Here’s the tip.  Do not delete your most popular entry.

 

Several weeks ago, I posted a long article called “Art, Painting and Why I Blog.”  Two things about this post – One, It was very long, so I put it up as 6 separate posts:  “Art, Painting and Why I Blog Part 1”, “Art, Painting and Why I Blog Part 2,” etc.  Two, It was also the most popular post I’d ever put up.  The day I posted it, my viewership tripled and I haven’t gotten back to that number again yet.

 

The day after I posted “Art, Painting and Why I Blog”, a friend reported to me that he enjoyed the post, but it was a little clumsy to read the 6 parts, because of the nature of blogging/blog posts –  when he got to the bottom of part one, he’d have to scroll back through it and then to find the beginning of part 2, etc., as opposed to a book where you just start and keep going.

 

The next day I revisited my post and thought “He’s right!”, so I went back to my 6 separate entries and turned it into one big one, deleting parts 2 through 6.

 

Hey?  Where’d all the readers go?

 

Just yesterday I learned about a feature called “incoming links” that tells you where people link to your blog from and I looked into mine.  Lo and behold!  I discovered other sites were linking to blog entries that I had deleted (restructured).  I also learned of incoming links to some of my other posts that I had changed the title of, and now those incoming links just pointed to nowhere.

 

 You live you learn.