Blogging archaeology - my top posts

This post is part of a blog carnival in the run-up to SAA 2014:

http://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/

Over the last seven years there have been 20,900 pages viewed. Whether you think that's a lot depends on your expectations. Most of the traffic comes from Google searches, although some follow links from university archaeology courses cite it as an online resource. It is notable that most of search terms are post titles, which means that 'meat and potatoes' post titles work better than clever allusive and obscure ones.

Entry	Pageviews
How to get your first job in archaeology 14 Apr 2012, 4 comments	1434
Drawing up a Personal Action Plan 20 Dec 2007, 1 comment	717
What is Prince2 and should I be using it? 21 Nov 2007, 5 comments	478
Five things archaeologists can learn from Lean Man... 14 Nov 2010	385
Commercial archaeology and the ethics of developme... 11 Jul 2008	303
Out now: "10 simple steps" the book 1 Jan 2013, 3 comments	261
Five things archaeologists can learn from PRINCE2 7 Nov 2010, 3 comments	241
The 10 simple steps 14 Feb 2012, 1 comment	191
Step 3: Image 28 Nov 2007, 1 comment	189
Good and bad Powerpoint 28 Feb 2008	136

I am pleased that the post on How to get your first job in archaeology is popular, reflecting a bit of a vacuum elsewhere (the CBA website's careers advice is vague and optimistic). The otehr popular posts get significant traffic from people searching for general advice on PRINCE2, lean management, training action plans,  and Powerpoint.  The essay on Commercial archaeology  is an interesting case, where the academic published literature on ethics and development in archaeology  are sparse and therefore this contribution to the debate fills a gap.

If I was to take a gloomy view I could say that it is impossible to predict which of the posts will go viral, to the extent of finding most readers, and I am disappointed at the much smaller number of readers who explore the site at length.  But in away that's not surprising: the potential audience of new archaeology graduates or people working in generic management is much larger than my core audience -  commercial arcaheologists who have just been promoted to project managers.