New York Personal Injury Law Blog » Blogging

 

November 16th, 2007

The End of My Rookie Year: Thoughts, Metrics and Changes

Tomorrow is this blog’s first anniversary. So I wanted to share some visitor metrics, upcoming changes, and general thoughts:

1. Metrics:
This tiny corner of cyberspace attracted significantly more visitors than I had imagined a year ago. Weekday readership the last six months has been about 700 unique visitors per day. Roughly 20,000 per month. Here is the data for the year, starting from scratch, as of yesterday:

  • Unique visitors: 158,860
  • Most unique visitors in one day: 2,485
  • Unique Visitors this month: Nov 1 – 15: 11,862 (790/day)
  • Visitors: 291,612
  • Page views: 524,139
  • Number of Posts: 367 (too many)
  • Number of blogs that linked to me: Over 200 (waaaaay more than I imagined)
  • Largest blog sources of referrals: Above the Law, Overlawyered, Kevin, M.D
  • Number of legal threats against me: 2 (one published, one not)

2. Changes:
OK, the blog was a success. So let’s change it…

  • The Personal Injury Round-Up that I have been doing is now kaput. It was fun while it lasted, but very time consuming to do on a regular basis.
  • I hope to spend more time on individual stories and, hopefully, occasionally write stories that are not yet in the press.
  • I hope to bring in guest bloggers. Interested parties can contact me.

Will the blog improve or will I get hit with the sophomore jinx? Beats me.

3. Blogging Tips:
Since the blog is a success (at least to me), my next entry will be my tips on blogging, for whatever it may be worth to others (perhaps not much).

4. Thoughts on Blogging:
This has been a real hoot, but it has also taken a great deal of time. The one oddity that stood out was that I was placed on the blogroll of Overlaywered while at the same time being a guest contributor to its arch nemesis, Tort Deform. I’m not 100% certain what it means, but I think that has to be good, especially for a beginner.

I’ve listed some of the most popular posts are here, but my personal favorite was the marathon Blawg Review #134 that I put up earlier this week, essentially the culmination of my rookie year. It was long, not just because marathons are long but, because I had so much fun conceptualizing, researching and writing it. I started making notes in a separate file six months ago on ideas and situations, much the way I make notes on trial themes and tactics from the day a case comes in.

The streets and crowds of New York provided unlimited opportunities to raise different subjects and allowed me to weave a fabric using both fact and fiction that included bloggers, the race and the city. The post got goofier and goofier as the race wore on because that is one thing that happens with exhaustion. A tip of the hat to the people that made it to the finish line.

And a big thank you to all who have visited and commented over the past year. Except, of course, to the two lawyers that threatened me.

Links to this post:

blawg review marathon
blawg review #134 is being run this week by eric turkewitz at the new york personal injury law blog. you won’t want to miss this one — it’s a marathon, not a sprint. eric turkewitz tells me that the inspiration for his new york
posted by Editor @ November 12, 2007 1:56 AM

6 thoughts on “The End of My Rookie Year: Thoughts, Metrics and Changes

  1. Only 367 posts? It seemed like more. Congratulations on year 1. When I grow up as a blawger, I want to be just like you (meaning I want to be on Overlawyered’s blog roll even if Ted hates me).

  2. Congratulations on your blogiversary!

    I will miss the personal injury roundup. I’ve really enjoyed it, but I know it must be a lot of work and sometimes bloggers decide to direct their energy elsewhere.

  3. I wish in retrospect I’d pointed readers at your roundups more often, as they are and were outstanding. But it’s sadly familiar that the blogging devices that can bring the most value to the reader can also be outrageously, often unsustainability, time-consuming for the blogger. There are any number of features and formats I’ve experimented with at Overlawyered, and then wound up dropping, for basically this reason.

  4. Perhaps you could try outsourcing the round-ups, asking other PI lawyers to do them, sort of a like a mini-niche Blawg Review. I’ve thought about doing something similar for solo practice blogs but of course, even the organization is time consuming; it’s not something I’ve yet done.

    Carolyn Elefant

  5. Carolyn:

    If I could get 4-5 people we could have a rotation, making the round-ups more manageable. I’ve made a few inquiries by email and if I get a positive reponse will make more, and make a separate posting on the subject. In the meantime, Brooks Schuelke has already said he will pick up the next one:

    http://www.civtrial.com/blog/

    If anyone is interested, let me know at:
    blog [at] Turkewitzlaw.com