2014 in Review

It's a new year and I hope yours is happy so far. Before I get going with my regular posts, it's time for a little self congratulatory reflection on this blog and the past year.

In the wake of tragedy, I wrote a post that has garnered more likes, comments, and shares than anything I've ever composed - far more than I ever expected. That was my letter to the students at my high school. You can read it here. After that, my top five blog posts written in 2014 are as follows.

1. The emasculating father
2. What about happy endings?
3. Life Lessons Learned
4. To be stingy
5. We need more geeks

Top five posts from years past:
1. The unexpected side effects of inhaling Cascade dishwasher detergent
2. Facepalm Friday
3. Faith & Pop Culture: Counting Stars
4. My not-so grown up Christmas list
5. 5 Stages of No-Shave November Grief

Without a doubt, most of my traffic is referred from social media. However, people still use the google every now and then - especially people panicking after accidentally inhaling dish detergent. Most search queries that lead to The Faithful Geek are understandable, but there are a few that made me scratch my head. For example:

"how could it be helping the middle ctocking in the dackness if reconigize the end in the beginning" (misspellings not mine)
"red meat and cold showers"
"the melody in down on the corner by ccr"
"victoriousm nakid gerls hot" (again, misspellings not committed by me)

One of the most fascinating blog statistics for me to look at is the location of my readers. It excites the geography nerd in me. 2014 held a couple of surprises. This was the first year that I had readers in all 50 states. It is also the first year that there was another state that had more visitors than my homeland Idaho. The top ten states that visited are as follows.

1. Washington
2. Idaho
3. California
4. Wyoming
5. Oregon
6. Texas
7. Arizona
8. Oklahoma
9. Colorado
10. Florida

Outside of the US, top 10 foreign visits came from:
1. Canada
2. Germany
3. United Kingdom
4. Brazil
5. France
6. Australia
7. Japan
8. India
9. Philippines
10. Russia

A few other interesting observations. This is the first year that tablets were used more frequently than mobile devices with iPads leading the way. Chrome is the most frequently used browser for readers visiting this blog. But for little browsers that could - 3% of my traffic came on Amazon Silk - thanks for my readers using their Kindle!

2014 was a big transitional year for me. It was a of changes and challenges. But it was also a year of growth. I am thrilled to jump into 2015. Thank you for taking this journey with me.