Maze of the Week #105 - The Snowman

January 1, 2024

Welcome back to another year of weekly mazes. This years theme is comic book style mazes if you missed the announcement. Each of the 53 mazes will be in a comic book style and come with an alternative color (just like comic book covers). Then on Tuesday of each week I add an actual comic book cover version of the maze. The first maze of the year then is Maze of the Week #105 - The Snowman. Did you guess correctly based on this preview?

Here is the original maze:

And now the alternative color version. I used some snowflake mazes to decorate the background.

Downloads are available on the homepage. I have also added 4 new versions of my previous comic book mazes to the page. Evil Pumpkin, Reindeer, Krampus and Santa Klaus now reside in the NEW comic book style maze section !

Come back tomorrow to see what the comic book cover looks like !

Next weeks Maze Preview: What do you think the maze is ?

My 2024 Website Outlook

December 30, 2023

For 2024 I will continue to post a new maze every Monday launched with a blog post. I will also be making weekly YouTube videos showing these mazes being made. We will have a new theme for the year, and I am going to try a new blog posting schedule.

What type of mazes will I see on the site ?

I really liked the comic book style mazes I made, so I am going to make a full year of them ! You have seen these the last few weeks starting with the Evil Pumpkin I made for Halloween.
The mazes will all be free hand drawn mazes walls so the look will not be as polished as a building maze, but the style fits the mazes I believe !
Overall, these mazes will be good for kids and not very difficult (with a few exceptions)

What will be new ?

Each maze will have a preview outline the week before that gives you a hint on what the next maze will be. Here is the first preview for our first maze of the week - What do you think it is ?

Since comic books are known for having variations you will get variations of each maze. On Monday I will give you a second colored version of the maze, while on Tuesday I will give you a special comic book cover of the maze, unveiled in a blog post. Collect all 53 comics !

I have used starryai to make some backgrounds for the comic books. It is my favorite AI text to image generator.
Also, all Mazes of the Week will sit in one block on the homepage with all maze downloads there. Same for Comic Book Covers - they will all be in 1 block.

What will the subject matter be ?

Lots of animals to celebrate national and international holidays.
A few other subjects that make for good comic book covers and fit the style of artwork.

Will there be videos on YouTube again ?

Yes, but they will be much shorter in length and will not include solutions since they are easier mazes than I typically make.
Because they are shorter they will be called Quick mazes instead of One Minute Mazes.
I also shortened the Intro and Outro and changed the music.

What about blog posts ?

Monday - A post to launch the Maze of the Week, including a variation version. Will include a preview outline of the next weeks maze (as shown above).
Tuesday - Comic Book cover version of the maze
Thursday - General blog post - various maze/labyrinth topics
Saturday - Labyrinth finding blog posts (by US state)

Anything else ?

I am working on a slight re-design to remove or hide old content that is not popular. My hope is this does not hurt the SEO of the site and allows it to load faster. Some pages will only be available if you find them in search as they will become unlinked to the site from the menus. Overall I have made the site “lighter” to load faster.
I started a Pinterest account / page. Still learning what I’m doing and how to utilize it. Maybe it becomes something. Either way it is something new for me to learn !
By the end of the year I should have a blog post for every state in the US about publicly available labyrinths. All will sit in one section on the Homepage. If I enjoy it, and people read them, I will continue to make similar content ! If it is a bust, I will stop creating the blog posts early (sorry Wyoming, etc.)

Let’s have a great 2024 ! I hope you enjoy the mazes and the new content !

My 2023 Year in Review

December 28, 2023

This is my year end review for the website to reflect on what I accomplished for the year. I do this post each year and I keep the previous years data.…so 5 years of progress !! Each year things are a bit different. I have already written 3 posts that summarize other aspects of the year:

My 10 Best Blog Posts of the Year

My Top 5 YouTube Videos from 2023

Maze of the Year Voting 2023 - Voting is still open !

And now the data for the year:

Weekly (Daily) Mazes posted:

2023: 52 - Mazes of the week - see all 52 in this video !

2022: 54 - Mazes of the week

2021: 640 - daily mazes with some Spanish language variations

2020: 366 - daily mazes

2019: 365 - daily mazes

I did do variations of many mazes this year, but typically only posted 1 version on the homepage. I’m happy with weekly mazes vs. daily.

Blog Posts:

2023: 192

2022: 132 (120 remain on the site)

2021: 291 (207 remain on the site)

2020: 102 (85 remain on the site)

2019: 26 (12 remain on the site)

I kept a good schedule for most of the year and plan to continue that into the future ! I have also deleted over 100 old posts to clean up my blog index and consolidate some of the topics.

Name Mazes Made

2023: 104

2022: 13

2021: 4

2020: 247

2019: 1,499

Since 2021 I have only been doing doing maze name requests when they were submitted, and not many were. Hopefully this is because I have many names covered already !

Books posted online:

2023: 0

2022: 2

2021: 12

2020: 8

2019: 19

With the change in site content there are no longer mazes available for books.

Books Published on Amazon:

2023: 0

2022: 0

2021: 13

2020: 0

2019: 0

I (still) have 3 additional books sitting on the shelf, ready for publication if I come up with a marketing plan.

Website Traffic growth:

2023: + 36% LY

2022: + 47% LY

2021: + 242% LY

2020: +1000% PL

2019: **

And the bigger you get the harder it is to grow even larger in the future. Unless SEO suddenly likes me (or doesn’t).

Different countries visiting the site:

2023: 169 - I changed how I track this and think the 100 below might have been inaccurate. Out of 195 or so depending on the list you look at.

2022: 100

2021: 100

2020: 99

2019: 20

YouTube Views:

2023: 2,245

2022: 303

2021: 264

The channel is not doing well. While I could stop making videos…nah. See my 2024 outlook for updates on this.

YouTube Subscribers:

2023: 17

2022: 6

2021: 3

Wow. Low. A percentage would make this look much better, but the raw numbers are more accurate.

RSS Subscribers to the blog:

Fluctuates during the year. Currently - 66% from peak this Summer and -15% LY (after a big rise). So I need to start writing about subjects that people enjoy again.

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 in 2 days to read my plan for 2024 !

Mazes of the Week 53 - 104 - A Review of 2023's mazes

December 26, 2023

I wanted to give everyone an overview of all the mazes of the week that were featured on the site this year (#’s 53-104). If you want to watch the mazes I made a video showing each (shown below).

Some statistics about the 52 mazes I featured this year:

It includes 26 building mazes, 9 monument mazes, 6 sign mazes, 3 character mazes, 2 animal mazes, 2 scene mazes, an item, map, planet and a ship.
17 mazes were from the USA, 8 mazes in Mexico, 4 India, 4 England, 2 Germany, 2 Canada, as well as mazes from Azerbaijan, China, Iceland, Myanmar, Scotland, Spain and Saudi Arabia.
12 were made in black and white, 7 in both color and black and white versions, and 33 in full color !

Here are the 52 weekly mazes in order (with links to their downloads):