2014 on the Dyvers Blog in Perspective

2014 represented the first full calendar year to see the Dyvers Campaign blog active from end to end; and it saw the blog actually enter into its second year of activity (my blogging anniversary is July 21). I entered into the year looking to see the blog with a few goals in mind:

• Expand the blog's audience
• Experiment with the blog's focus
• Attempt to have a daily post average
• Attempt to post daily

On the whole I did pretty well. The blog continued to see growth both in its page views and comments which saw it achieve 290,000 page views by the end of the year and over 6,500 comments. I also managed to have a daily posting average of 1.4 posts per day though that number does come with the caveat that I actually missed 110 days (with 55 of those absences coming in October, November, and December). In spite of the missed days I feel like the blog is on the right track in looking at it on through my single year view (which doesn't take into account older posts from 2013 that are continuing to achieve new views and comments).

Here's a breakdown of all this year's relevant data.

    4,634 | Total Google Pluses

    3,621 | Total Comments

116,861 |Total Page Views on Post Appearing During this Calendar Year

       551 | Total Posts Published

      26 | Average Page Views per Plus

        7 | Average Pave Views per Comment

    229 | Average Page Views per Post

    321 | Average Page Views per Day 

Creatively I wrote more short stories than ever and was able to put out a couple Actual Play write-ups that I was proud of doing. Though I will tell you that I've slowed down posting these stories - not because I've hit a creative block, but because I'm trying to make sure that I've completed the stories before I start posting them. I've also learned a lot about how to use Paint.net and I'm starting to be able to do more significant actions that go beyond creating meme-ish bumpers for my posts and more towards creating my own meaningful images in a similar fashion towards collages. 

My goal for this upcoming year is to cut my missed days in half while continuing to work towards a daily posting average. I also want to see the audience for the blog continue to grow. I'm seeing trends that this is where I'm heading - especially since I've started seeing a major uptick in new readers on the blog (according to Google Analytics). Here's hoping things keep going in the right direction in this year!

A few projects I'm working on for the new year:

• An Adventure Module
• 2015 Great Blog Roll Call
• Americas Campaign Setting Completed with Free PDF for everybody
• 3 Short Stories (first one should be coming out May-ish)

Blog Notes Q3, 2014

Coming off the heels of the most successful Quarter to date for the blog I predicted that no quarter for the remainder of the year may match it. This one certainly did not. Unlike previous months there were more unexpected stoppages in posting than at any point since the blog began. 

There were two major events that occurred during this time period that affected my ability to post articles to the blog: my Uncle Don died in August; and I was without internet access for much of September (see Shush! The Two Year Old is Listening! for more). Combined these two events lead to a full month of days without an update (31 days). That the absence of so much daily content from the blog affected the total views for the month cannot be denied, but that was not the only reason for a lower page view than the previous quarter. The largest draw of this quarter, by far, was the Basic D&D series which was abandoned when it became clear that the updates would be coming too regularly for me to do an adequate job with the project. Additionally the lack of any completed series in this quarter decidedly hurt the draw of the blog as those projects are consistently the most followed and reread. Moving away from covering any news items with the blog saw a slight downturn in overall traffic but not enough to be considered a major reason for the decline in page views.

Disappointments

By far the biggest disappointment for me was the Underdark Wars game that I attempted to run. I foolishly thought that it would take up a few moments of my time here and there and was not fully prepared for the amount of attention it required. Still, I was having a ridiculous amount of fun with it but then my internet was gone and I just have lost all enthusiasm for it (as have almost all of the players).

I learned a lot from the experience and before I attempt something like it again I am going make sure that I have all of the major things sorted out before I launch. So that means that the map, rules, and community will all be established first. Accomplishing those three things would have drastically improved my time management and enjoyment in the game; and I think that it would have helped keep the game going. The other thing I'm going to do is appoint a secondary referee who will rule whenever I'm not available so that the game never drags or has any lulls in play.

Highlights

I had two articles published on EN World that have done very well in my estimation. The first, Ten Blogs Everyone Should Be Reading, has garnered 164,231 page views since it was first published on August 31, 2014. The second article, Ten Gaming Blogs That Will Make Your 5e Games Better, was published September 30, 2014 and has picked up 26,676 page views in about 24 hrs. I've seen a slight increase in traffic from both articles but due to the dearth of new content coming from the blog the influx was not sustained.

Adsense continues to plug along steadily increasing its revenue month over month, but the lack of new content definitely slowed its potential and decreased what revenue was generated.

Performance on Established Goals

Posting Schedule: I continue to have a daily posting average even though I have not actually posted on every single day. After witnessing the impact of missing so many days on the blog it is clear that for the continued growth of the blog I need to ensure that an article is posted every day.

Comment Response Time: Like the posting schedule this too was completely missed during this quarter. I don't like not responding to people who actually enjoyed a post I've written enough to comment on it. So this upcoming Quarter will see a return to the 24 hr response time window for the majority of comments (sometimes people don't need me to answer them so those won't have one).

Statistics of Note

Month	Google +1s	Comments	Page Views	Total Posts
July	488	251	7,725	30
August	541	340	7,552	47
September	327	125	3,891	20

Days Without a Post: 37
Total Page Views: 19,168

Q2 vs Q3 Performance

	Q2	Q3
Total Posts	163	97
Total Comments	1,575	716
Total +1s	2,087	1,356
Total Page Views	35,366	19,168

Difference Q2 v Q3

Total Posts: - 66
Total Comments: - 859
Total +1s: - 731
Total Page Views: -16,198

Adsense Revenue

Days Active | Revenue Generated
     107    | $23.60

While Adsense is not bringing in a ridiculous amount of money that I can put into a huge pile and swim in like Scrooge McDuck it continues to improve month to month (excluding September) which speaks both to the ad placement and the bits of tinkering I've done with them.

Closing

I cannot express how much I appreciate everyone who comes by the blog and enjoys it enough to leave a comment, share it with their friends and communities, click on an advertisement, or just drops a plus one. It means a lot to me that you guys and gals have enjoyed the blog and I really hope that I can continue to provide you all with the sort of things that keep you coming back time and time again.

Thank all for coming back to this blog and keeping me going!