Why I blog

I came across a post from Seth Godin about loading your blog up with a bunch of traffic.  After blogging for over a year now, I've struggled with trying to write posts that chase traffic versus writing about things I truly care about.  The problem is that I measure the success of my blog with traffic, and I'm addicted to watching my traffic. 

I track my blog statistics in several places; Google Analytics, Performancing Statistics, BBClone, AWStats, and Drupal statistics.  This obsessive compulsive stats tracking really takes the pleasure out of blogging.  When I have a bad stats day, or when I realize that 90% of my traffic comes from the trackback spam problem I had, I personally have a bad day.  I'm letting my blog statistics rule my life!

So, in a strained moment of personal development, I hereby am going to give up my Performancing, Drupal and BBClone statistics.  The other statistics I will resolve to look at only once daily (because that's how often they are updated, and GAnalytics is just cool).  I'm also going to list the reasons why I blog.  If you struggle with this as well, write the reasons why you blog on your blog and let me know.  I'll link to as many 'Why I blog' posts as I can.

• I blog because I want to improve my writing skills
• I blog because I believe I have information that I can share that will help other people
• I blog because I want a place where I decide everything
• I blog because I want to provide a record of my life for myself
• I blog because I want to build my online persona.

I'll add to this list as time goes on.