My 2021 Year in Review

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 !

Last minute gift for a maze lover !!! How to gift a Kindle book !

The time until Christmas is getting short. We are well passed the point of having something ship on time and reaching your doorstep on time. Or have we ? If you have a maze lover in your life I suggest checking out my Arrow Maze Book available on Kindle. You could purchase it on the morning on December 25th and it would be on time ! Talk about last minute. It is also one of the few maze books that is formatted for kindle ! Because an arrow maze can be solved with your eyes or a finger (no need for a pencil or pen) it is actually more enjoyable in this format (IMO).

How to Gift a kindle book

You may have never noticed ti before, but on the right side of a books page is a section titled “Buy for others”, located directly under the one click purchasing button.

Hovering on the “Learn more” gives you a quick overview of how it works. Amazon does a great job taking you through the purchase as you would expect. All you need is a friends/family members email address and they will receive a claim code to get the book on the date that you choose !! Note: They must have a kindle device to claim it.

Here is the cover of the book. Let’s check out some maze examples below. Note that this book does have a free sample download available to try before you buy ! That button is located right below “Buy for Others”.

Wishing you Happy Holidays ! I hope you deserve some time off and remain happy and healthy !

Arrow Maze Design Case Study - Part 12 Long Arrow

Part 12 of our Arrow Maze Design Case study concludes our section on maze components. . This will be a short section because it needs very little explanation - the Long Arrow.

Here is an overview of what we will be covering in the 14 part series:

Arrow Maze Construction and Design:

• Part 1 - Start Locations and Options

• Part 2 - Using Creative Shapes

• Part 3 - Intersections

• Part 4 - Using Loops

Arrow Maze Components:

• Part 5 - Regular Arrows

• Part 6 - Double Arrows

• Part 7 - Using the START GOAL

• Part 8 - Return to Start Block

• Part 9 - Using Warp Zones

• Part 10 - Slide Arrows

• Part 11 - All Ways Arrow

• Part 12 - Long Arrow Use

Extreme Arrow Maze examples:

• Part 13 - Kitchen Sink Examples

• Part 14 - The Largest Arrow Maze in the World (I think)

Arrow Maze Design Case Study - Part 12 - Long Arrow Use

The Long Arrow is the name of an infinite number of arrows that are 2 or more blocks long. Instead of having 2 arrows in 2 blocks back to back moving the same direction…why not use 1 long arrow in one large rectangular block ? It makes the design of the grid more important (it is done last instead of first) and adds some visual interest to the maze. Check out this illustration:

Long Arrows

One thing to note is that this can only be used in the standard NSEW directions. 45 degree long arrows do not work. These arrows are also most common on the edges of the maze since once you include them in the center they can only be crossed with a Double Arrow or Warp (or moved around at the end).

Here is an example from my upcoming book that includes many long arrows.

And now we begin our final 2 posts with some fun an extreme examples !!! Part 13 is what I call the Kitchen Sink… ! But you will be to wait for the last two posts so we can take some time to review the year and also look ahead to 2022 !

Arrow Maze Design Case Study - Part 11 All Ways Arrow

Welcome to Part 11 of our Arrow Maze Design Case study. In this section I will discuss a block option that is rarely used, but can added if you want to give the solver a high number of options. I call it the All Ways Arrow, and it is just what I described, an arrow that when you land on it allows you to move in every direction.

Here is an overview of what we will be covering in the 14 part series:

Arrow Maze Construction and Design:

• Part 1 - Start Locations and Options

• Part 2 - Using Creative Shapes

• Part 3 - Intersections

• Part 4 - Using Loops

Arrow Maze Components:

• Part 5 - Regular Arrows

• Part 6 - Double Arrows

• Part 7 - Using the START GOAL

• Part 8 - Return to Start Block

• Part 9 - Using Warp Zones

• Part 10 - Slide Arrows

• Part 11 - All Ways Arrow

• Part 12 - Long Arrow Use

Extreme Arrow Maze examples:

• Part 13 - Kitchen Sink Examples

• Part 14 - The Largest Arrow Maze in the World (I think)

Arrow Maze Design Case Study - Part 11 - All Ways Arrow

The All Ways Arrow for me is an idea that seems much better than it actually is in practice. The idea being that when you land on this type of arrow, you may move off of it in any direction. That makes it similar to a START block that is away from the edge of a maze. So, landing on this allows you move in 8 directions (although the true number is most likely 7 since you most likely got to the All Ways Arrow from an adjacent move).

Let’s speak about 3 things you need to know about using this type of arrow:

• The placement of the Arrow must be away from the edge of the maze to utilize every direction that may be moved in.

• The All Ways Arrow has some “gravity” to it. I do not know a better way to describe this, maybe a black hole ? When this arrow type is used a large section of the maze will be dedicated to either reaching or leaving this point,

• Because it needs so many pathways to/from it’s location in the maze, it is best to use it in a large arrow maze, as the pathways will invariably take up a lot of space.

Here is a small maze that uses an All Ways Arrow:

Arrow Maze

My next example uses a total of 3 All Ways Arrows which adds a unique experience for the solver. After the initial choice from the START, the maze uses only regular arrows, so your only choices happen when you land on an All Ways Arrow. So you go from no choice to many choices (six, six and seven choices by my count). Try it and see what you think.

So add this arrow to your toolkit, but my guess is you will use it sparingly.

In Part 12 we will look at our final arrow maze component, the Long Arrow