MBS by the Numbers

Regular readers probably know that I’m a data gal. I totally geek out over statistics, analytics, and visualizations. If those are boring for you, that’s perfectly fine. I invite you browse the archive or explore some of the spanko links at the right.

I have almost fifteen years of data from and about this blog. It provides some insights that I hope will be beneficial for other bloggers. My purpose is not to relive past glories, but rather to examine which strategies worked to make the blog successful (or not).

The graph above displays monthly page counts. It’s pretty easy to break this time span into three parts.

The first two years, beginning in September 2005, was a time of nearly continuous growth. I posted almost every day. Most of the well known MBS features, such as the weekly brunch, In with the New, Keyword Chaos, Bonnie’s Mailbag, Love Our Lurkers, Top 10 lists, and song parodies originated during this time. I posted 71 of 109 spanking stories and 14 of 17 fictional tales in those first two years. I started with a cache of 30-40 older stories that I posted whenever I needed some content. By the end of those two years, I had exhausted the cache.

For the next six years, posts appeared less frequently, typically 2-3 times per week. I relied increasingly upon formulaic posts and less upon new, original content. I tried to compensate by building a robust blogroll, maintaining the brunches, and promoting the archive. This approach worked fairly well for a while, but by the end of 2013, I felt that I had run out of content.

I declared the blog closed and posted only twice during 2014. I dabbled in a second blog before deciding to return here. The third and probably final phase, which I call my semi-retired mode, features just a few posts per month. I view the blog now as more a hobby than a job. It’s my enduring connection to the community. MBS survives today, not as a hub, but as a resource.

I have included in this post three bar graphs that trace the history of the blog by month. The pages graph, in green, shows reader activity. We see rapid growth during the first couple of years followed by a plateau. In 2012 and 2013, I attempted to sustain reader interest despite comparatively weak content. This effort was surprisingly successful in terms of page count, but unsatisfying for me.

Page requests dropped by half when I stopped posting in 2014. I expected they might drop to close to zero, but the readers returned for the blogroll and the archive. From this fact, I conclude that approximately half of the traffic during the plateau period was not related to new content.

The semi-retired era features a sag in mid-2016 when I had to shutter the blog for a couple of months after I thought I outed myself. Sorry about that folks. I am pleased by modest but steady growth over the past two years. We’ll see where that goes.

The blue graph shows posts. This is the only element over which I had control. It’s a direct measure of the effort I invested. It would be easy to conclude that what you get out of a blog (page requests) is a direct result of what you invest (posts). But that was not true for me after the first two years. There is another factor at work here.

The red graph presents the number of reader comments per month. I consider this measure more important than either of the other two because it tracks reader engagement. Only dedicated readers will repeatedly leave comments. Although I wasn’t looking at this statistic in late 2013, I had the sense that my reader engagement was dwindling as the quality of my content faded.

So what can we learn from these experiences about blogging?

1. Pacing is Essential - If I have a regret, it is that I burned though most of my best content and best ideas in early months of the blog. I posted some of my best stories back to back, sometimes even multiple times in a day. Readers very seldom return more than once per day and rarely read more than the current post. There’s little benefit in posting more than about twice per week. Blogging is a marathon, except that you don’t need to try to win.


2. Quality Matters - There are posts and then there are posts. The best posts are those that attract reader engagement and involvement. They encourage readers to return and rejoin the conversation.


3. Filler Posts Have Their Place Too - Every post cannot be your best work, at least not if you want to post regularly for an extended stretch. Even with my cache of old stories, I eventually ran out of content. There must be more. To my surprise, some features that started as filler became reader favorites. Keyword Chaos is one such example.


4. Think Engagement - I judge a blog not by the number of page hits or visitors or posts, but by the lives it touches. The mission of MBS is to support people who choose to learn about, participate in, and share consensual adult spanking. I want to do whatever I can to promote healthy, safe, and fulfilling activities and relationships. This effort works best when we have active involvement and a continuing conversation within the context of a supportive community.


5. Remember Your Mission - With a few notable exceptions, most successful blogs stick to a single topic. If a blog combines the topic of spanking with, say, dog grooming, it will tend to attract two audiences with relatively few common members. This is not to say you cannot go off topic on occasion, but recognize that those posts seldom expand your audience.


6. Posts are Just the Beginning - We generally think of blogs as a serial diary consisting of posts. But we can include much more in the sidebars. The MBS blogroll is one example. I can see that some readers come here for that alone. I’m all right with that. If I can help spankos make a connection or learn more or grow our community, then so much the better.


7. Know Your Numbers - As we have seen, blog statistics provide another perspective on your blogging activities. In the example I discussed above, despite good page requests counts in 2013, I felt dissatisfied with the blog. The comment counts tell the rest of the story. The level of reader engagement had slipped.


8. Find Your Place - I’ve made peace with my role in the community. I am content with being a part time commentator. My investment is less and my return is less as well, but I’m still here and contributing where and when I think I can. As important as it is for a blogger to establish a mission and a brand, it’s acceptable to change them. In fact, even if you don’t choose to change your role, it’s healthy to consider it occasionally.

Despite the naysayers, I don’t think blogging is dead at all. It continues to evolve. Long form traditional blogs like this one have been somewhat eclipsed by Twitter, but that’s progress. The short burst, real time format has given voice to more spankos than ever. I celebrate these voices and welcome them to our big, diverse, wonderful community.