In lieu of a "How People Found Me" post in December, I thought I'd tip my hat to the New Year by summarizing my site stats for all of 2007. I know, I know - it's too much excitement to bear all at once. Go ahead, take a minute. I'll wait...

Better? OK, on to the fun:

Summary Stats

Visits:	18,322
Pageviews:	28,486
Pages/Visit:	1.55
Bounce Rate:	79.30%
Avg. Time on Site:	0:47
% New Visits:	88.65%

Well, it's not quite USA Today. But on an average day, fifty people around the world click over to my website and look at an average of 78 web pages. Frankly, that's a larger readership than I ever thought I'd have in any medium, let alone one that costs me nothing and offers me completely creative control. Thanks to all who stopped by last year - I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

The Top 10 Pages

Page Name	Pageviews	% of Total
Concert Review: Billy Joel at Madison Square Garden	4,020	14.11%
I Should Be Sleeping (main page)	2,824	9.91%
Celebrity Look-Alike	1,706	5.98%
Taxi!	1,333	4.67%
Billy Joel plays the oldies…	685	2.40%
Making Yahoo Mail Work with Outlook 2003	680	2.38%
ISBS Review: "All My Life" by Billy Joel	594	2.08%
Sherry	586	2.05%
Brian	548	1.92%
Billy Joel - All My Life lyrics	538	1.88%

I like this mix a lot. It's Billy Joel, Technology, a few random odds and ends, and some personal info. Not a bad way to describe the site. The only thing missing that would really round out the year is the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree, which just missed this list at #13 (424 pageviews).

The Top 10 Keywords

Keyword	Visits	% of Total
billy joel concert review	524	3.99%
billy joel concert reviews	386	2.94%
celebrity look alike	269	2.05%
billy joel concert playlist	184	1.40%
brian greenberg	114	0.87%
billy joel opening act	113	0.86%
dell wl6000 120v 6.1 stereo speakers with subwoofer	104	0.79%
billy joel all my life lyrics	90	0.69%
billy joel all my life	83	0.63%
liberty devito	82	0.62%

6,653 unique keyword searches drove 72% of the site's traffic here in 2007. I've had a lot of fun this year with the keyword searches, pointing out the stranger ones (not to mention the most pornographic ones). This list is a little dull, though, since the queries that bubble up to the top tend to be the more mundane ones that hundreds (or dozens?) of people would type exactly the same way.

The Top 10 Referring Sites

Referring Site	Visits	% of Total
gothamist.com	892	22.78%
images.google.com	622	15.89%
blogger.com	460	11.75%
google.com	313	7.99%
bloglines.com	233	5.95%
jeffporten.com	98	2.50%
scalzi.com	74	1.89%
burlaki.com	64	1.63%
mail.google.com	62	1.58%
jason.bennion.com	60	1.53%

21% of the site's traffic come from referrals like the ones above. As above, I'm very pleased with this mix. Gothamist was the flash in the pan (97% of its visits came in a four-day span, September 18-21). After that, it's the corporate feeders (google, blogger, and bloglines) and my fellow bloggers (Jeff Porten, John Scalzi, Ilya Burlak, and Jason Bennion) that drive my traffic. When Page & Brin founded Google, they referred to hyperlinking as the web's equivalent to peer-reviewed journals. I'm pleased to have such distinguished colleagues. Much obliged, gentlemen...

The Top 10 Referring Countries

Country	Visits	% of Total
United States	14,118	77.05%
Canada	1,068	5.83%
United Kingdom	827	4.51%
Australia	192	1.05%
Germany	152	0.83%
India	151	0.82%
Philippines	142	0.78%
Netherlands	100	0.55%
Spain	79	0.43%
Japan	78	0.43%

As you can see by the map, I had visitors from 129 countries in 2007, basically spanning the entire globe. We see so many graphics like this around the web these days that we take it for granted, but it's just insane that the words I write are read so broadly around the world. Obviously, the large bulk of my visits come from within the United States, but the rest of the top 10 represents almost 3,000 visits from four of the world's seven continents. The complete list covers six continents (come on, Antarctica, pull your weight around here!). So, to my international friends, I say a hearty Hello! G'Day! Guten Tag! Namaste! Huy! Hallo! Hola! and Konnichi wa! It's nice to have you here...

(Oh, and to the one guy in Liechtenstein - Hoi!)

In Conclusion
A part of me wants to take this opportunity to think about how I can broaden the reach of this site, and maybe see 35,000-40,000 visitors next year, as opposed to the 18,000+ I have today. Then the sane part of me smacks that first part of me upside the head and says, "Idiot! Don't overthink these things." (Note: never underestimate the pain involved when one part of you smacks another part of you upside the head - Ed.). If there are lessons learned from 2007, they are these: write about what everyone's talking about, pray to the Google Gods, and the pageviews will come. Also, it helps to have an occasional "blog event" on your site (like the burning taxi or the Rockefeller Center Tree). I'll try to look for those in '08 as best I can, or maybe even make them up as I go along. As long as it's fun for me and entertaining for all of you. That, after all, is the point.

Happy New Year, everyone...