Has my Statcounter really just reached 1000?

It's a monumental occasion when something hits a big number!

And today my Statcounter finally reached 1000.

But sadly the news was sobered by an article I read this morning by snoskred.org

The Article is called Do NOT rely on your sitemeter and it gives some very good reasons as to why stats are not always a good thing to obsess over. Mainly that the free services do not necessarily offer an accurate service.

Basically this article made me think about some basic things that are more important than stats and if your having trouble refocusing or constantly looking at your stats I suggest you read it for inspiration.

Has The Random Forest lost it's fire?

Well I hope it hasn't lost it's fire yet, I guess I see it really as just warming up.

So why do I ask this question?

Yesterday I had 8 Feedburner readers. Almost reaching 10 made me greatly excited. The sky felt like an easy height to achieve, I was thinking that next week it will be 20, then 50, then 100 and then one day 1,00,000.

However today I saw that sadly my readers had dropped back down to 5. Oh dear! I felt mildly devastated and confused "what did I do wrong? Was it because I did not post yesterday? Was it because my tongue in cheek dig at the letter Z offended what is probably mostly a US audience? Did Feedburner have a glitch?"

Well I have no answer, I am having extreme trouble working out what I need to provide to get people reading but see this as an exciting journey and want to formulate a list of things to as I constantly read that people like lists. So here goes...

To Do by the end of the week.
1. Submit 2 articles to Blog Carnivals
2. Visit and if liked comment on at least 10 new blogs, subscribing if liked
3. Comment on all my liked blogs at least once
4. Read up and find out about good affiliate programs and which ones I should add to my blog
5. Find out how to change my template without affecting any added coding
6. Find a new template
7. Add one article to Helium and Associated Content (Same article is ok if allowed)
8. Learn to understand the Statcounter stats
9. Post at least 3 more times
10. Make sure I have enough items for my next list of 10

I guess that small set back has caused some concern to me and made me create a list of To Do's but the last week or so has been extremely positive. My traffic has slowly increased as you can see from the image below it's slowly getting better and today my on blog counter just reached 300 unique visits!



Hardly 100,000 a week yet but I'm excited.

Reading other people blogs had become a real inspiration. My attempt at starting a Meme hasn't really worked yet as there as so many around being started and pushed by the big guys (you know who you are) but I am making contacts and I have really started to find some voices I like.

I can't thank everyone enough for commenting on my blog. It really is a great feeling to know that somebody is actually reading and not just visiting for a brief second in fact I best be off very shortly to go on a reading lastest post rampage!

Before I head off I want to thank a few inspirational blogs and blogs I like. I now feel that an online work and some social life is achievable and I really want to work hard to achieve this for myself.

Bush Mackel - Bush started a great series for new bloggers and I have found his blog to be extremely helpful and informative as well as occassionally random and to boot he seems like a very friendly nice guy.

Bob Meets World - Bob again is very helpful and between this blog and his other one John Cow I have learnt the beginnings of the skills I need, also he is a great friendly helpful guy... do you see a pattern here?

Ugly Mail Boxes - This site basically gives me a pretty much daily laugh

Julie Anne Bonner - I'm not sure if she reads this blog but she was one of the first blogs that I came across when I first started my research and she sent me a very helpful email when I first started blogging with my original blog back in April. I always read her new posts and am always entertained.

Snoskred's Life In the Country Has been great and I may use the same template when I get round to changing. Snoskred came by my site and was very helpful when she added me to something came Stumble Upon and it caused that Tuesday hump in my traffic.

Twisted Sisters - This site can be very negative in tone but it's mostly just ranting and good humoured and I like it. Insanity Suits Me has been visiting and commenting on my site which is very encouraging!

I also want to mention Samir because I like his blog design and if you check out his latest post about conversing with urban Indians it is very funny. Christyz has always been a good place to stop by and same goes for Joanne's I'm Happy Fish and Aaron Cook. Sorry if I missed anyone who has been regularly stopping by.

Adios, gonna go find some fuel to help this blog burn brighter......