USA, Russia, Germany, Sweden, United Kingdom... Readers Worldwide

You're reading a blog, but then again... you probably knew that. This month marks 15 years since I first started blogging. In September 2005, I created a blog as I prepared for my solo run across America in 2006. I've blogged on and off since then, but for the past four years I've been a steady blogger. About a quarter of all websites on the Internet are blogs, and 77 percent of Internet users read blogs regularly. Most bloggers are in the 30-39 age group, so at age 55 I'm definitely on the senior side of blogging. Also, 34 percent of current bloggers are in their first year of blogging.

The average person spends 37 seconds reading a blog post, which isn't much. That's why you'll see that I put certain sentences of my writings in bold text -- to help the 'skimmers' get the gist of what I'm writing about. However, for those who choose to read a blog post in its entirety, the ideal reading time for a post is 7 minutes. My posts take less time than that to read because I know people have busy lives and schedules and can't spend many minutes reading. Two-thirds of bloggers admit that they blog to try and make money. I've never earned one penny from blogging, and have no desire to push ads on this blog to try and get visitors to purchase things. That's not why I write in this blog.

This year, I've been averaging about 1,500 visitors each month to this blog. Most of my blog traffic comes from Google -- as a result of keyword searches that people do. There are days when posts that I made from previous years all of a sudden start getting traffic, likely due to the keywords related to the post. Nearly two-thirds of my blog readers are from the United States, with Russia being the country with the second highest number of visitors. My blog contains an easy translation tool, so those visiting from other countries can easily translate the text into their own language. Germany, Sweden and the United Kingdom round out the top five countries that visit my blog.

So far for 2020, I've posted 152 writings in this blog -- which averages to be one post every two days. There are three months remaining in 2020 and it is during the final quarter of the year that I tend to write less due to the busyness of the holiday season. To those who stop by and read this blog now and then, I say thank you.

From Him, Through Him, For Him (Romans 11:36),

Paul J. Staso

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Visit my YouTube channel -- https://www.youtube.com/user/pacetrek

Click on any of the links below to see some of my adventure photos:

• United States in 2006 (3,260 miles solo in 108 days at age 41)
• Montana in 2008 (620 miles solo in 20 days at age 43)
• Alaska in 2009 (500 miles solo in 18 days at age 44)
• Germany in 2010 (500 miles solo in 21 days at age 45)
• The Mojave Desert in 2011 (506 miles solo in 17 days at age 46)
• Various Photos From Mileposts Gone By
• Students Worldwide Who Ran With Me Virtually
• Roadside Sights From My Running Adventures
• Some Cycling Moments From The Past

Will You Be In The 29% Of Those Who Will Read All 535 Words Here?

I started this blog in June 2016 and in that time I've written about 250,000 words here. As many of you know, I had kept a blog for years as I ran across states and countries promoting youth health and fitness from 2006 through 2011. However, I ultimately removed the blog from the Internet in 2012 and took four years away from writing. Today, I'm posting my 400th blog entry after 3 years of writing. I average about 130 writings each year at this blog, and I aim to primarily target the topics of family, faith and fitness. Health and nutrition has always been important to me, so I try to have an array of postings in those areas.

A recent survey of over 1,000 bloggers found that the most common reason for blogging is to make money, with two-thirds of all bloggers naming it as their main motivation. I don't -- and never have -- made one penny off of my blog writings. Look around this blog. Do you see any advertisements? No, you don't. I will not use this blog to promote products, services, events, people, etc. and I am not motivated by money to maintain this blog. I write here because I enjoy writing and sharing information on certain topics. This blog doesn't cost me one penny to maintain. It's on the free Blogger service and I just login when I feel compelled to write.

The most common challenge bloggers face is getting traffic to their blogs. A significant amount of this blog's traffic comes from people who locate my writings from Google searches. Most of my blog audience is from the United States, but each day I have visitors from all over the world who read my writings. For instance, based on my blog statistics software, in the past few weeks I've had visitors from the United Kingdom, Germany, Russia, India, France, South Korea, Greece, Canada, Portugal, Indonesia, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, Guatemala, Japan, Columbia, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Brazil and Sweden. This blog offers a translation tool so that regardless of what language the visitor speaks and reads, he or she can choose their language to have this blog's content instantly translated.

On average, I publish about 3 times per week. I know that people's time is valuable, so I keep my blog writings to around 500 to 600 words (requiring about 3 minutes to read). Surveys show that 55 percent of blog readers only spend 15 seconds going through an article. You can see that in each of my writings I bold primary sentences. This is because 43 percent of people only skim blog articles. I want to be sure that visitors read at least the main points of my posts. If you have read every word of this blog post so far, you are in the 29 percent of readers who actually read an entire blog carefully.

The latest research shows that 77 percent of Internet users read blogs. That's a lot of people! I enjoy writing this blog and am happy to reach the 400 mark in 3 years. I'll keep writing and I hope you'll keep reading! And by the way, you just read 535 words.

From Him, Through Him, For Him (Romans 11:36),

Paul J. Staso

_______________________________________

Visit my YouTube channel -- https://www.youtube.com/user/pacetrek

Click on any of the links below to see some of my adventure photos:

• United States in 2006 (3,260 miles solo in 108 days at age 41)
• Montana in 2008 (620 miles solo in 20 days at age 43)
• Alaska in 2009 (500 miles solo in 18 days at age 44)
• Germany in 2010 (500 miles solo in 21 days at age 45)
• The Mojave Desert in 2011 (506 miles solo in 17 days at age 46)
• Various Photos From Mileposts Gone By
• Students Worldwide Who Ran With Me Virtually
• Roadside Sights From My Running Adventures
• Some Cycling Moments From The Past