Finding fame in China?

Hey everyone!

I usually post just the once a week, every Thursday, but I thought I’d break up my “big 3-0” trip and post something a little more tongue-in-cheek.

I think it’s a decent little community here on WordPress and I love connecting with so many of you who’ve taken an interest in my blog. Some of you will have perhaps noticed in the last few months I’ve been reading, liking and commenting on ‘old’ posts.

The reality is I was completely up to date with my blog-reading in mid November and then a Thanksgiving trip to the US threw me out of sync and it wasn’t really until this year that I started playing catch up again.

Theoretically I could have just skipped what I’d missed but I was determined to read every post I’d missed from everyone I follow. It might have meant I was reading Christmas-themed posts in February or March but I haven’t found it a chore. I genuinely enjoy the connections on here and genuinely follow blogs I enjoy reading so I’ve wanted to read anything I missed being posted at the time.

I’m not sure the latter is actually true of some bloggers. I pay little attention to my follower count as it doesn’t count for much unless those followers actually engage with your posts.

Which leads me on to the basis of this post. I don’t take blogging particularly seriously. I enjoy it but mostly as a hobby. I’m not particularly good at promoting my posts, I don’t worry about making them SEO friendly or doing any of the blogging things you’re supposed to do to be “successful”.

That said I do still take an interest in my blogging stats. I try not to be too disheartened by them but I do find them interesting to look at. Ultimately you get what you put out in the blogging community so if I’m not promoting the blog properly I can’t be too disheartened when people aren’t actually reading it. So for a long-time blogger my numbers are pretty modest.

In the month of May however there has been one stand-out stat that I can’t make sense of. ‘Jason Likes To Travel’ seems to be booming in search-engine referrals from Baidu, predominantly coming from people in China.

So much so that my search engine referrals alone have been higher in May than they have been in the entirety of the prior four months of 2020. The number of site visitors in China this month have been higher than the entirety of more than three years of blogging as ‘Jason Likes To Travel’.

Given its population I ordinarily get very very few visitors from China. When looking at my all time views, China doesn’t even make my top 20 countries for visitors. The UK and USA is understandably streets ahead but China is nowhere near.

Yet for whatever reason, in May 2020, China is going crazy for my blog. Admittedly I’ve neglected the likes of Twitter this month and I’m terrible at promoting anything on Instagram but search-engine referrals are actually one of the biggest causes of my blog traffic this month. It’s baffling to me.

Is it just one person in China continually using Baidu to find me? I don’t think I have any Chinese followers. Is it several different people somehow finding me? Has my website been flagged up somewhere within the Chinese online environment that has highlighted my blog? What are people searching to find me?

I can usually make sense of my numbers each week or month but the curious case of China has really intrigued me. I’ve had hits from Baidu nearly every day this month. Has anyone else noticed a boom in their Baidu numbers or Chinese visitors or am I just special? Perhaps I’ve found fame in China and I’ll soon be the most read blog in the entirety of Asia!

Joking aside, I’d love to actually understand why I’ve suddenly “cracked” China. Please stick around if you’re reading this and thinking “that’s me!”. Haha.

FYI I don’t speak, nor understand any Chinese, but I thought I’d personally thank my new fan club. I know Google is banned in China so feel free to lay blame at Google Translate if it has wronged me in the below translation haha.

謝謝! 我愛你!

Anyway, a short and sweet post but hopefully one to tickle you as we reach the end of the month. Enjoy the rest of your Sunday, wherever in the world you may be! I’m off to start planning my China trip! Haha.

I’ll be back on Thursday with the next piece of the big 3-0 trip.

Stay tuned!

Jason