Who hasn’t wanted to be a rock star. Two weekends ago I got to experience it without warning. What an amazing experience.
What happened?
On Friday I checked my email and noticed that I started getting a ton of new subscribers all at one time. I looked at my comments feed and found hundreds more. My first reaction was that I was being spammed. When I read the comments and list of new subscribers they all looked legitimate.
How could so many people all at one time become aware of my site? Someone I know with a lot of friends must have promoted my site to their network. My sister-in-law Shawn has the biggest network known to man, but even this would have been extraordinary for her network. Thousands of people from all over the world were coming to my site.
Then it hit me, “wouldn’t it be cool if WordPress somehow featured my site?”. I didn’t have any reason to believe it could happen but when I looked at the WordPress homepage, I saw my site among the others featured. I had no warning.
By the end of the day on Friday, I had a total of 3,948 hits in one day. This was unbelievable. My normal hit count had been well under 100. I later found out that WordPress posts, “Freshly Pressed” Monday through Friday. Because my site happened to be posted on Friday, it would be “Freshly Pressed” through the weekend.
Saturday evening I had closed to 4,000 hits for the day but by midnight I reached my all time high of 4,791 hits. Sunday was much the same with over 4,000 hits. Before “Freshly Pressed” was changed to a new list of blog sites (mid-morning Monday), my blog had a total of 14,985 hits since Friday.
Affirmation
Before I publish any blog post, I try to pause and ask myself if the post is authentic or is it somehow wrongly motivated. I write to a very targeted audience that is visioned in my mind. The comments I received that weekend (and continue to receive today) are affirming to know that people are able to use the content I blog about. Comments have extended the conversation. Those who read the comments are helped by their comments and suggestions. The blog post just starts the conversation. The real stars are those who post comments.
How do you get your blog “Freshly Pressed”?
How in the world did my blog become selected to be “Freshly Pressed”? I found that WordPress has some criteria to be selected. I would love your site to be featured. See how your site measures up.
- Write unique content that’s free of bad stuff. Everything in my blog is original thought or provides credit to the source.
- Include images or other visuals. Most of the images are my original photos or artwork from my kids. When it isn’t I link the visual back to the source of the visual (as I did in my featured blog).
- Add tags. I always tag with key words that I think represent the content of the post.
- Cap off your post with a compelling headline. I struggle with this but try to create a captivating title that invites someone to want to read.
- Aim for typo-free content. Although this is my aim, I admittedly will have mistakes. My posts must be below the threshold of mistakes. (incidentally, I found a typo on the featured post Monday after all the attention).
Thank You
Everything about my blog looks differently now. I have an increased sense of responsibility and purpose and a ton of new friends. To everyone who hit my site and especially those who subscribed or left a comment, thank you. I am still catching up on the hundreds of comments I received that weekend.
Have you ever felt like a rock star? When have you been in the spotlight unexpectedly?
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You “simply inspire” me, Chris – write that down as a goal that has been met! Really, I looked around my house today and thought of all there is to do before we leave and I thought about trying a list (I hadn’t read your original post as it was when I was gone). So, I may just try it and let you know how I did on Friday! Ryan employs the write it down method regularly – often on several scarttered papers, though! My grandpa, Daddy Byge, always had lists in a spiral notebook much like Sue Ellen described Grandpa Hartman having. Remind me to tell you a story about that – this comment is becoming a blog! See you soon!
Awesome! I inspired Shawn. I’ll cross that off my list.
I’m looking forward to hearing your story and how your list worked for you. We are looking forward to seeing you on Friday.
Congrats man!
Thanks for the pointers on getting freshly pressed.
Thanks. I hope you can get freshly pressed. I like your site and even got an idea I may add to my site. I really like your goals and that you have announced them to the world.
Congrats on your achievement! ^.^
Thank you.
If you mean “have I ever felt inappropriately famous,” my answer is yes, it’s happened to me several times.
It’s easy to create moments like that once you have the hang of it. What is harder is giving that sort of moment momentum by following it up with similar moments.
With that in mind, I appreciate unexpected attention when it comes and recognize that I normally can’t return the same intensity, but that doesn’t mean I stop or even alter what I’m doing.
Good advice Chunter.
Congratulations! I’m sure the notoriety you received is just the beginning! Your posts are concise, wise, easy-to-read (regarding visual stimulus to a reader’s eyes), and relevant to people’s everyday lives. Thanks so much to you for sharing your gift! BTW, excellent photo in this post from two true rock stars!!!
Thank you Shawn. I really like the photo too. Once I settled on the title, I knew I had to use this photo.
Christopher,
Thanks for sharing this with the world. I pumped for you! I hope to be included on “freshly pressed” myself soon.
Keep living it forward,
Kent Julian
http://www.liveitforward.com
Thank so much Kent. You share a part of my Rock Star status and are always welcome back stage. You are a big part of why I am doing what I am doing today.
[...] great results in the work I produce. I also have had dismal results. My great results like being featured in WordPress was a result of writing months of blogs or, even just committing to setting up and starting a blog [...]