“Signs & Symptoms of Translation” turned one this month. Here’s a summary of my first year of blogging.

Who reads Signs & Symptoms of Translation?

Clearly, translators are my key reader group. Although they arrive through Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites, most hits come from Google searches. A much smaller group is made up of potential clients, who arrive through ProZ and my professional website.

Where do they go after reading my blog?

I expect most people stop procrastinating and go back to their work, but others click links to the EMA,  my own website, the European ADR database and Paul Filkin’s multifarious blog.

Key search engine terms.

There’s a clear trend here divided between the two topics I blog about:

SDL Trados Studio: key words are “track changes” “zoom” and “merge segments” together with “Trados” and “Studio”.

Medicine: key words are “EMA templates” “adverse drug reactions” and “QRD translation”.

Facts and figures

I’ve been amazed to see how reader numbers grow, with a year-end total of just over 30,000 views.

My two most popular posts so far are A Translator’s guide to the EMA templates and How to get rid of a tag soup in Trados Studio, with 2,429 and 2,221 views, respectively.

There have been some lively discussions in the comments to some of my posts. The most-commented posts this first year were MemSource and Studio 2011: a side-by-side comparison and SDL Trados Studio 2011 SP2: Updated release.

Will I go on blogging and should you start a blog?

These two questions go hand in hand. They follow on from my very first post By way of introduction, where I looked at the pros and cons of blogging and whether I should take the plunge.

After a year, I can say that it’s been a great experience so far. I learn more about my subject field and translation tools when researching for my posts, so it’s definitely a good way of growing my knowledge and sharing it with others. I don’t think I’ve got new clients just because of this blog, but it makes potential clients feel confident that I’m serious about my job and it’s often mentioned in their introductory email.

Should you start a blog? Have you got something to say? Do you enjoy writing?  Do you want to share your niche with others? If you’ve answered yes, then give it a go!

Here’s to another year of blogging about Signs & Symptoms of Translation. Hope to see you here, and keep those comments coming!

Image attribution: © beerfan – Fotolia.com