some of don't really care who reads it, just that it is available. This gaming of everything is not necessarily a good thing. Is your article about programming or something, or is it about attention whoring?
Is it fast? Am I writing well enough that people can follow my instructions, debates, etc? Did I have a hard time finding information or additional sources on a problem?
Things like canonical links are personally important to me for other reasons. I do use the analytics of my blog for personal improvement. If people are bouncing off a page after getting there with relevant search terms maybe that post needs to be re-written or my assumptions were wrong.
Ultimately though, if you're writing a blog and posting it on the internet rather than just keeping a personal journal at some point you've got to be expecting to get something out of that. I don't think you have to jump to "attention whoring" as a motive though.