Toot Sweet 4 Two's Top 10 Posts of 2012

The end of the year provides an opportunity for reflection on many levels. Although our blog is still in its infancy (just barely 5 months old), Tiffany and I thought it would be fun to analyze the Top 10 Posts of 2012 to see what’s been popularly read. However, this presented a small challenge because we didn’t {yet} know how to generate some of the various reports from Google Analytics. The other challenge is that we didn’t sign up for Google Analytics until October 15th, so this left the period from July 28th (blog launch date) to October 14th with a gaping hole from an “analytics” approach.

So, we reached out to a few of our most ardent and faithful readers (family and friends) and asked for help in this department. We had 3 responses. Lol – we should have known that asking for a list of favorites from our readership at CHRISTMAS TIME wasn’t a fair request!!! {giggle}. So I’ve incorporated those responses into the lists. Also, I decided to exclude what I call “the fire series” (the 20-part series about the loss of our home in the 2007 San Diego County Witch Fire, starting with “Any Way the Wind Blows“). Because it is a series that ran consecutively for 20 days, it was read with great consistency distorting the numbers on other posts.

So, here are the Top 10 Posts of 2012 for me, Tiffany and for our recipes:

Top 10 for Carole:

That’s not 10! It’s 13! What’s up? Well, there were several ties:

Rainbows, Charlie and the Amazon Elves tied with The Month in Review – November 2012
Parsimonious Pumpkins tied with The Gift
Samantha’s Christmas Table tied with The Month in Review – October 2012

Top 10 for Tiffany:

What? That’s not 10 either! Well, Tiffany had several ties as well:

10 Things tied with ‘Tis the Season
12 Days of Tiffany’s Christmas, 5 Things to Make Life {a little} Easier, Broken Hearts and Devastation and Christmas Surprise all tied.
Favorite Picture of the Week – November 15, 2012 tied with Is She the World’s Youngest Blogger?

Top 10 Recipes:

Guess what? More ties! Christmas Chocolate Chip Cookie Bars tied with Peach Pineapple Dump Cake!

Here are a couple of observations (I know you want to know my “observations”!):

Sally Snowflake was the NUMBER ONE top read post for the period October 15th through December 27th (sorry can’t give you stats before October 15th!)! Tiffany’s post about The Elf on the Shelf taps into a phenomenon that has swept this country starting a new family holiday tradition for many. Clearly, the cute and lovable little elves feed something in our collective consciousness that we as a society are trying to hold on to in difficult economic and social times. I suspect that we will be posting many more Elf on the Shelf stories in the future during the holiday season!

In the number two position (missing the lead by only ONE vote) is Bloggy Boot Camp Revealed. So while I may have “misled” readers by the title of this post, clearly our readership was moved by the story of Vanessa from down under (Australia) and her living with Long QT Syndrome. That proves to me that you are all mush-mellows and have hearts of gold and are moved by stories of bravery, valor, honor, strength of character, making a difference in a portion of our world or neighborhoods or the lives of others, etc. So, expect more stories in the future on just those subjects, rolled up under the “Your Story Matters” category of our blog.

Under that category, Vanessa’s story shares space with Salted Maple Pecan Pie Bars from Pinch of Yum (another title to “mislead” our readership {tee hee}), which talks about an inspiring young couple, Lindsey and Bjork, who have moved to the Philippines to work in an orphanage and Perspective: December 8, 1941, which is my father’s story about living in a Japanese concentration camp (also in the Philippines) for 3 years as a teenager.

The top two stories (Sally Snowflake and Bloggy Boot Camp Revealed) more than doubled most other posts in readership and quadrupled all the rest of the leader boards. Except for Jingle Ball 2012, which landed in 3rd place. So, my conclusion about Jingle Ball 2012 is that you all like music and the two bands with hot, young men {giggle} that were featured in the post! All kidding aside, I suspect that its honor in 3rd place is also due to the charity, Becky’s House, and the fact that I shared my very brief story about my own domestic abuse situation when I was in my late teens, early twenties.

These three stories surpassed all others in readership, even eclipsing the recipe posts, leaving all other posts in the dust!

Other observations about the Top 10 in both Tiffany’s and my lists: you love Christmas, you love funny stories, you support small businesses, you mourn with others during times of tragedy, you want to be inspired on multiple levels. And, pugs – you love pugs! What’s up with that?

As respects the Top 10 Recipes listed above, clearly you love chocolate and you love turkey! Both of those posts zoomed past all other recipe posts in readership! Cake Batter Fudge Bars was 3rd with decent readership marks. Did you notice that eight out of the eleven recipe posts that are listed in this Top 10 rundown are desserts? This fact did not escape me – expect more dessert recipes in the future and a fatter Carole! Clearly I’ll have to figure out a way to test and make desserts so that I can post more dessert recipes without gaining even more weight than I have these past two years! A weight-loss strategy WAS in my New Year’s Resolution list – that’s going to be quite a challenge! Local readership alert: I’ll be sharing the actual desserts with all of you to get them out of my house!

So, just in case these three Top 10 lists aren’t enough for you, here are the “Honorable Mentions”:

Top 5 Honorable Mentions (in order):

Yep – ties again! I won’t bore you with the details, but trust me on this!

And, I know that you want to know the “honorable mentions” on the recipes so here are the Top 5:

Top 5 Recipe Honorable Mentions:

Again, multiple ties across the board (again with the trust factor).

And, to honor the three people who did respond to our “call to action” for a list, these are the posts that they mentioned were their favorites and NOT covered in any of the lists above:

Oh, and ONE MORE list! Here’s my list of posts that MIGHT HAVE made the Top 10 if we knew about Google Analytics earlier in our blog career (from launch date, July 28th to October 14th):

A Boy Named Coco (I’m prejudiced; this is about my cat!)
LASIK Gone Lame (it has a voice post attached and I’m prejudiced because you hear Tiffany’s voice and “feel” her post)
The Sunshine Gang (I’m prejudiced because this is about my mother’s miraculous recovery from near death)
Under Construction (I’m prejudiced because it compares our blogging adventure to my trip to Ireland 5 years ago and has pictures of Ireland; great memories!)
Gifts from the Garden Fairies (I’m prejudiced because this is about a wonderful surprise in my garden!)
Nothing Ventured, Nothing Gained (I’m prejudiced because this thanks our readership for sticking with us as we continue this blogging journey!)
A Horse of a Different Color (I’m prejudiced because this documents a great weekend of FIRST TIME horseback riding for the Princesses P at my wonderful sister-in-law’s ranch)
Magical Mystery Misto (I’m prejudiced because this is the first “review” I’ve ever written; even if it was unpaid and unsolicited!)
Favorite Picture of the Week – September 13, 2012 (I’m prejudiced because this is a wonderful photo of the Princess P taken my her grandfather, Joel, a professional photographer)
We’re Not in Kansas Anymore (I’m prejudiced because this is a sweet, thoughtful story written by Tiffany)

I promised you ONLY 10, so I’m sticking to it!

But, here are MY Top 10 Recipes that didn’t make the Google Analytics report (because of their pre-October 15th post date):

And, since NONE of the above are DESSERTS, here’s two desserts you may have missed {giggle}:

And, no, I did not list every single post that we have posted since July 28th in this post! I know is seems like I did, but you’re going to have to trust me again when I say I didn’t (that trust factor thing again!).

But, I thought about it… 🙂

Love this red door in Dublin, Ireland! And, love you all! Thanks for reading and Happy New Year!

Tootles,

Top 10 for Carole:

Top 10 for Tiffany:

Top 10 Recipes:

Top 5 Honorable Mentions (in order):

Top 5 Recipe Honorable Mentions:

Leave a Reply Cancel reply