It’s New Years Eve 2009 and what better way to finish the year off that to reflect on the blogging year past, and to set some goals for the rapidly approaching new year 2010.

The Stats

In 2009 my blog has had 72,000 unique visits in 2009, which produced close to 160,000 pageviews. The bounce rate was fairly good at 45.80%, however the Average Time on Site (1:45) was somewhat lower than I would’ve hoped.

A vast majority of the traffic was New Visits (87%), though considering that 84% of the traffic to my blog came from search engines I guess it’s to be expected. My subscriber count grew steadily from 0 to 110 so at least there’s a decent amount of recurring readers, which is encouraging.

Most Popular Articles

1. Fetuccini Carbonara Recipe
2. Garlic King Prawns Recipe
3. Satay Chicken Recipe
4. Chicken & Vegetable Lasagne Recipe
5. Caesar Salad Recipe
6. Teriyaki Chicken Recipe
7. Vietnamese Pork Spare Ribs Recipe
8. Chicken, Rocket & Pasta Bake Recipe
9. Honey Soy Chicken Wings Recipe
10. VB Raw Dry Lager – taste test

Well no surprises here, my recipe blogs have always been very popular. Just recently the Garlic King Prawns Recipe was ranked #1 on Google.com.au, which incidentally bumped it up in the rankings from the 8th most popular to the 2nd most popular.

The biggest non-food blog was my article on how to use a .htaccess file and subdomain to Get Your Own Facebook Vanity URL, and then a few weeks later Facebook opened their system up to give everyone their own username / vanity url so the article didn’t get much of a look in after that. The same article was also the most referred to article in 2009 as well, thanks to ProBlogger’s Darren Rowse for that one.

Revenue

Considering the amount of advertising spots I’ve had on my blog at any one time, there’s not going to be much opportunity to earn bucket loads of cash. That said, my blog brought in around $45 USD a month in advertising and referral income which has paid for my hosting and domain renewal, so I’m reasonably happy with that.

The Year Ahead

The goals I’m setting for my blog for 2010 are all pretty obvious; more readers, more subscribers, more comments, more articles, more revenue. I guess I could expand on how I think I’m going to achieve all of these things, but I’ll be honest and say that I’m too lazy and that it doesn’t really concern me too much. I like to keep things pretty loose around here, so why mess with that?

Oh actually, on second thoughts I’d like to set a goal of finally getting a header on the site here! I have a few ideas but haven’t had the chance to work on them yet. So there we go, a goal for 2010!

2009 has been a great year both personally and blogging wise, and here’s hoping 2010 goes the same way.

Happy New Year wherever you are, whatever you’re doing, and whoever you’re celebrating with!

Posted originally on Mathew Packer's blog.

2009, a blogging year in review

9 / 365 – I got caught out. Yep this is pretty much a throwaway image. The clock was ticking over extra fast yesterday and I still didn’t have my shot, completely and utterly my fault as I didn’t take my camera anywhere with me.

So there’s not much of a story to go with this photo, and hopefully I’ve learnt a vital lesson….

Posted originally on Mathew Packer's blog.

Day 9

9 / 365 - I got caught out.

Full story on my blog at <a href="http://www.mathewpacker.com">www.mathewpacker.com</a>

8 / 365 – With all this rain we’ve had over Christmas my front lawn is now full of these Onion Weed flowers….at least that’s what I think they’re called.

I’m hoping we get a couple of dry days shortly because I really need to mow the lawn.

Posted originally on Mathew Packer's blog.

Day 8

8 / 365 - With all this rain we've had over Christmas my front lawn is now full of these Onion Weed flowers....at least that's what I think they're called.

Full story on my blog at <a href="http://www.mathewpacker.com">www.mathewpacker.com</a>

7 / 365 – Ferrero Rocher and a James Estate Sauvignon Blanc, it’s a hard life.

Posted originally on Mathew Packer's blog.

Day 7

7 / 365 - Chocolates and wine. Nothing else need be said.

Full story is on my blog at <a href="http://www.mathewpacker.com">www.mathewpacker.com</a>