One month ago, I published my first post on My Instruction Manual!

So far, I’ve published 26 posts (including this one), reached 364 subscribers (sort of), and had visitors from 47 countries (including Nigeria, Brunei and Guernsey).

To celebrate this mini-milestone, I wanted to take a moment to look back on some of the highlights (and lowlights).

Most viewed posts

1. Welcome to My Instruction Manual, in which I lay out what inspired the blog and what it’s going to be about.
2. My Father’s Day Pledge 2017, in which I update a post about my son Bryson, one of the most important pieces I have written
3. When Bad Things Make Us Better, in which I argue that bad things don’t happen to good people; bad things make us better people.
4. My Kidney Transplant Story, an excerpt of a soon-to-be released book about my kidney disease and transplant
5. How Your Job Change Who You Are, in which I reveal that I allowed my chosen profession to get in the way of my happiness

Least viewed post

Not a lot of love for manatees! Or maybe it has more to do with my sense of humor. Other than the one I published yesterday, my least viewed post is the one I published on Father’s Day, What Do Manatees Like To Eat, in which I share some dad jokes about manatees. The post also has no comments. This is your chance to be the first to take on my manatee joke challenge!

Most liked post

The post that got the most likes was also one of the shortest I’ve written. (Does that mean I need to be more brief?). Impossible is a Dare talks about how it’s not enough to believe we can accomplish almost anything. We need to believe we can accomplish anything.

Most discussed post

The most viewed post was also the most discussed. Welcome to My Instruction Manual has 25 comments. But How Complaining Kills Happiness is a close second, with 22 comments. This recent post argues that complaining is toxic, killing our happiness and making us less attractive to those around us.

Readership by country

Overall, I’ve received the greatest number of followers from Canada, which makes sense since that’s where I’m based and where most of the contacts in my social networks are located.

But this week, the scales have tipped and I’m getting more readers from the United States. This is good news since it means I’m getting an increasing number of followers from outside my own social network, people who are specifically interested in self improvement and personal development. Rounding out the Top 5 countries are the United Kingdom, India and Australia.

Readership by source

Facebook has been my best source of incoming traffic followed by Twitter, the WordPress Reader, LinkedIn and search engines. SEO was by far the largest source of traffic at keithmcarthur.ca, but it will take work and time before search engines weight my blog better.

Followers

I was surprised, but pleased, to learn that WordPress will transfer followers from one blog to another. It took a few days after my request, but WordPress kindly transferred 311 followers from keithmcarthur.ca to myinstructionmanual.com. Since I’ve launched this blog, I’ve welcomed more than 50 new followers.

What about you?

And you? What do you think of the first month of My Instruction Manual What posts did you like most? Are there any you didn’t enjoy? Are there other topics you want to see me cover?