April was the first full month for for the website Gwelf.com and the response from friends, family and people around Guelph has been great.
While I am nowhere close to a busy site or anything that is worth bragging about I did manage to get 3,859 readers last month. The interesting part of this number is where everyone came from as 3,070 came from Canada (1,464 from Guelph), 260 from Singapore, 237 from the United States (40 from Google) and the rest from various other countries, a total of 57 different countries make up my readership.
I didn’t think I would get as much local readership but it is nice as a few people within the community in Guelph have referenced me to my blog and even the founder of the company I work for has found my blog thanks to Google.
I promise to eat out more often once I am downtown and do more reviews of businesses and restaurants in Guelph as I think it is nice to share this wonderful city with others and help the community maybe even find something new.
Over the last month a few interesting stories have come from the blog:
The first one that sticks in my mind is the founder of the company I am working for emailing me and commenting on the blog and then during a meeting making a direct reference to me not living on Willow road. While I had and will keep the blog clean this gives me even more reason to do so.
The second one that was interesting was when I was looking for a place to rent I had people on the other end of the phone ask if I was “Stephen the Blogger who ran Gwelf.com” as they had been reading the blog. It was interesting that simply saying my name was Stephen and I was looking for a place to rent immediately they thought of my blog. Wonder if any other “Stephen’s” where getting the same treatment over the last month.
Third thing that referenced my blog was even stranger and actually had a nice result. Seems the Fido store that I reviewed had several bad reports back on its staff and about Paul the person that served me and was really helpful, which I mentioned in the blog. Somehow the management of Fido found my blog and read my post on Paul and Fido and used it to help them validate that Paul is a good employee and while everyone has a bad day Paul does have good days. No idea if my blog had much weight but it did manage to get back to me via 3 other people that Fido was happier with Paul thanks to my blog.
Other things that have happened thanks to the blog is that some of the staff within the company I work where able to learn more about me and have initiated friendships thanks to reading it. I have even had people from outside of Guelph that where just looking to see if they also wanted to move to Guelph read, comment and email me about my blog and Guelph.
I glad that I moved to Guelph, glad to be working with the company I am with and happy that I have taken the plunge into the Blogging world and started this blog.
1 comments:
Guelph is a mess. Let me count the ways:
1. Traffic is a mess. Whom every engineered the city streets should be ashamed, what, with all the extreme congestion. Moreover, I have never been on the road with as many poor and dangerous drives.
2. This is a bedroom community i.e. if you have money and can purchase a nice apartment or house you might enjoy the small-town charm* of Guelph. If you don't, your stuck living in piss-pour apartment complexes.
*Qualify: this is not a small-town. Supposedly, this is a college town. Believe me, this is not a college town! I have lived in many college towns and this is by far the lamest of the lame: a small selection of restaurants, coffee shops, cd stores, etc.
3. The weather is miserable from October-present (first nice weather in almost 8 months). You might get a month of actual spring-like weather followed by summers where the temp hovers around 85 + 85% humidity. You might as well sit in a sauna.
4. Statistical fact: only 25% of the Guelph population has a college degree. In my opinion, this adds to the large economic disparity that pervades the city. If you have money, Guelph is great, as are most places if you have money. If you poor, which many residents in Guelph are, it’s not an enjoyable experience.
I could go on and on. The punch line: Guelph is not the next best thing since sliced bread!
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