Domesticali

Stats and your blog

Okay, so posting about blog stats clearly stirred up a whole can of worms (and quite a lot of emails asking how to go about checking them). Now the internet is stuffed full with tutorials and tech websites discussing the merits of different site trackers, how to install them and how to interpret the information they give you. I thought I could just refer you to a some. But then I tried to sift through to find the best and quickly realized that they are not so relevant to us crafty and family bloggers. So here - a non-tech take on why you might want to keep an eye on your stats and how to do it. Just don't ask me too many tricky questions, okay?

 

What should I use?

You can get basic stats from Typepad, Blogger and Wordpress or you can install something like Sitemeter or Google Analytics on your blog (I have both). They are free and relatively straightforward to set up - to find out how to install them, Google is your friend - there are a bilion tutorials out there to talk you through the specifics for the platform you blog on.

Okay, I see stats. What should I check?

As a first thing, keep an eye on your visitor numbers. You'll get a feel for what is a normal amount of traffic for your blog. If you typically get 100 visitors per day, and one day you get 400, then you'll realize something has influenced your traffic and you can check what.

Where are readers coming from?

I don't mean geographically (although you can check where in the world your visitors are). Are they arriving as direct traffic (a bookmark or typing your url in), as a referral (usually a link from another blog) or via search engine. In my case the vast majority of visitors come direct or as a referral and that's the way I am comfortable with. It means that my visitors either know my blog already as regular readers, or they read the blog of someone who links to me and in my mind that makes them  likely to be friendly visitors. The search engine traffic I like to keep a closer eye on.

Search engine traffic

Google Analytics is great for this. It gives me a list of all the keywords that people have typed into their search box and ended up on my blog with. Predictably, domesticali is my most common search term, but origami wreath, haramaki and toffee apple bites have also shown up there this week. All of which are understandable and don't give me any cause for alarm. If some dodgy search terms begin to show up, you can think why and perhaps change the post which might be causing problems. 

What pages do they visit?

Typically with our sort of blog, people turn up on the home page or the most recent post. If you have a great tutorial, people might land on that page, because lots of other blogs link to it. Keeping an eye on your entry pages lets you know which of your posts are popular and linked to - unusual pages appearing here might need to be investigated.

A word about images

When I began blogging, Google Image Search didn't exist, but it's incredibly powerful now. I really don't know how best to keep track of my images on the web. But if you want to scare yourself witless and have a distinctive blog name, do a Google Image Search on it and see how your photos have travelled. On Flickr, you can choose to opt out of image searches and you can also block them on your blog, but I haven't. It's not been a big enough issue for me to warrant getting my head round the tech stuff, but feel free to investigate if it's important to you.

Speaking of Flickr, you have an inbuilt stat meter there too, under the 'You' tab where you can check visitors and search words too. Call your photos something enigmatic and watch out for anything that could give rise to unwanted attention (there are a LOT of strange folks searching Flickr, believe me and they are extraordinarily keen on feet).

I also recently discovered a site called TinEye - you can put in the url of one of the images on your blog and it will show you where else on the web it appears. It's in the early days of development, but I think it could turn out to be a very powerful tool. It's also good if you have an image and you want to know where it came from so you can attribute it correctly.

Stats are your friend - I certainly didn't post about them to give everyone an attack of the stranger dangers. But in the same way as you'd keep track of visitors to your home, it's good to know who's been to your blog.

Halloween weekend preparations

We always indulge in a smidgen of Halloween decorating - nothing too over the top, because it's only up for a day or two, but we like the house to look festive for the trick-or-treaters. So the front hall is the logical place to focus any decorating efforts. 

After seeing Monica's advent calendar last Christmas, I began to collect tins with a view to making one here. But I have stalled in my efforts, and 'boo' requires far fewer than 24 tins! The letters were a template from The Graphics Fairy and I picked all the orange sweets out of a tin of Quality Street. I also ate all the blue ones as a public service, because I'm the only one who really likes coconut and I'm very selfless. The trick-or-treaters will get the strawberry creams, which nobody likes.

This is the view from our front door.

See the mouse on the half-landing? A download from Martha Stewart. But there's been a little problem - an after dark stealth attack - note the absence of one tail?

 

I wonder who the culprit could be? 

That's Toast's innocent look, but it's not fooling anyone. Guess she didn't fancy a strawberry cream either.

Photo ownership

Keeping an eye on your stats can be lucrative, it seems. It's something I try to do, coached principally by Alice, who is always keen to ensure that blog visitors haven't arrived as a result of unsavoury searches. I take her point, and I do try to check, periodically, which is how I recently stumbled across something.

One of my photos had been getting a lot of hits - when I investigated, it turned out to be a particularly seasonal one, which topped the Google Image Search results for a specific keyword. I was feeling happy - after all, don't people pay good money to make it to the front of the google queue? But a few images on, was a photo that looked suspiciously like mine, only cropped slightly tighter.

Now photo 'borrowing' is, in my opinion, a fact of blog life. Sometimes, people ask and I am always happy to say yes and hugely flattered that they want to use one of my pictures. Sometimes they don't ask, but link back to me which isn't too bad. Once, I did find that someone had swiped my photo and put their watermark on it, which did prompt a rather irritable comment from me, but they had the good grace to apologize and set matters straight. The fact of the matter is, by and large these people are individuals like me - they are just carving out their own little nests in blogland and they mean no harm. They aren't profiting by using my photos, they just like them and I am pleased they do.

But the photo I found was different. Because it had been swiped by a very well known and eminently respectable national magazine. They had used it to illustrate an editorial piece, which had nothing to do with me or my blog and carried no reference to them. The thing that got me was that plastered all over their website were terms and conditions for licensing their photographs. But it seems respect for copyright was only a one way street.

So I contacted them. And I have to say, they were very apologetic and suggested I send them an invoice. And that, is how I came to sell my first photograph.

And it felt really, really good.

But I am really curious about your attitudes to image 'borrowing'. Does it bother you? Do you do anything to guard against it? Are you rushing off this moment to check your stats?

Preserving hydrangeas

The bathroom has taken on the air of Miss Havisham's en-suite.

I am having a go at preserving some of my mother's beautiful hydrangea heads. Sarah Raven reccomends conditioning the heads (which are really bracts, rather than flowers) by placing the stems in boiling water for 30 seconds and then laying them in a bath of cool water overnight.

The next day, I shook them off and they are now standing in a solution of 1 part glycerin to 2 parts hot water. Once they have sucked it all up, they should remain soft and retain their colour. This might take as long as a month, but if it does, my heads ought to be ready to make into a Christmas wreath. Forward planning, people (she says, ducking...).

Antiquing

Our last family home was a Victorian semi - original plasterwork in the hallway, tiled cast iron fireplaces,  in short, lots of character. We will gloss over the copious amounts of artex and the two tone pink bathroom suite - it wasn't totally without flaws - there had to be something, or we'd never have been able to afford it.

When we outgrew it, we searched high and low for another period property, something with a little soul. For a year. And then I got totally fed up and just really needed to move. So my lovely Estate Agent sent us to look at a new-ish build place and we had to admit, it ticked all the boxes but the 'period' one. And somehow when weighed up against the shiny newness of everything, and the fact that we gained more bathrooms than we used to have bedrooms, and the amazing fact that we could actually afford it, 'period' didn't seem too big a sacrifice to make.

And this house has served us well - with space for another baby (and visiting grandparents) and little maintenance required. In the eight years we have lived here, it has provided exactly what it promised on the tin. But just recently, I have been yearning a little bit for my loss of 'period'.

Not that I'm quite ready to up sticks and move again (though Hubby keeps hinting). He has big plans for a Grand Designs style building project. Which mostly involves him handing a plot of land and a pot of money to me and leaving me with all the work while he just vetoes any decisions he doesn't like! Perhaps I will be ready to take on the challenge, in a while, but not quite yet.

However, I thought a spot of Antiquing might scratch the period itch. Ooh, hark at me with all the vocab! I sound like I know what I'm talking about, which is far from the case. You are more likely to stumble across Ikea circa 1996 in my house than priceless antiques, but I'd happily change that. 

So I persuaded hubby to take the day off and we headed down to the Newbury Antiques Fair. I was channelling my inner Artemis, and hoping for great things. Great BIG things, even - so much so, that I persuaded him to remove the extremely heavy back seats from the car so we might be able to transport home something large.

Hmm, turns out perhaps I was a teensy bit over optimistic. Not that the fair wasn't fab, but my purchases were pretty compact.

Five tiny little tin baking cups. Wonderful, but not necessitating the removal of seats. Though I did get a little closer with the Transport Commission signage. 

But, to be honest, in spite of being a heavy lump of wood, that would have fitted in the boot too. He wasn't too grumpy about it  - a child free lunch in a lovely pub will generally guarantee good humour. And at least one of the purchases proved to be a perfect size for my intended purpose.

 

Fungi-fun

Felted mushrooms - not something I knew my life was lacking until I made one. But I have to confess to being smitten by them now. Even though when I brought my sample home after making it at felting class, I had no idea what to do with it. My little mushroom needed a habitat. perhaps a bowl of soft moss? Hmm, fine, but not quite right.

So I turned to the oracle that is google and stumbled across the beautiful specimen jars of Lil Fish Studios.  And when Sunday's walk in the woods turned up a pile of sweet chestnut husks, I knew just what they were calling me to do.

A fung-arium. I never knew my home needed one until now.

Gentle felting

In the midst of this crazy fortnight, there has been one sane stress-free crafting interlude. For a little while, I'd been keeping my eyes on the class lists at a new crafty shop in Oxford - Darn it & Stitch. Autumnal felting caught my eye. Well, if truth be told, felting for Christmas caught my eye, but was already full up. Such is the popularity of Jo's wonderful business venture.

But Autumnal felting turned out to be just perfect - Amanda, the lovely tutor, taught us how to make little felted acorns, and some flat felt which got turned into a beaded flower corsage. And then, a mushroom, which I have big plans for and promise to show you when it is done.

And as soon as a little pocket of time appears at the end of this week, I'm planning to get going on some ideas of my own that have been simmering away on the mental back burner.  So often what we would like to do gets trampled in the scrum of what we must get done. More so when your own projects lack an external deadline and end up being leapfrogged by things which seem more essential.

But making for pure pleasure is one of life's joys (my life, anyway) and that is worth prioritizing. Even if it is just one acorn at a time.

 

 

The word on the street

On the way to school in the car we listen to the local radio station. There is a quiz at the moment - answer ten general knowledge questions in one minute to win a big prize. I like to shout out the answers, mostly because the boys are still just young enough to be wowed by my feats of general knowledge (let's be clear, it is only their youth which allows this) .

This morning, they said 'You should go on the programme Mummy, and win the big prize'. 'Noooo', I explained, 'I'm hopeless when they ask questions about boy bands and Coronation Street'. 

There was a thoughtful pause. 'Is Coronation Street the one with the colourful monsters?'. This had me stumped for a moment. Then the penny dropped.

And speaking of the word on the street - there are two things I've been asked to mention.

First, Trash wanted me to help publicize an open invitation - she is organizing a blogger's craft get together extravaganza somewhere in the Midlands in October 2011 - there's a poll on her sidebar so she can get an idea of how many crafty bodies might like to participate. So you might want to cast a vote if you think you'd be interested.

Second, I've been doing the odd bit of paid market research with a company called Code 3 (mine was involving chocolate treats - yee ha!) and they have given me the opportunity to sign up any of my chums who might be interested in being paid to take part in similar research events. In the interests of full disclosure, I need to tell you that if you sign up and get selected for a market research interview, they will give me an Amazon voucher. All you need to do is enter my name (Ali Hudson) on the 'how did you hear about us' box on the registration form here.

Right, that's quite enough advertising for one day - onwards....

 

 

The story within the pages

Last post, I was slightly circumspect about the tale behind my paper leaves - I wasn't too sure that writing about it was okay with the people involved, but now the 'thumbs up' have been given, I can share their backstory properly with you all. These leaves are part of a commission. A paper installation for the Lancaster Literature Festival.

The brief was to create something three dimensional using upcycled books for a truly vast space in the beautiful building where the festival is based. I could hardly contain my joy at being asked. How often is one given carte blanche to let the imagination run riot?

But I needed to rein myself in somewhat, because the deadline? Tight, tight, tight. And it needed to be easy to install and transportable too. Leaves seemed somehow appropriate - from trees through paper to books and back again, the journeys that the published word takes and all kinds of other, semi-articulated reasons.

And so this week has been buried under a sea of book pages, where I wield my scalpel and conjure up leaf shapes to sew into the long chains which will twirl from the roof space. And in a teeny tiny way, take their place alongside people like Carol Ann Duffy, Anne Fine, Kate Clanchy, Ali Shaw, Amy Sackville, Ian Rankin and Betsy Tobin. Not to mention the work of Charles Dickens and Edgar Allan Poe, though they will not be making personal appearances. Bit like me - clearly I am in the very best of company.

But I so wish I could be there. For the incredible line up of speakers, of course, but partly to give a giant hug to the fairy blog-mother whose kind words put my name out there and allowed me to take part in what is going to be an incredible festival. She's shy, but the sharp eyed readers amongst you, who read both our blogs (and there are many, I think) might well have made out the link between us. You really have no idea how much of my confidence you've given back to me. And I am ridiculously grateful.

Leaves

Plenty of leafiness here today. First, on a hand printed muslin lavender sachet which arrived in the post from Constança - muito obrigada - ele é lindo

And a seasonal project. Involving an awful lot of hand-cut leaves. I have scalpel wielder's finger, but high hopes that it will be worth it.

 

 

A binary Birthday

This boy-child of mine turned 10 today.  Ten. I am still not sure how that happened.

It's a funny thing, the birthdays of children - particularly significant ones. And Mark keeps reminding me that double-digits is a very meaningful landmark.

Part of me believes that the milestone is his alone and yet I know that his narrative is a portion of my own. Or at least some of it - the part that he shares with me and the pieces of family life we lead as a unit and not as individuals.

Any mother has a deep sense of who their child is. But it strikes me that as they grow older, this is based on less and less tangible evidence. A function of their fuller lives and their need to develop independence from us.

When Mark was small, he didn't sleep and he craved constant interaction. I spent hour upon hour pacing the swirly grey carpet. Singing, rocking him, reading to him. It was exhausting to the point that I completely lost the ability to see the bigger picture. And I was at a pretty low ebb, when a woman named Janice gave me the gift of her wisdom. She  told me that in these hours, these endless extra hours that I spent with him, I would receive the gift of really knowing my child.

I know this boy, and I find myself willing that over the next ten years, that there are enough glimpses into his existence as an individual for me to continue to know him. It is, indeed, a privilege.