Farewell 2012

THANK YOU DEAR READERS!

For starters, let me send a warm THANK YOU to anyone who has visited this site, or Liked, Commented, Shared, +1’d or Retweeted any of my photos this year.  I am really grateful for the support, and hope to continue to share my photographs for a long time to come!  I have a lot more fun stuff planned for 2013, so please keep coming back and checking in when you have time.  There’s a lot more that I have in store for ya!

BLOG STATS for 2012 - HIGH LEVEL SUMMARY

At the end of a year, I like to look back and see how things have gone for me with this blog, statistically speaking.  Well actually, it’s more than just the blog, as I incorporate some stats from other places too.  I find data points interesting.  Honestly, they don’t really mean a whole lot, but it is fun to make comparisons and see how things are progressing.  

In short, 2012 was a great year for my blog and my photography in general.  I increased my readership here substantially while also having a heck of a good time.  That’s a win, in my book.  Though I take my photography seriously, my primary goal is to just enjoy creating and sharing my photos and to create content that others find useful, or beautiful, or both.

A couple of things that stood out for me in 2012:

• I published my first eBook, which you can get for free right here!
• I began contributing articles about HDR photography to the new HDR One site!
• I started a Newsletter!
• I hosted a photowalk in London - what a great experience!

So, onto the stats.  Here’s a high level summary:

Blog views: up 130% over 2011

Blog visitors: up 106% over 2011

Blog visitors were 80% new  - that’s a wonderful stat in my opinion

* 59% of total lifetime pageviews happened in 2012 - cool!

 * 60% of traffic came from the US, followed (distantly) by the UK, Canada, Australia, Italy, India, Germany, Brazil, Indonesia and France. 

Flickr views: up >50% (not bad, considering I do zero engagement there)

500px views: up from 11,500 to nearly 80,000 (again, not bad for zero engagement)

Followers on Google+: up from 8400 to over 14,000

Facebook fans: up from ~200 to over 1400

Traffic referral sources:

• Google search ranks highest, but I think that is a given for everyone
• LightStalking was #2 for referral traffic, thanks to my friends at Toad Hollow!
• Facebook came in #3
• Google+ came in at #4

Well, that’s a high-level summary and in my opinion it was a great year by the numbers.  More importantly, it was a great year photographically as I detailed in a previous post.  I’m really focused on creating great photographs - even with my iPhone at times - and will continue to push myself to create in 2013. 

If you promise to keep coming back, I promise to keep creating and sharing my photos.  Sound like a good deal?  Great.  It’s a deal then.  :-)

See you next year!  Thanks, as always, for stopping by.