Most popular posts of 2014

Some surprises when I looked at the most popular posts of last year

The turn of the year is the obvious time to look back at blog performance, so I checked my Google Analytics for the most popular posts of 2014. Here they are in reverse order:

5. Unusual home working jobs – crochet teaching.

One of the Unusual Home Working Jobs series, this interview with Ali Campbell, who runs crochet classes in her home in Dorset, may have attracted extra attention because Ali refers to herself as ‘The Head Hooker’! With her permission I used that title in social media posts, a naughty bit of click bait that seems to have paid off.

4. Food for energy.

Another interview, this time with coach Susan Tomlinson, who describes how she plans and shops for food, and what she eats in order to stay alert and energised throughout a busy day of home working. Susan also recommends a couple of her favourite cookbooks, which readers have subsequently bought.

3. Working from home and how it affects house insurance.

Does what it says on the tin. One of our first ever sponsored posts, this one quickly entered the charts, and has figured on the most popular posts list for several years.

2. Garden offices – how to choose the best for you.

This was a real surprise. It’s an interview provided by a client of one of our staunchest supporters, Smart Garden Offices, about having a garden office built. It didn’t make any waves when published in 2013, but has attracted consistent search engine traffic ever since. A good illustration of the unpredictability of content on the web, it shows that you should never judge a post by its initial performance.

1. The art of the afternoon nap.

I knew this guest post from social media and ethical sales trainer Jane Binnion about discovering the benefits of a nap had been a hit on social media when it was published. But I didn’t realise that it was enough to propel it to top post of 2014. Another reminder that you really can’t tell what is going to be popular. I’ve posted about naps before, but this time it really hit the jackpot.

So you can see that all of our most popular posts of last year were guest posts or sponsored posts. And contributors have had plenty of traffic from their guest posts to their own sites.

Just before Christmas HR consultant Kay Heald tweeted ‘Just been doing some end of year analytics – my biggest spikes came from my article [on the new flexible working rules] for you!! It wasn’t a tiny spike either – it was a pleasing Google Analytics Eiffel Tower!!’

Please get in touch if you’d like to write about your own home working business or an experience you’ve had that would help other home workers. You could be top of the pops in 2015 🙂