Part of my job at work involves putting together metrics, and while I loathe the data gathering process, I love the finished product. The same applies here. 2016 was my 3rd year of blogging, and every year I’ve thrown together some basic infographics. To me it’s more “for fun” than anything else, since I don’t really use the numbers for anything, but it’s interesting to see what was popular and how the years compare to each other. I thought 2015 was going to be a really hard year to top, but somehow 2016 managed to rally in the last few months and surge ahead.
Top 10 Posts of 2016
- Thoughts on Jersey Fresh (5,767 – this one got picked up by EN so no surprise)
- Blowing the Whistle (3,391)
- So You Think You Want to Breed Your Mare? (3,067)
- Fair Hill Part 3: The Thing We’re All Talking About (2,964)
- Black Friday Sales (1,653)
- Passing Judgment (1,042)
- Keeping Secrets (1,015)
- Review: Lorenzini Stirrups (988)
- The Great Half Pad Debate (969)
- Return Policies: Where to Draw the Line? (931)
So basically, everyone likes controversy and sales. Interestingly, the lowest viewed posts tend to be show recaps and lesson/schooling recaps. Am I really bad at writing about them or is it just that uninteresting?
Top Commenter
Karen is so much better at commenting than I am.
Many thanks to everyone for following along with Henry and me this year, and for all of your support. Here’s to 2017!
Is there anything you’d like to see more of here? Less of? Specific topics you think I should cover? Feel free to leave me some feedback below, or use the form on my contact page (in the menu bar above) to email me directly!
breedrideevent.com 
Personally, I love the recaps more than the controversy. I think they are a lot of fun to read!
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Don’t ever stop doing the show recaps! Those are my favorite. 🙂
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I always love show recaps, too! But apparently they are not my strong suit.
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I love the show and lessons recaps too. My guess is just that the “controversial” ones just get more shares. I love that you do both so well 😀
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That was my immediate hypothesis too, but across the board most of them were even lower than super boring “fluff” type posts.
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Maybe people are so intimidated by your and Henny’s awesomeness that reading your show/lesson recaps so they just skip them 😉
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*reading your show/lesson recaps depresses them because they cannot match the awesomeness. I lost my train of thought midway through and my comment is kind of nonsensical lol
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Ha! Probably not. I’m guessing either I ramble too much, or I don’t write about them well enough, or people aren’y interested unless there are lots of nice quality pictures (which I never have)?
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I agree with the above. Love hearing about your progress and show recaps. Also love how brave you are with the controversial posts though too!
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Ha! Maybe I should slow my comment roll in 2017.
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No way man. Look at that awesome trophy.
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I do like winning things, even virtual things …
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I love show recaps. All of them. All the time.
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I found your blog from Ogilvy sharing your pad review on Facebook. I stayed for all the Henny posts and updates. And also maybe sorta because I like buying things and you are the best enabler I’ve found??? (hello new roeckl gloves, lorenzini stirrups, ADE and Animo breeches i’ve bought within the time i’ve been reading your blog. oops.) I also really enjoy your delivery. You write in a really interesting way that makes me wish your posts were longer and more frequent because I always find myself wanting to read more.
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Thanks Kay!
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I love the show recap!!!!!
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I love posts about Bobby!
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You and no one else
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I love stats and metrics but traffic this year has changed in a way that makes me strongly suspect non-human traffic. As in…. Bots and whatnot. So I no longer trust any of my numbers. Makes me really strangely sad….
Anyway tho. Show recaps 4 lyfe!
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Really? Mine didn’t change that much from last year. More views, but I had a lot more posts that sorta “went viral” on Facebook, so that makes sense. I actually noticed less suspicious hits (like from Namibia and Russia and the like) than last year.
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Meant to add – FWIW, when I had Google analytics set up on mine, the numbers were actually higher on Google analytics than they were on my WordPress stats. I stopped doing it because my wordpress one seemed more accurate. Granted, I don’t know how blogspot does their statistics, but your numbers might be more legit than you think.
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I love your recaps. I think the high numbers for sales and controversy are returning viewers rather than unique. I’m excited to read about your adventures in 2017!
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I think they’re more “passers by”. I get a lot of visitors for that kind of stuff that is just a random person on facebook instead of the core followers that read more regularly. Hence spikes. The random people don’t care much about my shows and lessons. 😉 But really, the show and lesson recaps are some of the least popular posts I have, even below just the random not-that-interesting stuff. I will try to amp them up a little bit more this year and see if that helps.
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I love ALL of your posts, from lesson recaps to posts like this one about yearly metrics! I just discovered you recently, and I’m so glad I did!!!
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I’ve read your blog for about a year now. I searched the inter-web for fun horsey blogs as I live in WI and board at a tiny barn so I don’t get as much horse related interaction as I’d like. Yours is the only blog that I continually read. I think that is mostly because you post so frequently; it’s easy to follow along and there is always a lot of variety. I personally enjoy the show and lesson recaps because it makes the blog relatable. I also have an OTTB that stumbled into my life while I was in grad school who I’ve mostly retrained myself for the hunters so it’s great to read of other’s struggles and triumphs. Another part of your blog I’ve enjoyed is your posts on breeding and pedigrees. I sadly don’t know much about either but you’ve sparked my curiosity and I’ve been looking into my horses lines.
I say keep doing what your doing!
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I love your recaps. I also love how you actually recap right away, something I fail at pretty much every time. I also have a love/hate relationship with your reviews because I love all the stuff I’ve found but I hate how poor it makes me. I must say, you’re the biggest enabler around (concrete evidence is Megan’s beautiful new purple coat!)
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Everybody’s gotta be good at something, right? 😉
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Show recaps and lesson stuff are quite personal, which is great for other bloggers/friends. The sales and controversy are more generic so they draw a bigger audience. 😉 Depends what you’re in it for. I like the personal stuff, but you’re also my go to for sales. Don’t stop!
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Yeah, I just don’t get why the recaps end up even lower than the “fluff” stuff. That’s the head scratcher, since everyone says they like the recaps!
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Do not stop the recaps! I love them!
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I also love the recaps! I’m one of the rare people who doesn’t even read the controversy posts but it may be because Dressage is my sport instead of Eventing so I just have a little less interest in following some of the political stuff going on there.
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