Dear Christian Blogger: Don’t be Validated by Your Stats

Dear Christian Blogger,

Checking your Google analytics or social media accounts daily to monitor your stats is a waste of time, as you may have discovered. Judging your impact or the quality of your writing by something that continuously changes, may not bring the results you desire and serves as a discouragement. It is time to quit fretting over your stats!

In the blogging community, an emphasis is placed on your blog stats for securing ads or monetizing your blog – with successful bloggers posting screenshots of their monthly page views/traffic. Meanwhile, you can barely show your stats to your friends.

When I started blogging in 2013, I was giddy with excitement each time I published a blog post. I hastened to check Google Analytics after I published a new blog post. Exhausting right? You bet! We have all been there at some point.

While your blog stats are very important for you to have a great content strategy or for generating income via ads, do not get sucked into the black hole. It is important to focus on activities that can improve your blog rather than on the outcome (blog stats). Stressing out about your blog stats can result in a writer’s block, affect the quality of your posts, and result in competition with other bloggers, therefore, making blogging an unhappy activity.

Let us focus on what you should know:

You can generate income or achieve your blog goals without ‘high stats’

Your page views do not have to be high for you to monetize your blog (if that is your reason for blogging).  Your focus should be on converting your traffic.

Although I have generated income from blogging, it is not a major source of income. However, it has created a different source of income for me.

Running a blog has given me a platform and credibility as such, I make money from my services. Over the years, my stats have grown,  and at each stage of blog growth, I have been able to work with brands who were okay with my blog stats.

There is no stated number of page views required in some instances for you to collaborate with brands. You can make the best of your blogging experience to improve your writing, get business savvy, network, the list is endless. Do not let your blog stats limit you.

You can make an impact without ‘high stats’

Do not be tricked into believing that making an impact is connected to high stats because it is not. A blog can have high numbers and yet not have an impact on the life of its readers. High stats is not a real measure of success or impact. Sujan Patel on Forbes says:

At the end of the day, website traffic is primarily a vanity metric, it seems that the biggest benefit of measuring traffic metrics comes from establishing bragging rights amongst your peers.

New visitors are great and a source of motivation for bloggers, but your returning visitors indicate that you are doing something right and making an impact. I am a returning visitor on sites that impact me, positively if I may add.

Whether my blog stats take a nose dive, I am assured of the impact that I have made starting this blog. As I mentioned, this was the best decision I made. It has had an impact on my life as I hope it has with others. It gives me joy hearing people say they relate with a blog post or sent a link to a friend or family.

I understand that my blog may not get to everyone (I would like it to). However, I am sure that other bloggers are getting to people that I cannot reach. Rather than compare, I appreciate their efforts.

Your ‘blog stats’ take time to increase

Your site stat is not a magic bullet and sometimes it takes a long time to start reflecting the time and effort, in some cases, the money you have invested in it.

Reviewing your stats daily may imply that you believe it may sporadically increase in a day. You may become frustrated when it doesn’t.

While working on increasing your blog stats, remember that it is not a pointer of how loved you are or whether you are a great writer.

In conclusion

Is your blog stats important? Yes! However, it is not the best indicator of a successful blog. Rather than focus on your stats and become apprehensive, focus on why you started blogging, generating content (content is key), converting your current traffic, and most of all, blog because you love to blog!

The Dear Christian Blogger series was created to discuss cogent topics peculiar to Christian bloggers and to share my thoughts on things I wish I knew when I started blogging in 2013. In the previous post, I started by talking about starting a blog. I hope this series sparks up a discussion and helps you in your journey.