1337 likes, 100 posts, 200 followers: How I got here.

In December 2018, I reached the magical figures of 1337 likes, 200 follows and 100 blog posts. December was a really good month for my blog stats.

These milestones came less than a month after I had reached 50 posts, 100 follows and 500 likes. You can read about this here.

I had expected WordPress to send me a notification for 1000 likes but this did not happen. Instead, I received a congratulatory message on 1337 likes some days later.. The number 1337 (called an elite number) has a special significance. Blogger Fandango wrote a most informative post about this. You can read it by clicking here.

For the month of December, I wrote a couple of longer posts including 10 Useful Things To Do While Watching T.V.  Mostly, however, I wrote short form content like writing challenges and quizzes. Consequently, I reached the milestone of 100 posts long before the month was out.

 

The 200 followers were not so easy to acquire and I had to really make an effort for them. But I managed to reach this mark in the last week of December.

As you can see, my blogging stats doubled in the month of December. Just as I shared my blogging journey earlier, I am going to try and re-trace how I reached these blogging markers.

A major boost in my stats was due to the help and support of four popular bloggers:

Sadje at Keep It Alive

Theresa at The Haunted Wordsmith

Fandango at This That & The Other

Rory at A Guy Called Bloke.

Sadje has been at my side from the very inception of my blog. She joined the world of blogging much later than I but took her popularity and creative talent to dizzying heights in a short space of time. I was content with my weekly posts but Sadje made me take up writing challenges and prompts.

I must admit that I was skeptical of writing challenges to begin with. I used to think that they were for people who could not come up with enough topics of their own. So far, I have not been at a loss for topics. My problem has been always to find enough time and energy for all the topics I want to write about.

Hwever, I followed Sadje’s advice and took up writing challenges put forth by Theresa, Rory and Fandango. These three bloggers have lots of challenges and activities going on at any particular time. But I managed to respond to only a fraction of these.

I particularly enjoyed Theresa’s photo prompts and her White Elephant Challenge. Rory’s Daily Fun Three questions were indeed fun to answer. With Fandango’s FOWC one word prompts I realised that I could write free verse too.

My advice to new bloggers wanting to push their stats is to definitely have a go at different writing prompts and challenges available. There are so many available on WordPress that you are bound to find some that are a good fit for you.

Finally,

A blog is nothing without its readers. So a big thank you is in order for all you wonderful people who supported me by reading, commenting and following.