Online traffic follows the new. In 2017, JCShepard.com wasn’t so much of the new and our numbers reflect that. But that’s OK. I played a lot of music. I read a lot of books. I didn’t get out to play as much as I should, but that’s OK too. Goals for next/this year.
We had about 1,500 visitors give the blog 2,200 views, down from 2,000 visitors with 3,000 views the year before. Most of y’all are from the U.S., too. My civil war series pulled in a lot of traffic back in 2014-2015, though these numbers are more likely given I’m mostly writing these days about music and books, and occasionally how to built really cool places to live (my day job).
#1 post of 2017: Repeat winner by far, Cheyenne-Laramie County, Wyoming, Historical Timeline: a 2014 keyword-rich retrospective of the capital of the Cowboy State, which celebrated 150th Anniversary this year.
#2 Diary of Orrin Brown—Dec 15, 1864 / #7 The Diary of Pvt. Orrin Brown: Also from 2014, Pvt. Brown was outside Savannah, when John Bell Hood’s Rebels pinned down John Schofield’s Union rearguard in the Battle of Nashville. Same post was #2 last year & year before. The introductory post of the series is also in the Top 10.
#3 Behind the Bakken Boom: I really need to update my series on Oil & Gas drilling out here in the West. We have a few natural gas wells here in Southwest Colorado, too.
#4 The Election of 1916: “America First” to First World War / #8 On the Brink of War — America’s Christmas 1916: Post 2016 election look at the events of 100 years before.
#5 All Things Shepard: History meets genealogy. Back up a spot. Due for an update. Rootsweb got hacked, though, and Ancestry has it down for the time so it may take a while.
#6 The Day the Music Died: Bye bye Miss American Pie, 50th anniversary post from February 2009. If 50th anniversary posts are this popular, I’ll have to do some retrospectives from 1968 this year.
#9 / #1 New Post of 2017 Political Order and Political Decay in the Time of Trump: Book review of Francis Fukuyama’s The Origins of Political Order and Political Order and Political Decay. A key examination of how effective states are built, and how they seemingly, inevitably, decay.
#10 Little (Lego) House on the Prairie (Style): Perennially popular post from 2009, where Lego goes all Frank Lloyd Wright, down several spots from last year.
Last year’s Blog Posts in Review came in at #2 New Post of 2017. Pancho Villa and the Declaration of a State of War from 1917 came in #3 & #5 new posts. My review of Alison Krauss’ album Windy City ranks #4 followed by the rest of the new music posts for 2017.
2018 is a Brand New Day. Thank you for stopping by and brightening my day.—
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