Muschamp Rd

My Top Blog Landing Pages of 2015

January 1st, 2016
SEO

I never intended to spend so much time blogging at the end of 2015, but since I did spend so many hours, I should at least do a token post about what is actually getting read on this blog versus what was an exercise in typing. Avinash Kaushik is a smart guy but man is his name hard to spell, he is a big fan of looking at your top landing pages and optimizing them to convert.

I’d previously listed my Top 10 Landing Pages back in 2014 and there has actually been a little change, all but one of my Top 10 landing pages now is a blog post, the only non-blog post to make the top ten was my web mashup codebase which gets a lot of traffic from Stack Overflow as once again according to Google Analytics that is the online social network I am most successful on. I don’t share my stuff automatically, I don’t share my old content systematically and I hardly ever share to Facebook which is still the biggest social network in the world. I do most of my sharing to Twitter and Pinterest. I think I’ll try to share stuff on WeChat or even Weibo in 2016 because after all I am living in China.

Official Social Shares

I should also cross post even more of my images, especially as I have images going back over ten years uploaded to Flickr, although I spent the time re-tagging most every blog post, I’m not re-tagging every Flickr image, but sharing them or adding them to Flickr pools/groups is probably good for boosting vanity metrics and Klout. My very best images ever uploaded to Flickr have been collected into one easy to share album.

My top landing page is related to the Level 1 CFA® Exam, adding “FREE” in all caps is cheesy but can definitely work if you’re looking for a quick SEO tip.

The next most popular landing page was never supposed to exist, I don’t know if I was unemployed but I was asked on Twitter if I’d ever created a general purpose business planning Excel spreadsheet and I said it wasn’t worthwhile making one that was too general, but I did it anyway and many people have since downloaded it.

Finishing third in 2015 was yet another post offering advice for the CFA Level 1 Exam which also links to another spreadsheet I spent way too many hours creating then gave away for free.

One upside to my never ending job search was a post I made to help others who were looking for work in Vancouver which managed to pull in the fourth most new visitors in 2015.

Also notable and finishing ninth was content that I originally created while I worked at BOB and made my living helping entrepreneurs in Vancouver’s DTES, it disappeared from the Internet but I brought it back because I thought some people would get some use from it, apparently I was correct.

The only surprise in the top ten besides the evidence of just how little time I’ve had to devote towards hobbies or creating new content is one of my old posts listing strange keyword referrals. I spent far too much time reviewing web referral logs and web analytics and collecting the stranger keyword referrals, blogging about them just lead to more strange keyword referrals. I’ve attempted to get rid of much of the dubious content on Muskblog but obviously some remains and it continues to amuse and attract new but not necessarily desirable traffic.

Not only does my Nurgle subdomain not bring in much traffic anymore, the posts that make up the top ten were written in:

  • 2005 – One
  • 2008 – Three
  • 2009 – One
  • 2010 – One
  • 2011 – One
  • 2012 – Three

I’d like to think I’ve become a better blogger and writer since 2005. Looking at just the top 10 landing pages I may as well have stopped blogging three years ago. That is a spurious conclusion because I know how much time I’ve spent improving old blog posts, improving the taxonomy, improving my WordPress theme, and although I am not an auto-Tweeter I do share old and new content occasionally. The search engines and the unwashed masses clearly like my older posts.

My new content often links to my old content and the greatest hits in my sidebar definitely helps the Googlejuice flow where I want it to go.

Top Keyword Referrals

Google and the other major search engines keep most of the keyword referral data now, but you can get a sample, through Webmaster Tools using the brand new Search Analytics report, I can learn that the top 10 keyword phrases that send traffic to my blog are:

  1. methods to initiate ventures
  2. cfa level 1 study material pdf
  3. creating entrepreneurial venture
  4. business plan excel
  5. startup business plan template excel
  6. fortune 500 companies in vancouver
  7. cfa study material level 1 pdf
  8. cfa study material free download
  9. cfa level 1 study material free download
  10. morgana mou

It was all looking so professional and high quality until number ten. Morgana Mou is a Chinese woman who does martial arts, but also does a little acting and is famous for being fit. I read once that she would make the perfect Chun Li from Street Fighter 2 and I blogged about it. Now that I live in China I actually think I followed her on Weibo, she is similar to a Chinese Jen Selter except I think she has been posting fitness selfies to the Internet for longer and she actually entered and won some fitness competitions, people I know, know her, she is on Instagram if you look hard enough.

I go to the gym, I get encouraged to take gym selfies, though some people hate them, that’s what unfollow is for. I am not obsessed with #instafame, I don’t even have that app on my phone anymore, but I get talked into following people as they need my support to achieve fame or at least sponsorships, so I have an Instagram account, it contributes to my Klout, but as a blogger I definitely prefer Flickr, it is just better for sharing photos here and on Twitter even if it results in less #instafame. I’m not even sure I have any selfies on Flickr, most of my selfies end up on WeChat because Chinese women love selfies.

I actually reused some of my selfies recently as featured images on some of my old travel posts, if you have thoughts on landing pages, keyword referrals, search engine optimization, or gym selfies feel free to leave a comment below. Every year I do a blogging retrospective and in 2019 I spent a lot of time improving this blog and WordPress theme, maybe all my blogging will finally pay off.

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