Blogging about Blogging, Part 1

I have a confession to make. I look at the stats for my blog pretty much every day. Back when I started it last November, I used to just go to my blog and stare at the "0 comments" at the bottom of each post, knowing no one was reading it. However, my husband soon introduced me to Google Analytics, where I could, free of charge, actually see how many visits were made to my blog and where they were coming from. So it's become my ritual when I'm home, to check my stats while I'm eating breakfast. I have learned a couple of interesting things by doing this:

• Just because no one is leaving comments, doesn't mean no one is visiting.
• Some days are much better than others, but in general, I get around the same number of visits each day, which is usually somewhere in the teens.
• Several people I have never met have links to my blog from theirs. They're all bike people in some way or another; most are local (at least in Michigan); and most seem like nice, interesting people. Still, it makes me curious about how they even found my blog and why they think it is worth adding to their blogroll. It also makes me wonder if I should add more people to my blogroll since I currently have a pathetic number.
• Sometimes people reach my blog from some other site or blog and I have no idea why. There doesn't seem to be any link on their blog to mine, nor have I commented on it or associated myself with it in any way. I guess I'll just be grateful and have it remain a mystery.

Late last month I had quite a spike in the number of visits one particular day, and it made me ponder what drew people to my blog on that day. A couple of days later, I also had some days that were two and four visits (many of which were probably me checking to see if I had comments), so I must have got a lot less interesting quickly. As you may have figured out already, the thought of no one reading my blog does bother me. After all, writing is what I do and I'm used to caring about whether people are reading what I'm writing, whether it's on my blog or something work-related. I have read all the advice on how to make my blog popular and have actually done some of it. I have also done some shameless self-promotion, such as sending links to my blog out to people I know via e-mail and suggesting they check it out.

I'm analyzing this way too much, but I've also been thinking about my favorite blogs, all of which are more popular than mine (some of them vastly so) and why I like to read them. I am hoping this will give me some indication of whether or not my blog will ever become popular. So, I have decided to compile all the information I can think of my favorite blogs and why I think they are popular, then compare them to my blog. However, this post is already significantly longer than I intended and I have to start my workday, so this will have to be continued in tomorrow's post (which will also make thinking of something to write about tomorrow much easier).