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Blog Stats: Beating The Addiction

As a Christian blogger, I started with three goals in mind:

  1. Process through thoughts and struggles about worship.
  2. Glorify God.
  3. Find and connect with others who could relate to what I had to say.

The processing that has occurred has been wonderful. It’s helped put pieces together in my mind. I believe God has been glorified in (most of) my writing. I’ve also connected with several readers.

Success! Or… it should be.

Unfortunately, I get caught up in the all-consuming world of blog stats. Recently, I received no comments on a post. ZERO. That is utter blog FAILURE. Immediately, my mind began to race with what I had done wrong. The subject I wrote about wasn’t that good. The title was poor and didn’t draw readers in.

These things aren’t bad, and I should consider them to become a better writer. However, I lost sight of the main reason I write and blog:

to glorify God and offer up my meager words to Him.

How can we stay focused on the important part of blogging and writing and not get swept away in stats?

Prayer

It’s sad how surprised I always am at how well this works. And how little I will actually do it. Ask God for help in letting go of your stat obsession. Ask for help in refocusing your writing goals. Repent of focusing on the wrong thing. Leave your blog with Him and let Him handle it.

Stop looking at blog stats

This one is real simple. If you know you’re going to obsess over it, just don’t do it. Or at least take a break from it.

Don’t compare your blog to others

I am so guilty of this. I look with envy at blogs that receive hundreds of comments a day and see that as the end goal to aspire to. Comparing will never help. Hundreds of comments may not be where God wants to take my blog. My end goal may be something completely different.

Be thankful for the readers you do have

Even if it’s only your mom and your best friend, thank God for them. I have a handful of faithful readers, and I’m thankful for the connection and conversation that happens with them. I have found encouragement through them and I pray that they do as well.

I’m afraid there will always be a battle with blog stats. It’s hard to break the addiction. I constantly remind myself of my initial blogging goals. Those goals have happened. I believe anything after that is extra blessings God is heaping on me. And I refuse to let blog stats rob me of those blessings.

Question: Do you struggle with an addiction to blog stats? How do you rise above it?

* Image credit: TheeErin (Creative Commons)

Comments

  1. says

    I loved blogging far more when I didn’t know that I could look up my stats. Ever since blogger did a redesign they made the stats the first thing you see when you log in – not good I say! Other than being encouraged and helpful to know when what I’m saying is spot-on and important.

  3. says

    Jamie,
    I don’t blog but I get caught up sometimes to see if someone likes my comment. On Jon Acuff’s blog SCL it is almost a contest to see how many “likes” you can get. Definitely not the reason for leaving comments. I enjoy your blog and would hope that I have similar goals with just the small comments that I leave on your blog and others. That it is done to add to the conversation not to add to my ego.

    • says

      Oh, that’s a good point. I am guilty of that as well. I sometimes check back to see how many likes I got on my “witty” comment. Or on Twitter, I’ll be disappointed when nobody replies to what was a clearly well thought out Tweet.

    • says

      Mark, funny you should mention SCL. That is one blog where I tend to get many visits to my own blog from because I left a comment there. When I do leave a comment on SCL, I’ll check my stats over the course of the day to see how many people arrived. Once I got close to 100 visits, purely because I left a comment. I’m such a goof!

  4. says

    I don’t even want to mention how often I check my stats each day. I have three blogs so it is triple the hassle! And I check out social sharers as well, to see how often those are being used.

    There is a fine line between diligence, in order to learn what works and doesn’t work in blogging. But…um…I think I passed that line about 1,000 miles back. LOL

  6. says

    I liked the comment about prayer surprising you when it works, Jamie. It’s a strange thing when we believe in God but not quite in the power of lobbying HIm… Sad but true.

    It’s always the disappointments we keep over the triumphs, isn’t it? I tend to remember who DIDN’T send me a Christmas card.

    One of my sons is a tennis pro. He was always taught to keep the knowledge of what went well when he won a point and to move on from those he lost.

  7. says

    I had one post go viral last may and it really messed with my stats page (OK, the truth is that it really messed with me :)). After that, any “normal” day looked like a sad little number. But, the Lord has also used that to keep my focus on other things, because that one post is not my normal numbers :).