I keep track of basic metrics for visitors to my blog. Doing so gives me an insight into which blog posts people like, and which articles stand the test of time. For instance, I can tell you that my blog post from 2007 “Using SSL Certificates with SBS 2003” is still regularly visited almost 4 years on.
I also try to respond to all comments left by visitors to my blog posts. If someone has taken the time to leave a comment, I’ll do my best to acknowledge that comment with a response.
So I was surprised last Friday when a couple of hours after post a blog article called “It’s All About Communication” – that I started to get more than the typical amount of comments coming in. Further investigation showed that the visitor numbers to my blog had doubled, and yet more visitors were reading the article every hour. What was happening?
The answer was that I’d been “Freshly Pressed” by WordPress.com!
Being Freshly Pressed
Every day, the WordPress.com content team read all the articles published at WordPress and choose their ten favourite blog posts for the day. Or as WordPress.com put it “Freshly Pressed: The best of 391,568 bloggers, 464,975 new posts, 443,577 comments, & 90,910,873 words posted today on WordPress.com.”
My article, “It’s All About Communication” – where I talked about West Midlands Police initiative to engage with local residents on Twitter – made the cut and so was brought to the attention of every visitor to WordPress.com
Seven days on from being “Freshly Pressed” and the visitors and blog comments are still coming! 
How to get Freshly Pressed
I didn’t set out to be “Freshly Pressed” – but I’m honoured I have been! If you’d like to learn more about you can improve your chances of being “Freshly Pressed” yourself – here are “Five Ways to get featured on Freshly Pressed”.
Thanks to Erica Johnson, the Editorial Producer at WordPress.com and her team for choosing my article to be “Freshly Pressed” and I very much appreciate all the visitors and kind comments that have been left!
Richard Tubb is one of the best-known experts within the global IT Managed Service Provider (MSP) community. He launched and sold his own MSP business before creating a leading MSP media and consultancy practice. Richard helps IT business owner’s take back control by freeing up their time and building a business that can run without them. He’s the author of the book “The IT Business Owner’s Survival Guide” and writer of the award-winning blog www.tubblog.co.uk
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4 thoughts on I got “Freshly Pressed”!
NRHATCH
7TH FEBRUARY 2011 23:53:38
Congratulations! Getting Freshly Pressed is such a wild ride. Definitely an experience not to be missed. The first time, I had no idea what had happened, until WP sent me an e-mail and clued me in. The second time, I clicked on Freshly Pressed as soon as the numbers started climbing past their normal level. Those two posts are still the most popular posts on SLTW. By quite a large margin. "It's All About Communication." :D
TUBBLOG
9TH FEBRUARY 2011 08:08:12
@nrhatch Many thanks! My experience of getting "Freshly Pressed" was similar to yours. A nice experience for us both, all the same! :-)
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28TH FEBRUARY 2011 09:02:59
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