Different people do different things on the first of the month – and indeed for many people it is just another day with no significance.

For me it is a moment of some excitement because I check the total number of hits that our various blogs and web sites have had that month.

I know that will seem strange, because it is something that many people would not think about – indeed it is clear when one looks at them that many web sites have never been changed in months, even years.

On the other hand I micro manage some of our web sites and blogs – not all of them I admit but some of them – and when I am doing that I study each day and each month’s figures with care to see the impact each story had.

Today is a good day chez Tony Attwood because my biggest blog (set up specifically to sell one book) has taken another step up and got 120,000 individual readers in November. (We classify an individual reader as a person who has been onto the site twice in the month but not stayed for more than an hour – that way we cut out all the auto processes that can artificially affect numbers).

That figure I can understand because the site deals with a popular everyday subject. More interesting are the figures on two smaller sites.

One deals with events in the world of one football club 100 years ago – and I have to say you can’t get much more obscure than that. After 3 months that has hit 20,000 readers in one month.

And lastly a site that just puts up copies of the email adverts we send out to schools. I only started this in September, just to see what happens, without any expectation. Again, after 2.5 months we have hit a readership of 20,000 individual readers in a month.

What does this show?

Certainly that if you want to reach a wide audience it can be done if you nuture and work on your blog. But even specialist areas can raise an audience on a blog.

I am more than happy to talk about what and how we have done at HHM in this regard – give me a call. 01536 399 000 or Tony@hamilton-house.com

Tony Attwood