Deck from the Top vBlog live reveal show on 3/21/19

2. Introductions
 Your emcee’s for the show:

3. State of blogging today
 Why do people do it?
 Value of blogging?
 How to be successful at blogging
 Is blogging declining?
 Value of vExpert program

4. It all started with this…

5. History of Top vBlog
Year # blogs Voters
2009 20 350
2010 66 700
2011 115 860
2012 187 1200
2013 243 1300
2014 320 1400
2015 411 2200
2016 321 1600+
2017 273 1600+
2018 268 2000+
 2009 – 1st public voting
 2010 – blogging gets popular
 2011 – 1st results podcast
 2012 – start of blog explosion
 2014 – 1st live results show
 2016 – 10 post minimum
 2017 – add point modifiers
 2018 – 10 year anniversary

6. A word from our sponsor
 Thank you again for helping make this
possible!

7. Some stats this year
 2000+ votes, 400 more than last year
 268 blogs compared to 273 blogs last year
 50+ new blogs this year
 11 new blogs made it to the top 50
 6 new blogs made it into the top 25
 4 new blogs made it into in top 10
 6 position changes in the top 10

8. Scoring process
 People pick 12 favorite blogs then rank them
 #1 vote = 12 points, #2 vote = 11 points,
down to a #12 vote = 1 point
 2 new point modifiers this year:
 # of posts in 2016 - 2 per post, 400 max
 Google Pagespeed score – 200 possible * GPS %
 Total point score = Voting points + post points
+ Pagespeed points

9. What is Pagespeed?
 Analyze and optimize your site following
web best practices
 Gtmetrix.com will benchmark your site
 Scores with Yslow & Google Pagespeed
 Follow recommendations to optimize
 Images is #1 cause of slowness
 Consider using caching server like
Cloudflare

10. Pagespeed displays
optimization recommendations

11. Waterfall Chart displays loading
behavior

12. Blog pet peeves
 Being anonymous
 No dates on posts
 No social links
 Hard to read blog theme
 Difficult navigation
 One blog post per page
 Annoying pop-ups
 No search bar

14. Counting down…
2017
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2016 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
25 27 +2 1288 159 994 10 63 126 84 168

15. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
24 14 -10 1333 160 981 13 141 282 35 70

16. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
23 33 +10 1435 153 1173 42 61 122 70 140

17. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
22 17 -5 1483 213 1247 20 25 50 93 186

18. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
21 84 +63 1493 171 1187 27 91 182 62 124

19. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
20 26 +6 1500 148 946 26 600 400 77 154

20. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
19 23 +4 1591 194 1075 6 182 364 76 152

21. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
18 22 +4 1592 225 1352 4 37 74 83 166

22. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
17 31 +14 1618 193 1210 7 115 230 89 178

23. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
16 30 +14 1635 159 1127 36 184 368 70 140

24. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
15 19 +4 2173 251 1841 41 88 176 78 156

25. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
14 8 -6 2210 311 1848 9 139 278 42 84

26. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
13 12 -1 2498 328 2262 26 39 78 79 158

27. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
12 4 -8 2587 349 2385 5 32 64 69 138

28. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
11 7 -4 2594 362 2338 7 45 90 83 166

29. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
10 11 +1 2596 323 2330 29 48 96 85 170

30. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
9 9 0 2599 333 2247 31 53 106 95 190

31. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
8 10 +2 2618 381 2356 15 59 118 72 144

32. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
7 15 +8 2622 284 2370 88 46 92 80 160

33. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
6 16 +10 2635 326 2363 11 49 98 87 174

34. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
5 6 +1 2735 373 2455 12 61 122 79 158

35. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2018 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
4 5 +1 2998 360 2554 4 123 246 99 198

36. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
3 3 0 4747 548 4417 22 78 156 87 174

37. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
2 2 0 5060 556 4542 92 300 400 59 118

38. Counting down…
2018
Rank
Previous
Rank
Change
Total
Points
Total
Votes
Voting
Points
#1
Votes
2017 Posts Google Pagespeed
# Points % Points
1 1 0 7440 766 7074 235 113 226 70 140

39. Category winners
Favorite Female Blogger Favorite Storage Blog
Favorite Non-ENGLISH Blog Favorite Scripting Blog
Favorite NEW Blog Favorite Podcast
Favorite News/info website Favorite Independent blogger
vMiss (Melissa Palmer) Cormac Hogan
Jorge de la Cruz Virtually Ghetto (William Lam)
Digital Vspace (Tony Reeves) Virtually Speaking (Flecha/Nicholson)
VCDX133 (Rene Van Den Bedem)The Register Virtualization News

40. Closing comments
 Congrats to all the winners!
 Keep on blogging, it’s a journey not a race
 We’ll be back next year (Fall 2019)!
 Sponsorship available, contact me for
details
 Send suggestions & feedback to
esiebert7625@yahoo.com