictability of what I may read when I open up your latest post. I don't hanker after organisation in blogs.
I never look at my statistics. I must do that. Thanks for the reminder.
For those who want larger fonts (provided the base font is not toooo tiny) then the easiest thing is for the reader to enlarge the font on their own computer which can be done for any individual blog or page simply by pressing cmd + (on a Mac) or, I think, ctrl + on Windows. Using the - instead of the + reduces the font size.
Labels are very useful.
GB, oh, it happens - sometimes I scroll back on my reading list and suddenly notice a post that, for some reason or other, I did not see the day before; whether I really didn't see it or it was mysteriously hidden by blogger, I don't know.
ReplyDeleteAs you can see, I have by now made some changes, and I hope the font size is OK for most readers now. Thank you for saying I post interesting things :-)