My 2010 blog wrapup - the top 5

countin' my chickens

Michelle over at  Collie Farm blog wrote a year-end summary of the activity on her blog, and I thought it was a good idea.  

The audience for this blog is pretty concentrated -- mostly in the United States and Canada, but with a good showing from both the United Kingdom and Australia.  I have a few hundred readers from other places -- you'll see the list later in this post. 

I've had, in round figures, around 100,000 unique visits this year. 

As for what people are looking for, take a look at this list and see if you find yourself:

You're in Australia, and you get here by using bing.com to search for "bruce king meat"
You're curious about what goose eggs taste like
You'd like to know what the coyote hunting regulations are
You're interested in eating horses (pro or con)
You want to can your own salmon
You're interested in reading about small farms and farm life
You'd like a picture of pigs doing something
  ...sleeping
  ...eating produce
  ...giving birth
  ...slaughter
You're a farmer and you want to
   ...feed pigs
   ...find out how much it costs to feed a pig
   ...find weaner pigs for sale
   ...learn more about cornish cross
You're thinking about buying your meat farm direct, and you want to
  ...figure out how much meat in half a hog
   ...how much half a hog weighs
  ...what it costs

The top-five most popular web pages
 
#1
By a margin of more than 3-1, this web page has been more popular than any other.  If you search the title of that posting on google, I show up as the #3 entry in the natural listings.  It's been linked to by over 50 websites.   I wrote it more than 2 years ago, and it is still drawing more hits than anything else.  Over 2,000 page views in the last 6 months. 

#2
The second most popular is about farm equipment, specifically chicken equipment.  If you're going to raise your own chickens and want to build your own brooder, this is your post. 

#3
People love drama, and there's nothing more dramatic than an all-in bet.  Win or lose, they're in it for all their chips.  That's the basis for the third most popular web page here.  The postmortem writeup I did about Rebecca Thistlewaite, TLC Ranch and Honestmeat.com (they're all the same thing) was both interesting from a people perspective and from a business perspective.    We all learned something from that exchange -- and the comments show a variety of views. 

#4
Buying direct from a farmer is gaining in popularity.   This post, talking about how much meat half a hog is, was #4 this year. 

#5
Speaking of meat, this post was the #5.  Here's a quote from the comment section:  "This article and writer should be jailed and fined. "  Jailed and fined!  Read it at your own risk!  You'll find it here.

Pageviews for the last 6 months of 2010.

United States:      68,681
Canada               5,515
United Kingdom       1,652
Australia            1,428
Germany                845
Denmark                445
Netherlands            279
New Zealand            172
India                  163
Russia                 114

Referring sites, last 6 months: 
Google.com         11,622
Google.ca           2,043
bing.com            1,032
search.yahoo.com    1,008
google.co.uk          921
google.com.au         596
homesteadingtoday.com 515
blogger.com           187

Search keywords
ebey farm                           450
ebeyfarm                            386
pressure canning salmon             213
bruce king meat                     113
canning salmon with pressure cooker 110
foodsaver v3825                      97
cornish cross chickens               80
ebey                                 78
canning salmon in pressure cooker    70