Let's do the numbers


It has done one round around the sun and “the Sweet Spot” has survived its first year. Now that the blog has survived one year, I thought it would be interesting to invoke my natural inclination to put the results in numbers. As Kai Ryssdal, the host of the award-winning radio show Marketplace would say, “Let’s do the numbers”. 

This is the 40th blog post on “the Sweet Spot”. Blog analysts say blogs are known to gain traction once they reach 25 posts, with an average increase in readership by 30% after that. On my blog, I started seeing an upward trend around the 18th post, and saw a 50% increase in my readership beyond that point. My data does not include the readers who have subscribed via email to read at their leisure, or readers I know have bookmarked the site url and can get to the latest post via the homepage. I attribute the higher increase in readership due to increased shares, with each “share” contributing about a 5% increase.

There is a concept of compounding blog posts, which, unlike decaying posts, continue to attract readers over time. In the first half of my posts, the article about ginger and my undeniable Indian roots is clearly a compounding post. In the second half, there are multiple such compounding posts at varying magnitudes. The post about my marathoner cousin continues to inspire readers. (These are seen as the peaks right after 5 and before 30). So did the post about IAGB’s exemplary initiative and history being made with flag raising in towns across New England. Stories about kindness, fortitude, courage and love continue to touch the readers' hearts. My blog is ad-free and marketed mostly by word of mouth. I reposted my article “The Aunty Conundrum”, which was first published in the IAGB September newsletter, without posting to social media - and it has virtually no hits.

I tried to keep an average word count of 650 words per post and a 2 minute read. In 2020-21 2000+ word blogs are trending up. That is because a lot of online content is in the form of guides, eHelp books, how-to articles, interviews and research. Many of the professional content looks for SEO (search engine optimization) such that a larger number of links point to their blogs. My choice of word count was focussed on “know thy reader” via reader feedback. I figured most of my readers are experienced, busy professionals. Instead of going with the trend for a higher word count, I followed the Goldilocks rule to keep my stories straight and simple, with some interesting links, relatable interpretations or connections one may not have found the time to reflect and delve into due to their busy lives - to try and find the sweet spot of “just right”. My content and stories are usually light on the first pass, though I layer topics with embedded links to deeper content and context, in case the reader wishes to find sources to where and how I drew my conclusions or the connections, and the references I made in the flow of the article.

Readers have given me positive feedback about the variety of content and stories in my blog, and I wanted to quantify it. In order to get a sense of the topic spread, I analysed posts by topic clusters and categories. Though majority of my content is focussed around lifestyle, people, community and culture, readers also found my posts on environment/nature and politics/justice interesting, thought-provoking and at times inspiring. My personal favorite in the latter categories is the post on mushrooms and the Mycelium Network, which required me to do considerable research on the species that had always challenged my curiosity. My other favorite is the parody on the Democratic Primaries using ice-cream flavors. Other than the title, and names Trumpland and DemCream, I wrote the piece without any reference to political verbiage. When I re-read the post after one year, it could easily pass as an elementary school essay titled “My favorite ice-cream flavor” from someone with a sweet spot for ice-cream. If one wasn’t involved in the US Democratic Primaries of 2020, it would be hard to notice the nuances and subtleties, not just with the flavor analogies to candidates, but references to their policies and dynamics of their base.


It was fun to re-read some of the older posts. With that inspiration, I created a new ‘SPOTLIGHT’ tab to repost seasonal articles, like the one on the Travelling Roses. I intend to use the Spotlight as a seasonal shuffle. There are other ways to navigate to older articles. One could use the search feature, or use the hamburger icon to have the sidebar slide in. The sidebar contains archives by months, and labels by categories. If you have feedback for me - questions, comments, suggestions or testimonials - I have added a “Message me” section. 

While I did the numbers on my blog, I took the chance to reevaluate the purpose of my blog - that of sharing inspiring anecdotes, observations and stories, mostly in a positive light, but also with a mindset to narrow down to a topic sweet spot. Just like the market naturally moves towards an equilibrium (shown in the figure), the content of my posts too lean and move towards the sweet spot. I recently learned that there are 600 million blogs around the world posting content and opinions. While my blog is minuscule in the larger scheme of things, after the year of blogging I came away feeling fulfilled by this creative outlet that allows me to research, express and share my experiences and thoughts. And for the opportunity to express my gratitude to the readers who have kept me going!








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