I write this 12 Dec 2019. Thus far in 2019 – 348 days in, counting this post – I’ve posted 124 posts at andyleonard.blog(). Roughly, that’s one post every three (~2.8) days. According to the WP-Statistics plugin, this blog has had just under 60k visitors and you have visited over 155k pages year-to-date. From the documentation for the plugin: “Visits is the number of page hits your site has received. Visitors is the number of unique users that have visited your site.”
Now this is very little compared to my friends Brent Ozar and Pinal Dave (and many others!), but I am pleased with the traffic.”Why, Andy?” To answer that question I have to share my motivation for writing. Brace yourself:
I write because I like to write.
That’s it. I find writing cathartic on many levels. I love learning new things. I love sharing what I’ve learned, especially when I tried to figure something out by searching for the answer and had trouble locating that answer. Quite a few of my posts contain screenshots and text from error messages. Folks, the bots are getting better are OCR (optical character recognition) but that takes time and the engines were all built to find text. I enjoy documenting processes and almost every aspect of technical writing, even editing (fun fact: the previous few sentences were added as part of my sixth edit to this post…).
Hits and Misses
I find this chart interesting.The big spike in the middle occurred a couple days after my birthday (happy birthday to me!). One post accounts for almost all the traffic that day. I can hear you thinking, “Which post, Andy?” I’m glad you asked. It was SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition is Free. Why that post? I have no idea. It was written in June 2016. This spike is an outlier that, as likely as not, is the result of someone testing URL-search code… or something.
Another interesting section is that green-ish span between January and April:
If you click the image, you can view it full size in another window. You will note another post drew lots of (relative) attention: It Costs Precisely $0.00USD to be Nice – written in August 2018.
Top 10 Posts Read in 2019
- It Costs Precisely $0.00USD to be Nice
SQL Server 2016 Developer Edition is Free
Execute SSIS Package in Azure-SSIS
Catalog Browser, Version 0.6.2.0
BimlExpress Metadata Framework
T-SQL Tuesday #106: Regarding Triggers
Home Page (interesting to me the home page is lower on this list!)
The Cloud Costs Money
One Way to Install SQL Server 2017 Developer Edition
SSIS, Docker, and Windows Containers, Part 0 – Getting Started
Flow
I posted with more frequency during the first part of 2019 and this chart shows I received more traffic as a result. I can hear you thinking, “So Andy, why did your traffic fall off?” That is an excellent question, I’m glad you asked! There are two answers to this question; one business-related and the other personal.
It turns out that blogging can attract the attention of others seeking answers to their questions (or error messages). A small percentage of those visitors will be working on a project and have corporate authority and budget to hire consultants to help. That happened around the beginning of April. Enterprise Data & Analytics got busy. I am thankful this business has continued an upward trend since that time, and I am humbled to report EDNA is busier than ever. We continue to quietly grow and serve clients. Again, for this I am humbled and thankful.
Remember earlier I mentioned I find writing cathartic? As I was preparing to start a speaking road trip in early January, I got a call that Dad was in the hospital. I re-arranged my trip some so I could visit him as soon as possible. When I did, I learned he was not doing well. My brothers and I worked together to have him placed in a nearby facility where we were able to visit him regularly, which we all did. His health declined and Dad passed away in March. During that period from January to March, I wrote more.
Conclusion
It was a year of highs and low lows. I am looking forward to 2020.
I pray everyone reading this is enjoying a blessed and happy Christmas season.
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