The Pursuit of Life: 2 Years of Blogging!

Well, here we are 2 years down the line with 160 posts about places all across the country and some in Canada! The Pursuit of Life has grown from an infrequently read blog by friends and family to one read across the World!

The Pursuit of Life is read in over 90 countries!

This is, of course, one of those shameless self-promoting posts that liter the blogosphere but I'm genuinely exited to say that the Pursuit of Life has been on the air for 2 years. Its been a wild ride and I would never have guessed that two years after starting this blog I would end up 3,000 miles away from Southern California, working towards becoming a Nurse Practitioner at the University of Southern Maine. In fact, when I started this blog, I was deep in the middle of getting my EMT certification and struggling to find work amid the chaos of being a new graduate in the 2010 economy. Blogging was kind of an outlet away from the repetitious and job and grad-school applications. Spending long hours at Starbucks, posted up with a ultra-caffeinated grande coffee answering the questions like "Why do you want to go to grad school?" and "Why do you want to work here?" gets pretty damn tedious after a while. Why not start a blog and write enjoyably about National Parks and wildernesses across the country? Would anyone care or would this end up shelved with the countless forgotten web domains?

The first picture ever posted on this blog!

Well I'll be dammed if this actually became something read across the country and World! I get twice as many readers a day than I did in the entire first month of the blog! More surprisingly, I still enjoy doing it two years down the line. Now, its an outlet away from the countless hours of hitting the books and studying nursing (still more enjoyable than job applications!). But beyond the personal satisfaction, its become a way to showcase the thousands of glorious wildernesses, parks and trails which make this place so unique. Plus, its given yet another reason to get out there and explore.

Domestic Readership

So Who's Reading?

Several months ago, I signed on to Google Analytics which has been a helpful way to track readership. What's especially useful is the geographical statistics. Blogger tracks this too but not nearly at the level of Analytics. So now I get a state-by-state breakdown of where the blog is being read. I was most excited to see that there are readers in all 50 states! About 25% are visitors from the Northeast while another 25% are from California. The Mountain States, Midwest and South account for another 30% of traffic and the rest are international visitors. This blog has been a hit in Europe and Canada where its shown up on all sorts of message boards and tourist sites! 

I've unwittingly ended up with a blog with excellent search engine optimization (SEO). So a significant amount of traffic is organic (from un-paid google searches and such). But I've also had a fair amount of returning visitors which is also encouraging . I write about places all across the country so its not surprising that a lot of readers are looking for information on a single issue or location. 

Onward!

Moving Forward

I suppose this post is nothing more than a brief interruption of adventures as I will soon be writing about all the rock climbing we did in North Conway this summer and I'm headed for a fall hike in New Hampshire tomorrow. But its nice to look back and see where this blog came from and where its going. Its almost strange to read my first couple of posts... a lot has changed and improved since then. Its like looking back on childhood finger paintings- partially endearing, partially embarrassing! None the less, blogging is still a wonderful pastime that will keep me away from studying and on the trail. So thanks for reading and I hope you get a chance to get out there and explore! 

As always...

Read. Plan. Get Out There!