50,000 Views!

I've passed a milestone with my blog this week; since my first post on October 19, 2007, I've had 50,000 views of my blog! Now, you might notice that counter at the bottom still shows less than 37,000 but I didn't install that counter until quite a while after I started blogging. The number I'm using for the official number of visits comes from Blogger's official stats. So let's pop the proverbial champagne!

Over the last four years, I've had visitors from every continent including Antarctica. I especially like knowing that I've had visitors from China, countries in the Middle East, the former Soviet Union, and many other places where it might be difficult to reach people with a Christian message.

For those who might be curious, here are my top five posts with the most page views of all time:

Koala's on the Ark (5,500+ page views). This is not only the most visited – it's the most visited by far. It's actually the pictures that get found the most often. If you do a Google search on Koalas, it's one of the first pics you'll find. I admit the little bugger is cute. This is also one of the few posts that has 2 pics in it so it doubles my chances of being found in a search (maybe that's a clue). People visit for the pictures but hopefully they stay for the content.

Misquoted Bible Verses (2,400+ page views). If you do a Google search for “misquoted Bible verses,” (not an uncommon search) this blog post currently appears as number 4. The pic gets almost no hits in searches but I think it's funny so I keep it. This post has the distinction of always having been among my top 10 read posts each week since I first posted it. There's also a funny anecdote about it: I once bumped into someone online once who asked, “are you the same RKBentley who wrote the post about misquoted Bible verses?” She had found my post on Google the night before and then we met online. What are the odds? I guess one might say it's a small cyber-world.

Answering the 10 Questions Every Christian Must Answer: Part 3 (2,100+ page views). This post is often found using the phrase “starving children” in a Google image search. It's also commonly found by people searching “10 questions every Christian must answer.” I did an 8 part series in response to the popular, atheist video and the whole series gets a fair amount of traffic. The added hits on the image search kicks this post up to the #3 spot.

The Evolutionist's Empty Demand For Evidence (1,700+ page views). This gets a lot of hits from an image search on “evidence.” Also, when I post on Yahoo! Answers, I use this post as a usual answer.

Revelation 17: Is the Harlot of Babylon the Catholic Church? (1,500+ page views). Apparently a lot of people ask this question. Depending on how the question is worded by the user, my blog will usually appear on the first page of a Google search. The image gets a lot of hits as well.

It's been a long road and there were more than a few times I almost gave up completely. Looking back, though, I'm glad I didn't. Like anything else, it's gets easier with practice. When I first started tracking page visits, I was happy to get about 10-15 per day. Every once in a while, though, I would get a spike of 25, 30, or maybe even 50 or more visits. You would think that would be a good thing but it was the spikes that began to make me unhappy with my blog traffic. If I could get 50 visits in one day, then why can't I get 50 visits every day?

It was when I installed the Statcounter widget on my blog that I really began to see how my visitors found my blog. With this knowledge, it was a simple step to begin doing more of the things that brought visitors. It was little things, really. Instead of using clever (or attempts at clever) titles for my posts, I began using phrases that people might actually search for. A lot of people found my blog during an image search so now I try to include an image with every post. And of course, the more posts I made, the more chances it gave me for people to find me and land somewhere on my blog during their search.

As you can see from the screen shot, I had over 3,700 page views last month alone which averages well over 100 per day. At that rate, it's not going to take 4½ years for the next 50,000 but I expect the rate to continue to rise. I'm closing in on 150 views every day but I'd like to double that by this time next year. Four years from now, I'd like to be celebrating 1,000,000 page views!

It's nice to know my posts are being read, however, I'm not doing this for my own glory. In another forum, I use the tag line, ταῦτα γράφω ἵνα πιστευὴτε – “I write these things so that you might believe.” I want to take the gospel into all the world. I want to win the lost and equip the saints. I want to do my small part in fulfilling the Great Commission.

Thanks to all who visit. Keep visiting. Keep commenting. Feel free to cut and paste any part of my blog. Link me to your friends. Tell your atheist acquaintances about this crazy creationist who has a blog. And above everything else, keep me in your prayers.

God bless!!

RKBentley