Laura Vanderkam had a post last week that inspired a lot of interesting comments. One of the commenters noted that hir most popular blog posts were always the sad/drama-filled ones and more cheerful posts weren’t so popular.
So, I was curious to see if that held true for us. (On that day last week, our own posting was a lengthy gripe about the lawn, which did not get so many comments as say, our more positive posts about things like getting tenure or having a baby…)
So here’s what our wordpress history has said:
These are the posts that got the most views in 2013.
- 1 Mr. Money Moustache vs. Laura Vanderkam 69 comments December 2012
- 2 Ask the Grumpies: TIAA-Cref vs. Vanguard Lifecycle funds 8 comments January 2013
- 3 You know you’re in the South when… 59 comments July 2011
- 4 Stupid “opinions” on gifted kids 48 comments May 2013
- 5 Ask the Grumpies: Should I get a PhD in Accounting? 23 comments March 2013
These are the posts that got the most views in 2012.
- 1 You know you’re in the South when… 58 comments July 2011
- 2 How to write a response to reviewers 17 comments February 2011
- 3 Are professors off during the summer? 18 comments March 2011
- 4 Graduate school grades 17 comments April 2011
- 5 It’s not really your money if you’re in debt 33 comments September 2012
From 2011:
- 1 Getting an additional job to pay off debt is actually worth more than the salary… 18 comments October 2011
- 2 Are you doing better than your parents? 46 comments July 2011
- 3 Sharing finances 64 comments September 2011
- 4 There is no “best”! 35 comments February 2011
- 5 Why I’m not a guilt-stricken mother and why I have it all and why the patriarchy sucks 47 comments April 2011
These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.
1. How the used car market is like health insurance September 2010 25 comments
2. About July 2010
3. Mortgage Update and a worry December 2010 34 comments
4. Why I’m in no hurry to become a millionaire September 2010 18 comments
5. Searches that find our blog amuse us September 2010 5 comments
Many of our most popular pieces are pf posts about how we don’t need to go to extremes in money matters (or parenting or, you know, life). We even have a post contemplating why they’re so popular!
In terms of most comments:
1. Delurk for us today!
2. Musings on why weight targets bother me
3. Homeschooling: A deliberately controversial post
4. Do the holidays stress you out?
5. ******* creationists!
IIRC, the weight one and the creationist one resulted in some nutty commenter going crazy in the comments section. But none of the above posts are about truly terrible things happening to us, except maybe me complaining about how hard it is to learn about evolution when you live in the Bible Belt.
So… I think we must have either pretty amazing readers who aren’t attracted to us for Schadenfreude reasons or we must be filling some kind of SEO niche that isn’t predicated on misery, but instead on redneck jokes, Mr. Money Moustache, and the love of a happy medium. (Also, man, we must have been on fire back in 2011!)
If you have a blog, what are your most popular posts like? Is your readership misery-seeking? If you don’t have a blog, what are your favorite kinds of posts and what kinds of posts do you keep coming back to check on?