Thank you to all of you who participated in my blog reader survey! I had so much fun reading through the results -- I can't believe I didn't do this sooner! It is so helpful to know who you are. Sometimes writing a blog can be an overwhelming and lonely endeavor. I know when I first started, I wondered who would even care what I had to say. And I still wonder why you guys care sometimes. But getting your feedback has been so humbling and encouraging. Thank you again for taking the time to share with me!!

As promised, I am going to reveal the results of the survey to you. Since there is a lot of info, I'm going to break the results up into two posts. So stay tuned for the second half later this week!

For those of you who are wondering, I used Google Docs for the survey and to tally the results. The nerdy-minored-in-math-in-college side of me had a blast with the charts and graphs! Aren't they pretty? :)

A total of 774 people completed the survey. As I suspected, the majority of you are women:
Mostly in your 20s and 30s:
I have a lot of married readers:
To find out where you live, I tried to be clever and divide up the United States into three areas. This is the map I had in my brain which doesn't really exist in any other realm:
I probably could have done a better job with the multiple choice on this one -- I guess geography isn't my strong suit -- but here are the results nonetheless:
Those who fell in the "other" category are mostly from Australia and Asia with a few from Central America, South America and the Caribbean. Those of you who thought Texas should have its own category -- sorry to disappoint. I put you in the "middle state" category :). But you get extra points for having the most state pride :).

Most of you are photographers or photo hobbyists -- shocker!
I guess I need to figure out ways to keep my non-photographer readers happy so they'll stick around more. Good to know.

Only 19 wedding vendors filled out the survey and they range in type with most being planners:
I was interested to find out how long those of you who are photographers have been in business. I figured most of you would be newbies because of the tips I share, but was excited to find out there are some more experienced photographers out there as well. I've only been in business for 7 years myself, but I'm trying to bring more depth to the content of my posts to keep those of you who are more experienced in the conversation as well.
The next question was open-ended because I wanted to hear any of your stories about how you originally found my blog. I speak on blogging quite a bit and many newer bloggers want to know how to get people they don't know reading their blog. The web is a crazy place and most of the time you don't know how people find you. But the answers to this question shed some light on how those connections might work. Many of you couldn't remember how you first came across my blog, but for those of you who could, these were the results:
A big thanks to Jamie Delaine, David Jay, Gail Werner, Amanda Pair and Promise Tangeman for linking to me on your blogs! You were all mentioned numerous times by my readers as their source for finding my blog.

It was interesting to learn how long you've been reading my blog. Thanks for sticking around!
And how often you visit:
Fully half of you never comment! No wonder many newer bloggers struggle with getting any comments at all. If my stats reflect the norm, only 5% of readers comment regularly!
This survey was a great way to hear from those of you who don't feel comfortable sharing your thoughts regularly in the comments. I'm glad to know a little about you and hope that you will feel comfortable commenting in the future! I want my blog to be more interactive and a place for open discussion. So please share!

Later this week I'll post the rest of the results including what your favorite thing about my blog is and any changes you'd like to see made. Stay tuned!
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