The Numbers Game

As a baseball fan, I pay attention to statistics. Anyone who follows baseball knows that statistics can tell you a lot about a particular player or team. In fact, statistics can often be used to predict how a player or team will perform in the future.

As a blogger, it's hard not to fall into the same trap of becoming focused on statistics. As Joe Carter explains in a recent post on blog statistics, it's a common trap for bloggers to fall into to become obsessed with numbers.

Early on in my blogging career I would check my Sitemeter report every day and fret about how few readers I had each day. I would send e-mails to the higher beings in the blogosphere hoping they would link to my puny little blog and share a little bit of the traffic they seem to so effortlessly draw to their blogs.

Then I discovered that it was possible to have surges in traffic without really trying. Sometimes I would write on a particularly hot topic and traffic would flow into the site.

Now after 9 months of blogging I've come to the conclusion that really all I need to do is focusing on doing the best I can every day and not worry about how many hits this blog receives.

Much of what I have gained from blogging is what I didn't expect. I didn't expect to make friends with other bloggers the way that I have over the last nine months. Many of those friends are folks who have been kind enough to link to me and I gladly return the favor. By the way, if you've linked to me and I haven't linked to you please e-mail me and let me know.

If there are any words of wisdom in these late night/early morning ramblings it is this: focus on doing your best every day to God's glory. It is because of Him (not me) that there is anything here worth reading. And a big thank you to everyone who has found this blog worth reading. I am honored far more than you know.