The following is a meta-post of sorts...March 2007 is through. In March, traffic to louisgray.com reached more than double the previous monthly high in terms of both total unique visitors and page views, thanks to some popularly linked stories, repeat visitors and consistent posting frequency. (See March's traffic spike)
I've found that while I started the blog with a personal bent to cover everything from politics and technology to music and sports, it is the technology posts that are getting more than 90% of the attention, and recognizing that, I've made the adjustment, covering less about Bush and his rival Democrats, fewer daily updates on the Oakland A's or Sacramento Kings, and more focus on blogging trends, Google Reader, LinkedIn, YouTube, Apple, Technorati, and the blogosphere in general.
As a result, visitors are gaining a better understanding of what they will find at louisgray.com. In a graph from SiteMeter showing the 30-day moving average of visitors to the site, the average, hovering in the 30s by end of February and 40s by beginning of March, has more than tripled, by the end of the month, crossing 50 by March 4, 75 by March 12, 100 by March 22, 125 by March 26, and up to 140 or so, where it is today. Some days, like when we wrote about the Apple TV debate being upside down, or gave 10 suggestions for Google Reader, saw more than 500 visitors.
That raises the bar as far as what is expected of me, no doubt, if I am to sustain the momentum. I don't anticipate getting into the thousands of visitors a day, like a Scoble, GigaOM or TechCrunch, but I feel a lot better now that I'm no longer my number one audience. In fact, after a weekend that saw posts reach TechMeme no fewer than 3 times, I've had entrepreneurs e-mailing me their story ideas, in hopes I will cover their site or product on the blog. That's interesting. And just maybe I will. After all, having more than a month's worth of early beta access to Ballhype really helped me understand the value of the site. I was excited to learn late last night that Ballhype was ready to launch, and I told everyone I could today at the office that they should look into it.
Am I an A-lister? Far from it. I'm not filled with self-delusion. But I hope I continue to post items that you find interesting, and that this spike of traffic we saw in March doesn't turn out to have been a fluke. We'll be working to keep the momentum going - up and to the right.