Some thoughts on my blog ... one with low readership and no ads

For the past week, I’ve had huge inspiration to write. It was a waft of creativity that suddenly came to me. I’ll admit that recent life events have put me under emotional pressure and my main coping mechanism is writing. It’s very therapeutic and keeps my mind occupied.

I don’t remember when I started this website, but my first blog post was published on April 15, 2017, almost exactly three years ago. Ever since I started my blog, I knew I wanted to make it directionless. No focus. No subject of interest. Just anything. It was my way of talking about whatever interested me at the time.

My readership is really low, just a few hundred per month, with a few spikes every now and then when someone posts one of my articles on a popular website or if I do that myself. It really doesn’t matter to me, I don’t expect my blog to go viral. Maybe one day, a single article will catch on.

Being someone completely opposed to ads, I don’t host any on my website or my blog. This ruins the chance of making any money on the website but honestly what’s the point with such low readership. I don’t know if it’s worth making a few dollars to annoy people with what I consider annoying and obnoxious content.

One thing I’m proud about my blog is the variety of subjects I’ve covered. My most popular blog post Why I hate the weekends…, discussed an interesting subject that I didn’t even realize was related to work ethic until I actually finished writing it. It was initially just a rant.

I’ve explored subjects that no one else has talked about such as Automatic Transmission Simulation in Games. For a great part of my teenagerhood I always wondered why Automatic Transmission in games differed in behavior than the ones in the real world. I never found a single game that simulated it correctly until I came across a few obscure titles that were quite accurate. It’s a popular read surprisingly and analytics reveals that many searches land a click on my article; which is actually the first result. I received some emails as well thanking me for covering the subject wondering why no one else was curious about this. I was also confused why I couldn’t find any resources on automatic shifting schedules in games.

Some topics are humorous while others a bit more morbid. Some are rants while others relate to experiences I had at work. There’s no logical progression to the blog, it’s a random series of ideas that come to my mind. My goal isn’t popularity but rather putting on paper what I’ve been thinking so long about.

I’m trying to expand my breadth of subjects especially ones concerning my personal life as scary as revealing on a website that has my name, my phone number and my full address in plain sight. I might lose a job opportunity because a potential employer or client read something that they didn’t like on my website or blog, however I have the choice to express my freedom.

I have a few personal stories already written just waiting to be published in my drafts section, one day it will make it here. I do want to write a detailed post about Electronic Stability Control, a safety net in vehicles that prevents skids; I find it incredibly fascinating. The depth I’m planning is more than a small section in a book or a Wikipedia article. I also have a soft spot for FM Synthesis, my favourite method of generating sound that will detailed soon alongside some masterpieces that have used it to create beautiful music.

If you’re one of the few RSS Subscribers or occasional readers of my blog, I promise what’s coming up ahead will be at least mildly interesting.

- Ahmed (cdahmedeh)

Celebrating a (little more than) year of blogging...

My first blog post was published on April 15, 2017 and was so popular that it generated a whopping 2 comments. I can’t say that my others posts have been as popular though.

I started my blog in order to learn writing and express my creativity. Writing is an outlet of stress for me and there’s no better way to talk about something on an open platform like this.

While I thought my blog would be solely focused on IT, my blog became a multifaceted place with discussions on technology, philosophy, science and automotive. I feel the subjects have been a bit dry but stay tuned for more exciting blog posts and new subjects such as gaming!

My goal for this blog isn’t popularity, I don’t even run ads on this website at all. I just want to vent and hope someone will benefit from my tirades.

Some statistics about this blog so far:

  • 537 days since the first post

  • 14 blog posts not including this one

  • 3 comments

  • 12 likes

  • 230 viewers per month on average

  • 4 RSS subscribers

  • 31000 words approximately

  • Most popular blog post: Automatic Transmission Simulation in Games

  • Least popular blog post: Many of them have not been read this month...

  • Longest blog post: Why I left…

  • Shortest blog post: Drifting a Bus

  • Most readers are from the US, Canada and UK. Some significant traffic from Europe.

  • Apparently, the most popular way to reach this website is directly (which I find hard to believe), it’s more likely to be through search engines or social websites.

  • 0 dollars made from page views

My writing is still very imperfect, and at times, very simplistic. I’m hoping with practise I will come up with clearer, more informative and have better researched posts. Maybe I’ll be taken more seriously then, for now, it’s just a hobby.

Creating this blog has made me realize that I don’t need to create something perfect from the start but rather, every endavour is a learning experience on it’s own. Your first projects might be cringe-worthy and embarrassing, but one day, you’ll do something you’re proud of. I’m not there yet.

If you feel the need to express yourself I highly recommend blogging though you can also start a YouTube channel or maybe a podcast. I personally use Squarespace to build my website. Even though I’m a software developer, I honestly don’t have time to maintain a website through some complicated JavaScript framework and host it on a VPS in my spare time. Some website builders are free like Wix and others are dedicated to blogging only like Blogger or WordPress (well, it can do a bit more). If you’re a web developer and are brave enough to roll your own, go ahead. If you’re a bit more lazy you can host Jekyll statically on github.io.

Your blog can be focused on a personal aspect of your life such as your travelling adventures or a place to discuss your favourite topics in astrophysics. The Internet is all about freedom (maybe not some countries) and this your chance to let yourself out!

If you’d like me to talk about a certain subject or my opinion on a topic, feel free to leave a comment below.