2021 EOY Blog Report – Surprised with 419% Traffic Growth

It’s been a while since I last updated this blog. And to be honest, I kinda regret not writing in the last 4 – 5 months. The last article that I wrote was last August 23, 2021. Aside from writing, I also forgot to update the blog’s plugins, etc.  I got into another slump in the last four months of 2021 and a month in 2022, but today, I have decided that I’m going to try writing again.

Oh, by the way… Happy New Year and Happy Chinese New Year as well!!!

Photo by Yuwei Shaw on Unsplash

Anyway, going back to the topic.

I have decided that my first article this 2022 is an End of Year (EOY) report about my blog’s 2021 performance when it comes to pageviews and the number of users. If you have followed my blog, you know that traffic generation is the main thing that I want to learn first before I spend my time thinking about monetization. In my opinion, without blog traffic, monetization (earning decent money from a blog) will be very difficult.

 

2021 Blog Traffic – Surprised with 419% Traffic Growth

I was surprised when I opened my Google Analytics to check the page views and number of users of Thrifty Hustler in 2021. And, you already know the main reason why… I didn’t blog for four months in 2021 and a month in 2022. It’s almost five months of total inactivity.

I was really nervous when I was signing in to my Google Analytics account because I was dreading to see a huge drop in number. Sure, the monthly traffic has dropped considerably but it’s still not that bad considering that I didn’t do anything at all for almost five months (yep, not even plugin and theme and WP updates).

Here’s a screenshot of my Google Analytics and later on I will discuss the reasons why this blog still generated traffic even if I’m inactive.

My total pageviews for 2020 were 36, 025 and my total pageviews for 2021 were 187, 177.

There were 23, 330 users last 2020 and there were 135, 345 users in 2021.

I have removed my own IP last July 2020 to ensure that the data I’m seeing in Google Analytics only counts blog visitors’ IP.

2021 traffic and users numbers are definitely encouraging me to continue blogging, which I hope I can do so in the next few weeks.

 

What Drove the Traffic Growth Despite Blogging Inactivity?

In my observation and analysis of my Google Analytics data, here are some of the reasons why this blog continues to get traffic despite blogging inactivity for almost half a year (four months in 2021 and a month in 2022).

Relevant Keywords 

I have written a lot of articles in the past few months prior to my inactivity that targets relevant keywords in my niche and in my geographical location. These articles continue to drive traffic up until this day.

This is the main reason why the blog still gets traffic (from search engines). Bear in mind that I’m not really active in any social media platform and get the majority of my traffic from Google.

Key Article Updates

I have annually updated articles that I consider as the foundation (in terms of traffic) of this blog to ensure their relevancy in the eyes of readers and search engine users.

Blog Quality

One of the reasons why I believe that some of my articles help their first page position in Google is that I used relevant keywords and ensured the quality of the article. I aim to answer most of the questions of the search engine users in those articles.

I know that I still have a lot to improve on but since they’re still on the first page of Google, perhaps, they’re still holding their ground against their competition in Google ranking.

This is My Last Blog Report 

This is my last blog report (blog traffic update) article. I believe that I have already achieved what I did this for. I have shared my journey in traffic generation for a new blog including the numbers and my learnings along the way.

I will, however, continue to share blogging tips or anything that I think might be helpful for my fellow bloggers.

 

What’s In Store for 2022?

I’m still unsure if I want to be a full-time blogger. As of now, I do consider myself a part-time blogger.

For now, I’m still busy with my online selling gig, but, I’m also thinking of transitioning into a more location-independent kind of thing in the next few years. I don’t know if this will be thru a blog or whatever.

I also would like to think less of any goals (for the time being) and focus on rebuilding systems to follow to ensure a more sustainable future (regardless of my chosen path).

I do know though that I really enjoy writing and that’s reason enough for me to continue blogging.

Thank you!!!

Thank you to everyone who has visited and supported this blog. I hope that you enjoyed reading my articles and that you have learned a thing or two about the things that I share here.

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