I finished work early today, and when I did my customary stat check on the blog and I was met with a notification symbol, the likes of which I’d never seen before. It was in the shape of a cup, not a tea cup, but one of those ‘takes two people to lift it’ football sized trophy cups…
Anyway I immediately clicked on it to find out what sort of prize awaited me, some glorious honour from my fellow bloggers? No? What about a special delivery, a message or gift from some famous alcohol company? – Too good to be true! Instead I was met with this message:
“Happy Anniversary with WordPress.com!”
And then:
“You registered on WordPress.com 1 years ago!
Thanks for flying with us. Keep up the good blogging!”
Now to me nothing says happy anniversary like a nice bottle of Havana Club, or a sneaky ‘pushing the boat out’ bottle of Prucia Plum Liqueur. But whilst this message is a bit of a ‘well done old chap’ tap on the back, it does lead me onto a reflective train of thought…
It’s been a whole year since I signed up to my blog, granted I did take a couple months to publish the first blog, but I’ve still come a long way.
I started out with the small hope that I could grow my online presence and help get the UK more enthusiastic about cocktails (by celebrating ingredients, cocktails and bars wherever I find them!). Now having looked back at the stats, I’ve been blown away at just how many people have actually read a post on my blog. Let me share a few figures for you:
1) Total Views since I started (and counting): 6,430
2) Total months I’ve been posting not including this month (august): 10
3) Total months where the blog has grown in views 10
4) Top 3 Countries by views:
- United States of America: 2,508
- United Kingdom: 1,397
- Canada: 226
5) Total Countries reached: 108
6) Number of spots on a leopard: 176
Ok so that last one was a red-herring (ha-ha I’m full of animal puns today), but just look at the countries reached: 108… Now when I set out that was a number that hadn’t even crossed my mind. I was aiming to hit the U.K. solely and start my way on the U.S.A. at a later date. As it turns out, the North Americans (USA/Canada) are up there in my top 3. The only other places in the world I wanted to hit this early on were Australia and New Zealand (both of which are inside the top 20 (with 149, and 43 respectively).
Now I hope you can understand that to me these figures are mind boggling! I would never have dreamed that over 6,000 people would’ve read my blog, not to mention commented on it.
And this is where we move onto my followers…
I have 30 WordPress followers (as well as 200+ on twitter and Facebook) and, well to be totally honest, I don’t think I’d be where I am today without you all. Thank you all for reading/sharing/re-posting the contents of my blog. I’d like to think I could call a couple of you pals. Something I certainly never thought would happen!
At least I’d like to think some of you guys are at least on common speaking terms: here’s looking at you;
LordsOfTheDrink & ThingzThatFizz… among many others!
My last post: ‘The Fervent Shaker’s Top 10… Liqueurs’ was an apt blog on which to have this little number follow. University for me was as much about discovering cocktails and furthering my love for them as it was about getting my degree in Geography & Geology.
Hang on I hear you say, a student that drinks? Surely not! Well I can tell you that I did further my knowledge of cocktails, the best way anyone can: by consuming them in vast quantities over the course of a few years…
Well, finally let me end this emotional drivel and just say; I intend to commemorate this 1 year’s anniversary by continuing my blog as it is now. Fear not for you shall continue to see Recipes, alcohol specials, event specials and my general musings for many more years to come! (Hopefully).
Again thank you all, and if you ever need a recipe for any cocktail, you know where I am!
Dan
The Fervent Shaker.
The Fervent Shaker 