Sunday, May 14, 2006

We Have Another Winner: The 20,000th Visitor!

After hitting a blog milestone of 10,000 visitors on March 27, 2006 after seven months of blogging, we've hit another milestone less than two months later. The 20,000th visitor!!

And the lucky winner is:

SANDRA RUTTAN

Stop by her blog and say hello. Her first book, Suspicious Circumstances, will be released later this year. Congratulations, Sandra!

What does she win, you ask? A $10 gift certificate to Amazon.com. Keep those book purchases coming!

Look for the prize patrol again at 30,000. See you then.

15 comments:

Sandra Ruttan said...

Thanks Jason! I'm looking forward to ordering some books!

(Who says blog surfing doesn't pay off?!)

Esther Avila said...

congratulations, Sandra. :)

Anonymous said...

Thanks again, Sandra! Yes, it does pay to surf. :D

Scott said...

Good for you Jason. That is a lot of traffic, but it's easy to see why people keep coming back for more. Keep up the good work.

Linda said...

Congrats Sandra! :)

word verification: czarb
A new kind of carb? lol :)

Anonymous said...

Figures it would be Sandra, she's the surfer with the mostest! Congrats!
And to you Jason, for running such a great site. Well done!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for compliment, Scott and JT! Much appreciated. =)

Sandra Ruttan said...

JT, it's hard for me to balance my 'mostest' while surfing!

Thanks everyone. Tee hee, an excuse to order books, tee hee hee!

Jeff said...

Congratulations, Sandra. :)

anne frasier said...

20,000! wasn't it just 10,000 a few weeks ago? wow, jason!

congrats, sandra!

Anonymous said...

Anne, I have the contest to thank for that one. The response was mind-boggling. I can't wait for the next one!

Anonymous said...

What things do you think have most contributed to your growth in traffic? Do share your secrets.

Anonymous said...

Eileen, the one and only reason I jumped from 10,000 to 20,000 so quickly was The "Two Lights" Short Fiction Contest. Before that, I was averaging about 35 unique visitors a day and 55 hits. During the contest it shot up to 200 unique visitors and 1500 hits a day. I've made some great friends from the contest, and they are now regular readers. I'm at about 55 unique visitors a day with 70 hits.

Apart from the contest, the #1 way to attract traffic for me is to visit and comment on other blogs. The trick is inspiring return visits and regular readers. I've had fairly good success with that by rotating the kinds of content I post. Photography with a thought or short poem is especially popular.

It's a challenge to run a concept blog like this. Your audience will be smaller than a writer's information blog (like Joe Konrath's or Bernita's, "An Innocent A-Blog") or a quirky personal blog (one of the best I know is "Kill the Goat," link to the right).

The more personal the better, I think. People want to hitch a ride on your thoughts and experiences for a few minutes.

Lastly, I think posting too much and too little are both destructive to a blog. My schedule is Monday, Wednesday, Friday. It keeps the material fresh while giving folks a chance to read each top post and comment.

WannabeMe said...

Arggggggh! I can't believe I missed another contest.

Anonymous said...

Dana, I'm giving you the heads up on the next. Look at the comment on the prize patrol at the end of the post. (hint hint) ;) Actually, I'll probably be doing another short fiction contest before I reach that mark.