Wino4Life Blog Turns One Year Old!

As 2014 is upon us - I wanted to take a quick look back at the last year.  I started this blog in December just over a year ago, the first piece of the puzzle for me to pursue my passion and make a second career in the wine industry.  Throughout the year I (mostly) kept to my format of a weekly tip, a weekly longer post, and a weekly review.   Looking forward into 2014, I plan to keep the wine information coming, but also begin to focus on food and wine pairing - which is where I believe you can truly experience all that wine has to offer.

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The majority of the wine I review are wines that I select and buy myself. Over the course of the year I did receive a few bottles from wineries to sample, but mostly I'm a consumer looking for great wine - and want to help you be successful in finding wines that you consider great.

I use Google Blogger to manage this blog, and it provides me with information about the number of page views, and where my readers are in this big world of wine.  I remember back when I first started looking at the statistics each day, just hoping someone would find my blog - and more importably find it useful! 

After a little over a year of blogging - on a typical day I will have around 100 page views, and have broken 200 a day on occasions.  Here are some of the stats from my blogs first year - I hope to be able to do many more of these annual "look backs" ... because I truly love doing this!

Pageview Totals

All Time (about 13 months worth): 23,829

Pageviews in December, 2013: 3,527 

Not the most exciting statistics I know, but to me it means someone is reading what I write - and that is my motivation!

I was also fascinated to see where my readers throughout the year were located.

Top 10 Wino4Life Reader Locations in Order:

1. USA
2. Ukraine
3. China
4. UK
5. Canada
6. France
7. Germany
8. Poland
9. Israel
10. Australia 

I would never have guessed I would have any substantial international readers, let alone thousands of page views from places like the Ukraine and China - how cool is that?

I can also see the web browsers (Internet Explorer is tops with 35% of pageviews), computer operating system (Microsoft Windows dominates at 64%), and referring website (Google crushes all others) - but who cares about that!

In coming up with topics for 2014, I wanted to look at what people were reading the most.

Top 5 Wino4Life Posts

1. Weekly Wine Review - Red Blend - 2010 Columbia Crest H3 Les Chevaux
2. Be Adventurous and Try New Wines - Nine Things I'm Glad I Tried
3. Weekly Wine Review - California Red - NV Smart Cookie Blend
4. Wino4Life Product Review: WineSkin Wine Travel Bag
5. Take a Journey of Food & Wine Discovery - Try a Chef's Tasting Menu with Wine Pairings

Not sure exactly what to make of this list.  Wine (and wine product) reviews are definitely represented, and I contribute the #1 to the fact that Columbia Crest is a brand available everywhere. I always thought of their wine as the cheap grocery store stuff - but this H3 line is some very nice stuff for under $20.  The posts in positions #2 and #5 are about trying and discovering new things... a good theme to carry on into next year!

One statistic that is a bit disappointing are the low number of comments on my posts. I've had less than 100 total comments during the year, and too many of them are ridiculous spam comments.  My thought is that with Twitter and Facebook - there is less communication in blog comments, and more in social media...at least that's my optimistic view of the statistic!  In 2014 I'm going to work on using Twitter to get my information about there and point people to find this blog and perhaps become a Wino... 4... Life!

Social Media Followers

Twitter: 470

Facebook: 16

I have a Wino4Life Facebook page, but focus mostly on Twitter.  One of my goals in 2014 is to provide more tidbits of information directly in Tweets, whereas in 2013 I mostly posted links to blog posts, and my buying & drinking activity as posted by CellarTracker.com.

Anyway - I was fascinated in looking back at the progress of my blog over the year, and look forward to continuing to grow it in 2014. I hope you'll be a part of it...

Now I'll close with one last statistic... my enjoyment meter... how much I enjoy bringing you all this information and my humble opinion on various examples of fermented grape juice...OFF THE CHARTS!!! Happy New Year... and see you throughout the year!!!