I wanted to write a year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. Yes, I made a lot of mazes, but I did more than that, expanding what I did and how I did it. This post might just be for me, but I am happy to take you along on the journey. Enjoy. And since I did this exact post the year before…why not show 3 years !!
Daily Mazes posted:
640 in 2021 vs. 366 in 2020 vs. 365 in 2019
I was up against a leap year from 2021 so I was destined to be at 365…until I decided on April 1st to create the Spanish Language section of the site (Laberintos) which added 275 additional mazes. Some of these had no changes but I am not going to count individual translations.
Blog Posts:
291 vs. 102 vs. 26
Some of my most popular content is still from 2020. In 2021 I tried some new things to improve my SEO and that included deleting large sections of the website and creating 100 blog posts, each featuring a best maze from 2018-2020. This did not work. But I did blog significantly more than LY and that did work, My goal was 3 times a week or 156 posts and even after dropping the 100 maze project I crushed that number,
Name Mazes Made
4 vs. 247 vs. 1,499
The SEO on this section of the site dropped off significantly this year. You can read about how I chose the names HERE. So 2021 meant only doing requests when they were submitted, and not many were, although this may become a project for 2022…maybe…
Books posted online:
12 vs. 8 vs. 19
In the 2 years prior to this one I created a lot of free downloadable content. By my count that was 27 books, some of which have been retired or improved. For 2021 while I started off with a few monthly books, I got away from this to focus on other content. Somehow I still managed to make 12 books !
Books Published on Amazon:
0 vs. 3 (13 versions) vs. 0
I published my first 3 books on Amazon. And with a bit of help I translated 2 of them into 3 additional languages. I also have one of the few Kindle maze books available since Arrow mazes are solved with your finger/eyes and not a writing utensil. My books did not sell very well so I have 3 additional books sitting on the shelf, ready for publication if I come up with a marketing plan.
Website Traffic growth:
242% vs LY, +1000%+ the PY
The website traffic grew year over year by 242% and it has the potential to grow by the same in the future as I learn more about image SEO. I am also looking at changing the future content of the site to attract different people.
Different countries visiting the site:
100 vs. 99 vs. 20
Well this was a weird category that I really wanted to grow in 2021…and I did technically grow it. But I lost 11 countries along the way (none with high traffic in 2020) while gaining 12 new countries. My largest new country was Barbados, followed by Guatemala. Thank you ! While I thought my largest growth would come from Spanish speaking countries (it did not), it was instead from Azerbaijan, Nigeria, Vietnam and Singapore.
Requests for Maze use:
About the same to slightly higher
YouTube Videos Created and watched:
Zero created, but views were up !
YouTube Subscribers:
Up.
RSS Subscribers to the blog:
Up +18. Has bounced around during the year…
Books Sold on Amazon:
Slightly down
So that is my year in review. I learned a lot. I hope to continue growing the site, making more books, and of course posting some interesting mazes !!
Stop back on Thursday for my 2022 website outlook. There will be changes to the site coming on January 1 !