Wow, it has been over five months since I have done this kind of thing. I’ve written some informal blog updates from time to time, but nothing formalized like this. I have noticed that So You Want To Teach? seems to be entering a new phase of its life and want to ask you for some help. There’s also a completely unrelated video at the end. But first, the latest blogging news from SYWTT.
- I revamped my Links page today and only put those blogs that had commented or emailed me back in January. Keep reading for info on how to get your link added there.
- We reached 100 subscribers for the first time on November 15th.
- We reached 150 subscribers for the first time on January 15th.
- We reached 200 subscribers for the first time on February 25th.
- We reached 250 subscribers for the first time on March 26th.
- Excel tells me that we are on course to reach 450 by July 31st. Any math nerds teachers out there want to tell us what the technical name for this exponential trend is?
- The blog turned a year old on February 11th.
- Traffic is increasing substantially. A lot of that traffic comes from Google (read more about that tomorrow).
- We had 8,965 page views in October as a result of being featured on Zenhabits twice.
- We had 6,139 page views from 2,253 visits in November.
- We had 7,977 page views from 2,807 visits in December.
- We had 8,996 page views from 3,640 visits in January.
- We had 9,032 page views from 3,524 visits in February.
- We had 12,906 page views from over 5,768 visits in March.
- I added a “Rate this article” thing. A few people have rated articles. More people should rate more stuff!
- The Technorati Authority (which I haven’t tracked as meticulously as the subscribers and visitors) number was 35 in mid-October. It is now 155.
I want to turn up the heat. I want to see if we can add 100 more subscribers by the end of April.
All this stuff is great! Now I want to turn up the heat. I want to see if we can add 100 more subscribers by the end of April. Can we see the readership of SYWTT reach 350? As I mentioned above, I have noticed that So You Want To Teach? has entered a new phase of growth. I want you to be a part of it.
The most effective way for this blog (or any blog) to grow at the stage it is currently in, is by having a few hardcore fans who are sort of like blog evangelists. People with their own blog who like what I’m doing here and want to share that with their readers. I have made some great friends through this blog, and now I want to pass that back to you.
Help from other bloggers!
Do you have a blog? I would love it if you could do one (or more) of the following things:
- Try to link to SYWTT about once a week. If I don’t post anything exciting or noteworthy, I would guess there’s something in the archives (219 articles and counting) that would interest your readers. If you link me, I will link you.
- Find one article somewhere in the archives of my blog (it can be a new one or an old one). Post a review on your blog. Do you agree with it? Why? Do you disagree with it? Why? If it’s a list, add some items to it.
- Write an article to be featured on So You Want To Teach? as a guest post. Include a brief bio and links to your site. Email it to me.
- Add SYWTT to your blogroll. If I’m already there, email me and refresh my memory.
- Go to an article in the Latest Favorites on the left sidebar. Find a comment that you agree or disagree with. Write about it on your blog.
- Find a new teacher or a college student majoring in education. Encourage them to come visit the site. Encourage them to sign up for email updates. They will thank you.
- Find and rate a few articles on the site.
Help from non-bloggers!
You don’t have a blog? That’s okay. You can still help!
- Start a blog. Refer to the stuff above. I’ll post more about doing this later on.
- No really, start a blog. I’m convinced that it will be one of the best things you can do for your teaching. Seriously, if all you do is post links of great stuff from other blogs, do it now! I recommend Edublogs (built on WordPress) or WordPress.com. Both are free.
- Okay, besides that, go to an article in the Latest Favorites on the left sidebar. Find a comment that you agree or disagree with. Respond directly to that commenter. Get in the habit of doing this from time to time.
- Find one article somewhere in the archives of my blog (it can be a new one or an old one). Add a comment to it.
- Email me a guest post complete with a bio.
- Find a new teacher or a college student majoring in education. Encourage them to come visit the site. Encourage them to sign up for email updates. They will thank you.
- Find and rate a few articles on the site.
So what’s in it for you? From now on, if you link to me (or if you already have and let me know), I will throw a link back to you. In fact, the majority of the articles I will be posting in April will be referring people to other blogs or highlighting comments on my blog. In short, you link to me, I send a good chunk of traffic your way.
Okay, enough with the boring stuff. Here’s a video! Yes, my dad made me watch this on Nick At Nite when I was younger.
