Journey Jottings travel blog
celebrates 2 years
An opportunity to take a walk down memory lane and revisit some of the travel blogging topics we’ve talked about.
We’ve covered fun travelling tales, including yours via the monthly themed Facebook Travelling Tales, as well as sharing some of mine in Tales of a Traveller.
I’ve also illustrated ways to use your Australia Map Journal including the creation of an annual Year at a Glance summary sheet.
I’ve asked What travel means to you? And Do you have a Medical Case of Wanderlust?
All scattered with Australia travel photographs of Australian flora, fauna and landscape.
Anniversaries mark the end of one cycle, and herald the start of another.
Cycles re-volve while we e-volve ~ Even trying to stay static things change so while its inevitable we’re in a different spot today to where we stood this time last year, its encouraging that the path we’ve wandered has reflected positively with a burgeoning readership.
Statistics
My gut instinct tells me all I need to know, but for those who can’t see or feel that, here are some diagrams to illustrate the direction this blog is heading. (With facts and figures out of the way I’ll then review the great content we’ve covered 🙂 )
The Subscribers diagram above shows the last two years of subscriptions to the blog ~ The left half illustrates a fairly flat first year, after which there’s been a steady rise over the course of this second year –
The visitors have doubled 🙂
Last year there was a 30% bounce rate but this year only 25% have taken a quick peak and run, which is good to hear as 75% of visitors to the site are new.
Our Alexa ranking has improved –
This time last year (2010) our site was ranked at
- Alexa 2, 101, 752 in the world and
- Alexa 125, 054 in Australia.
Now, our Alexa ranking (May 2011) is:
- Alexa 234, 353 in the world and
- Alexa 3, 063 in Australia
Which, reflects the increase in RSS and email subscribers, as well as new visitors – (Is coming down from two million to two hundred thousand a 90% improvement?)
In the first year, I put up 150 posts, including a series of extracts from an 1878 journal by a man sailing aboard a clipper from England to Australia to start a fresh life ~ I wanted to illustrate how jotting a few things down on our journeys transcends time and reading his daily entries are entertaining even 130 years later ~ maybe more so?
This year we made 80 posts, focusing on the following travel topics:
Facebook Tales
Highlighting *your* holiday adventures is fun ~
Fun for both the teller of the tale and the listener.
I love short, non-fluffy reminders of travelling adventures so in July 2010 we started featuring your tales –
Around the middle of each month we put up a theme, so there’s a couple of weeks to add your tale to our Facebook Page Wall before I collate them, with images, and put up a monthly post here on our blog ~ Facebook allow only 420 char in a comment so the maximum length is pre-determined to a quick and easy to post short and sweet length.
Jot a few memories and share your tale!
Your contributions have been fantastic –
These are the tales we’ve themed so far (click on the link to read more!):
- Favourite Travelling Tales in two parts
- Crazy, Stupid and Scary Travelling Tales (in two parts)
- Fathers Travelling Tales (inspired by Father’s Day)
- Music Travelling Tales (heard on the road, or music you’d never leave home without)
- Christmas Travelling Tales – where in the world have you spent Christmas?
- Food, Glorious Food ~ Food tales from the road
- Romantic Travelling Tales ~ Wherefore art thou? (inspired by Valentine’s Day)
- Works of Art in Public Spaces from around the world
- Celebrations, Festivals and Carnivals (inspired by Easter)
And next week we’re putting up your tales about:
- Mystery or Surprise Travelling Tales ~ Do you have a tale to tell of being whisked away to a surprise location, or venturing off the trail to some un-researched mystery destination? Add it to our Facebook Page for inclusion NOW
Tales of a Traveller
Travelling tales about on the road scenarios
I shared a few of my own travelling tales ~ Posting:
Its amazing how many travelling folk bump into people they know from a previous time in their lives when away in far flung crevices of the globe! Numerous travellers left comments recounting their experience of this phenomena.
Bust Ups, not surprisingly, wasn’t such a popular topic to remind people about 😉
Year at a Glance series
Win:Win ~ Journey Jottings News & ‘How to’ Use our Map Journals combined
This series evolved to satisfy a combination of two needs ~
- I’m the worst when it comes to acknowledging what I’ve achieved or accomplished ~ I set myself a task, complete it and before drawing breath I’m onto the next thing with no recognition or pat on the back for what’s been completed so…
- Using a Map Journal, I vowed at the end of each month I’d record ONE highlight from the previous four weeks.
This means that I’ll have Journey Jottings 2011 year at a glance simply summarized on a single sheet, which is fun for me, whilst illustrating a fun application of a Map Journal for something other than travel 🙂
How To Use your Map Journal
A series of posts to show you how to get the most out of your Map Journals
Categorized in the ‘Journalling Ideas’ section, these posts even included some videos.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAvtHx1V0A4[/youtube]
I also produced one monster post of
101 Ways to Use your Map Journal
in November, which being a signature post like
My 3 Best Kept Travel Secrets,
I added to the Menu Bar along the top of the blog here to make it easier to find 🙂
I’m planning on writing more posts about ‘How To’ as there are so many fun ways to quickly and simply express your trips with assorted pen colours, types and textures, creating different lines, symbols and diagrams that don’t require artistic skill – and are far less bothersome than writing up a travel tome each night 😉
Travel Topics
Here I covered general discussion points about travel ~ Like…
- Do you have a Medical Case of Wanderlust?
- What does Travel Mean to You?
- If Digital Became a Dinosaur, Do you Have a Back-Up Plan?
- Twitter ~ Are You all of a Flutter? Or, Still sitting on your Perch?
Photo Postcards
Australian landscape, flora and fauna
Our lives are so full of the written word many of my posts relating to Australia’s bush, rainforest and beaches are photo centric.
As thoughts start to wander towards the weekend, I instigated a Photo Friday post highlighting a photograph of some beautiful Australian scene ~
Looking forward…
So where to in the future?
How have you enjoyed the last 80 posts? What were your favourites?
Are we on the right track? What did we glaringly miss?
What would you like to see? Have you a burning issue you’d like me to cover?
Would you like to be kept informed as new posts are published?
Click here to subscribe by email or RSS feed
And I look forward to seeing you here for our 3rd year 😀
Good morning Linda.
Congratulations on the consistent growth and reach in blog world. Your journey is a great encouragement to so many.
Raised glass *chin chin*
Catherine
Thanks Catherine ~
Although I’m not sure whether I should be raising my glass quite so early in the day LOL ‘hic’ 😉
Blimey, that was a long one! And what better way to celebrate your blogging birthday than with a super-sized blog post! Love the way you chart your progress here and how you’ve invloved your community in the blog too:)
Keep at it;)
Annabel Candy, Get In the Hot Spot recently posted..My 10-000 Writing- Travelling and Dreaming Bonus
It’s surprising when you look back and see the journey your blog has taken you on!
I have to say it was fun reviewing where I’ve been and as you say seeing the great collaboration from our fabulous Journey Jottings community too.
Where to next year?
In your words… Dream on 😉
Linda Happy Anniversary! You’ve made great progress and no wonder. Your blog is so interesting and I love how you involve your community.
I look forward to watching your continuing success in Year 3.
Cheers
Suellen x
Thank you, Suellen, for your encouraging words ~
Blogging is an interesting journey –
I’ve certainly explored avenues and gone down previously unconsidered paths due to the process ~
And then there’s the pleasure readers such as yourself offer via your travellers tales contributions, which take me on magic carpet rides across the world each month ~
Thanks for being part of our community 🙂
Congratulations just doesn’t seem to say enough for what you’ve achieved, shared, drawn, drawn together…. Wow, Linda!
The themes are such a brilliant way to build your blog, your connections and your map!
I don’t have a favourite as I get something from all of them, be it, seeing my pudgy face under a fluffy beanie with the Champs-Elysées in the background; reading about weird and whacky food options across the globe; admiring the creativity of our global community in the form of sculptures… to name a few.
LOVE… and I mean *L-O-V-E* the quick video tip on how to mark your “hollers” on the map.
Sally Foley-Lewis recently posted..Delegation in Small Business
Owww Sally! Thanks for the compliment re: the vid!!
I’m planning a ‘How to’ series, and a short vid to accompany each section may be a good addition?
Have loved all the tales you’ve contributed to our monthly themes ~
Paris was indeed memorable (possibly for the wrong reasons!!)
Lovely having you part of our community 🙂
I surprised you have only 200k+ Alexa ranking with all your traffic. It just looks like majority people visiting your site don’t have alexa toolbar installed 🙂
I’m not really sure how Alexa is calculated!
Are you saying that its only visits from browsers with an Alexa toolbar installed that boosts your rating?
That sounds a bit slanted only counting nerdy blog lovers!? 😉
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