It’s taken me a little longer than I would have liked to get around to it, but I very much believe in looking back to review the past year and setting goals going forward. You do the same for your website and professional growth right? If not or even if you do hopefully you can get a few ideas from the notes below. Also leave a comment with any good suggestions for appraisal metrics that you use below.
2008 Recap by the Numbers
- 39,536 unique visitors
- 196 Blog Posts
- 1,200+ Comments
- 55,000+ Spam Comments caught by Akismet
- 600+ Subscribers
- 10,000+ Backlinks according to Yahoo! Site Explorer
- Visitors from 154 Countries/Territories
- Traffic from 829 sites – Top 5
- StumbleUpon
- Google – (Non Search)
- BlogHighEd
- <uwebd/> Social network
- 14,853 visits by Search Engines (over 93% from Google)
- 9,855 different keywords in those visits (talk about long tail)
- 370+ blog reactions on Technorati (I think that means that many blog posts linked to .eduGuru)
2008 Recap Results
When I first started this blog in January 2008 it was a one man shop. This site has come a long way so let’s look at some of those things.
- From a staff of one to six writers
- Inaugural member of BlogHighEd
- Presentations and coverages at major High Ed Web Conferences including eduWeb, HighEdWeb and Stamats
- Helped hundreds of readers network with each other
- Launched Guru Gear
I’m sure there are lots of smaller details, but all in all what a wonderful and extremely successful 2008 for this site! Oh how could I forget this blog had a big impact in helping me get my new job at HubSpot!
Goals for 2009
So what do we hope to accomplish in 2009? Well lots of wonderful things but here are some exciting things to look forward in the coming year.
- At least 200 posts in 2009
- Redesigned site with easier access to the archives of excellent posts
- Increased networking opportunity – we haven’t fully flushed out all the details, but in 2009 it is a goal to provide better ways to help our readers network with each other
- More Social – along with better networking we would like to make the site more socially active and new ways to engage readers
- More Presentations – We have a dream of every staff member presenting at a conference this year! So if you are planning to attend a Higher Education conference in 2009 hopefully you will get the opportunity to meet at least one of our excellent writers.
- 3,000 readers – Getting the ball rolling was the hard part. With six times the staff now we see no reason why we can’t grow our readership six fold.
- Impact your daily work – at the end of the day this is why we write. Knowing that something you read on this site influenced your decisions at work for the better are the highlight of any writers day. Let’s keep that magic working.
So that is it. Pretty simple right? It is hard to be more concrete looking forward because we as a staff have many decisions to make, but just writing some ideas down provides a measuring stick to look back through the year to make sure we are on the right path and attaining our goals.
Hopefully you are as excited about 2009 as we are… The possibilities are endless!
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This post was written by:
Kyle James - who has written 197 posts on .eduGuru.
Kyle is an Inbound Marketing Consultant at HubSpot and formerly the webmaster at Wofford College. Kyle is an active contributor in the social media spectrum. Although his background is technical, he claims to know a thing or two about marketing, but mostly that revolves around SEO, analytics, blogging, and social media. He has spoken at multiple conferences on topics ranging from e-mail marketing to social media and Web analytics. He's definitely a fairly nice guy.
Ways to Connect with Kyle
January 14th, 2009 at 8:42 am
Congratulations, Kyle (and all)! Impressive growth in 2008 and great goals for 2009.
January 25th, 2010 at 3:20 am
Very awesome information. I think im gonna stick around and read about 9 of your posts. Wishing you the best
January 14th, 2009 at 9:40 am
A great year and best wishes for a greater ‘09! Glad you joined the blog community in 2008 and have contributed so much.
January 14th, 2009 at 1:41 pm
Kyle – Congrats on a very successful 2008, and here’s to a fantastic 2009. Keep up the great work.
January 14th, 2009 at 6:40 pm
@Karine, Brad, & Andrew – I owe so much to you guys it’s not even funny. It has been a pleasure to get to know you and blog in this industry together over the last year. Let the good times roll as we all move into 2009!
January 14th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
@Kyle – Thanks for the post and recapping the success of the blog. Could you comment on two aspects of the data: 1.) what were some of the main causes of your spikes? 2.) what are your thoughts on the 82% bounce rate? Thanks!
January 14th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
@Brad Kleinman – it’s a blog… so you kind of have to expect a high bounce rate. People come consume the post and leave. Especially if they are dedicated readers because they already know your archive so what’s the point of them digging? As for the spikes those are posts that did well in social media. My post last week w/ the Top 10 Posts of 2008 can give you a better idea of what those posts were.
January 14th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
@Kyle – Thanks Kyle. Yea, your ‘Top 10 posts’ post was great. That’s great how much traffic you get from Stumbleupon.
January 15th, 2009 at 7:28 am
Dear Kyle, my congartulations! Your blog is sharing so great contet that it is a pure pleasure to promote it on free social Media. Keep the ball rolling, mate…
January 15th, 2009 at 7:56 am
Well you certainly have impacted my work. I routinely pass your blog onto fellow Web staffers at Western Michigan University. Great work and much appreciated!
January 15th, 2009 at 8:58 am
@Adam – you definitely have helped us get out there on both StumbleUpon and Digg. THANK YOU!
@Nancy – That’s great! Any chance you could convince any of them to add the feed to their RSS and become regular readers?