[jayhuang]

This is merely my opinion: but yes, and no.

It HAS gotten harder to gain the same amount of traffic you've gotten years ago. No doubt. Back when I ran Windows7Center and Windows8Center (now defunct), we were able to serve 50 million pageviews, gain an Alexa traffic ranking around ~2000 while sustaining a decent passive income from (eventually) doing next to nothing aside from staffing/occasional maintenance/UI updates. Yes, there was luck involved, but there was also much less noise in the whole ecosystem. Less blog-spam, less "Top 7 reasons", less social media presence, etc. However, many of the same issues back then are still relevant now, and the formula for attracting any audience is still largely unchanged.

You'll often hear people say "write original/novel content". But what does that really mean? And is everyone capable of creating such content?

Here are a few things that has always worked quite naturally for me (in the format of "top 4 tips" because why not?):

1) Share something that interests you. Similar to work, side projects, and other ventures, if something truly interests you, you will always do a better job communicating it, have the drive to do it well, and to continue working on it

2) Identify and establish a relation to an experience you have. Tell a story. Humans are largely social creatures, and storytelling has been a part of our history for ages. Stories and experiences are more relatable, not mere fact-dropping.

3) Use your own voice (yes, yes, I know, cliche). I've found what works for me is writing as if I'm speaking directly to my audience. If you were at a dinner table chatting with friends, would you constantly be using arcane, seldom used/big words? Probably not. So what makes blogging any different?

4) Be genuine. Similar to the point above, so much of what we see now is sensationalized, exaggerated to the point where it's so hard to find any truth. Personally, I appreciate honesty, and there are so many people with so many stories to tell, that if people actually spoke up and shared fearlessly, we wouldn't need to have all this BS to keep us "entertained". So I try to share things I wish someone else would have shared to me, things that I'd appreciate.

I've taken a break from running online communities, and been on a 2-year hiatus from blogging on my own blog, which I've never monetized in any way. My last post was October 4, 2014, but I have visitors in the low hundreds, everyday. The total pageviews on this blog has exceeded the low hundred thousands. I do not engage in crossposting, and never on social media, except posting twice or so here on HN, no one in my friend circles or colleagues know I blog except those who actively sought out information on me. I still get very kind and heartwarming emails from all sorts of people for content I put out that I didn't think would help anyone in particular. I still get people who reach out to me and ask about some of the experiences I've shared. Pageviews mean nothing to me, but these simple gestures do.

Sidenote: If you're not simply looking to blog and share with others, but are also intent on your pageview count, along with perhaps selling a product...all of the above still applies, but drip campaigns are also still extremely effective. Collect emails of interested parties and DO NOT betray their trust.

TL;DR: Focus on content, not pageviews. Be genuine and write what interests you, people will come, I promise.