I am in over my head. I try not to focus on stats and traffic too much or for the wrong reasons. But, it bothers me when it seems like something could be wrong that is affecting my blog’s ability to communicate effectively. I have wondered for more than a month if something is not right. My subscription rate on feedburner is very low, and when it goes up it usually drops back down again quickly within 24 hours. My info on technorati is often messed up too. I just checked my blog on technorati and my authority had gone down, the latest posts category was not in chronological order, and often the most recent incoming links come and go (i.e. sometimes they are there, sometimes they are not). I have a feeling something is not right with my feed, but I have no idea what it would be or how I would fix it if it were…
Please help! For those of you who are much more tech-savvy than I am, if you have any advice, suggestions, anything… I would appreciate it. Or, if in looking at my blog, you determine that everything is working exactly as it should and I am just not getting very much traffic, at least then I can shake this feeling that something is wrong.
Thanks for your help.
Kevin M. Watson 
Kevin – I am not sure if I have any ideas that may be helpful. Are there other ways that you might spread the word about deeply committed to people that you know? Does the congregation know that you blog? Could you put it in the newsletter, bulletin, business card? How about an addition to your email signature? I think that there may be potential in promoting it to people that you know in person as well as online. What about the pastors group of which you are a part – do they know about it? Sometimes i have plugged blogging as a way to get to know my thoughts, kind of an inside track to the pastors mind. I don’t know if this is helpful or not, but just a few random suggestions.
Kevin – You might also try utilizing categories that may bring in traffic. I have some hits from wordpress.com from a particular tag that I have used – board of ordained ministry for example. Categories may be a way to describe your posts and also perhaps drive a little more traffic.
Also, you might find that adding to the conversation on some very popular blogs may drive some traffic as well. I will click through on a link in a conversation to someone that has added to the conversation. Commenting like crazy might be another possibility.
Andrew – Thanks for the thoughts. I am trying not to be overly concerned with driving in traffic by doing things that aren’t authentic to me, but I also have been putting in a bit of time into the blog and maybe have been getting paranoid that something isn’t working as it should be traffic has sometimes been going down when it seems like it should be going up.
I like some of the ideas you suggest about just letting people know it is out there, again thanks.
Kevin – I hear you. Hope that you are having a great day, that the weather has warmed up and that Christmas preparations are going well.