How did my blog do in 2020?
In January of this year, inspired by Pat Wall's daily blog, I started posting every day.
For the first month or two, I only had about 5 repeat readers, but it didn't matter. I was writing for me. Every night, I would deconstruct my brain, learn from my mistakes, and create frameworks for better decision-making.
Then in May, I wrote How a Lazy Bitch Like Me Learned to be Productive, it hit the front page of Hacker News, and all of a sudden lots of people were reading my blog and coming back regularly!
Now over 24,000 readers have visited almost 50,000 times.
That's insane! THANK YOU. I am humbled and honored that you are here.
STATS
Total blog views: 47,080
Unique visitors: 24,649
For comparison, in 2019:
Total blog views: 470
Unique visitors: 399
Traffic Sources
TOP 10 POSTS
- How a Lazy Bitch Like me Learned to be Productive: 28,143 views
- I went to a Workaholics Anonymous Meeting: 546 views
- I never Take Vacations: 446 views
- May Goals: 386 views
- Hitting the Front Page of HN: 355 views
- How I Made the Front Page of Hacker News on my First Try: 273 views
- My Quarantine Drugs of Choice: 254 views
- Tim Ferriss's Old Blog: 243 views
- How I come with ideas for daily blogging: 230 views
- Nitty-Gritty Guide to ATX Home Buying: 212 views
WHAT WE CAN LEARN FROM MY TOP POSTS
If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, it does NOT make a sound.
All of the posts in the top 10 were ones that I promoted, either on Twitter, on IndieHackers, or on Hacker News. How a Lazy Bitch... is the only piece I've submitted to Hacker News. 7 months later, it still gets 100+ views every week.
Second up are posts submitted to Indie Hackers. I posted a few myself, but I got lucky, because an influential employee there stumbled upon my blog, liked it, and submitted posts on her own accord, and that probably helped a lot. I am very thankful to her.
And finally, towards the end of the top 10 are posts I shared on Twitter.
This blog is a personal place, so I rarely share my writings on social, but imagine if I'd shared all of my posts? And imagine if I'd bothered to learn about SEO in 2020? These numbers could have been much larger.
You = Makers who like Mental Health + Productivity
Lazy Bitch was a post about productivity. You tended to like my monthly goals posts too, and also when I talked about other entrepreneur's success.
I was surprised though, that you were so interested in mental health too. When I went to a Workaholics Anonymous meeting and decided to write about it, I thought it might hit a nerve, but someone I really look up to mentioned it on a podcast the next week (I didn't even know he knew I existed!) and it looks like you all really like when I talk about the mental health side of making.
Where will this blog go in 2021?
This is a quiet little daily blog, and it was never my goal to make this into something huge. But through writing daily, I've learned some frameworks that have turned around my life (that aren't being talked about), and I want to share them in 2021.
While this blog will largely be staying the same next year, I will be launching a new site in January. I'm keeping the concept secret until I go live, so if you'd like to follow along, find me on twitter and I'll let you know when it launches in late January.
Thank you. 💖
Thank you for reading. Thank you for emailing me comedy suggestions and DMing me when something I write resonates with you. Thank you for cheering on my successes, comforting me during my struggles, and being a friend, from Sydney to Portugal and beyond. I started writing for me, and I still do, but my connections with you have been the best part of having this blog.
I'll leave you with my personal favorite post: The Waiting Room.
See you in 2021!