Beyond the Rhetoric

 

April 2009: A Rhetorical Retrospective

May 1st, 2009 by Michael Kwan

Another month has come and gone, so it’s time to take another retrospective on the month that we just endured. Many of us grudgingly dealt with our income tax returns. Some of us got caught up in the Susan Boyle bonanza. These days, some of us are growing increasingly concerned about the so-called swine flu.

Well, I’m not hitting up the news outlets today. Instead, we’re taking a glance back at the month that was on Beyond the Rhetoric. Let’s see how it went down.

Top Thinkers

Without the wonderful community of readers, Beyond the Rhetoric just wouldn’t be the same. I very much enjoy it when readers leave comments (yes, I read every comment) so it’s only fitting that I recognize the top thinkers on the site. Here are the folks who left the most comments in the month of April 2009.

  1. Ray Ebersole (35)
  2. Nick (12)
  3. dcr (8)
  4. Lesley (6)
  5. betshopboy (6)

Top Referring Sites

Just as the comments help to build the community on this site, I also appreciate when other bloggers send a few visitors my way. Setting search engines and social media sites aside for a moment, here are the top five referring blogs to Beyond the Rhetoric.

  1. Pink Tentacle
  2. John Chow dot Com
  3. Edutechation.com
  4. the.[ED]ition
  5. Stephen Fung dot Net

Top Blog Posts

What were people reading this month? Since Google still provides the lion’s share of traffic to my blog, the top posts are once again the articles that rank the best in the search engine. There’s a pretty eclectic mix here if you want to take a stroll down memory lane.

  1. Video: Top 10 Best SNES Games Ever
  2. The Perfect Team Requires Conflict
  3. How to Open a US Bank Account as a Canadian Citizen
  4. Brent Butt and Corner Gas Are Heading South for the Winter
  5. 10 Things I Hate About Vancouver

Contest on the Way?

I’d like to run another contest in May and I’m pretty sure I have a few prizes kicking around. I just need to decide how to run the contest. If you’ve got a suggestion, feel free to share it through the comment form below.

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Related Reading:

  • What’s Up Wednesdays: The Top Thinkers of June 2009 (Happy Canada Day!)
  • April Fool’s Day Gag on Digg is Lame
  • Shout Outs to April’s Top Commentators
  • What’s Up Wednesdays: Top Commentators for March 2008
  • What’s Up Wednesdays: April’s Top Commentators

    • 5 Responses to “April 2009: A Rhetorical Retrospective”

    1. Ray Ebersole says:
      May 1, 2009 at 5:53 pm

      I’m surprised that I’m #3 on referrals to your blog from non social media and search engine traffic. It makes me happy though that I’m starting to see enough traffic on my blog to make traction on other blogs.

      Thanks for the mention and the links.

      • Ray Ebersole says:
        May 2, 2009 at 6:11 pm

        I wanted to add that I checked my Google Analytics account tonight for referral hits. Taking out google, twitter and the other search engines, my number 1 referring web site is BTR.

        Michael, you far and away beat the competition, with zenhabits.net second and a distant third was johnchow.com.

        OBWT while I don’t ever expect to make any money with my adsense account, since I’ve been a regular here and on twitter I’ve seen my blog traffic increase 10 fold and adsense will probably pay a check by the end of summer.

    2. dcr says:
      May 1, 2009 at 7:20 pm

      Since joining Twitter, Twitter has been increasingly bringing traffic to my blog. SInce the beginning of the year, Twitter has been my largest traffic source. But, April was the first month of the year (I think) that Google retook its lead.

      Thanks for the link and mention!

    3. What’s Up Wednesdays: The Top Thinkers of June 2009 (Happy Canada Day!) « Beyond the Rhetoric says:
      July 2, 2009 at 11:00 am

      [...] like last month and the month before, we find a familiar face sitting on top of the list for June 2009. Ray Ebersole is the top thinker [...]