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misterbrian | 3 years ago

Here's my blog: https://briancaffey.github.io/

I use use the POSSE method: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere (https://indieweb.org/POSSE). I typically republish my articles on HN, Reddit, DEV, Medium, HashNode, Twitter, SubStack and HackerNoon. I also have an RSS/XML feed.

85.5% of my traffic is through organic search, 10% is direct, the rest is referral/social/email.

I get the most engagement when sharing articles on Reddit for most of my posts since I can target specific communities where people might be interested to read what I write.

I also have a small MailChimp newsletter where I write occasional updates on what I'm working on and start campaigns for my latest blog posts (once a month, ideally).

The blog uses Nuxt and the Nuxt content module. I have Google Analytics, Adsense, Drift integration which has resulted in some good connections with people. I also use the Google Search Console to learn about what people are searching for when they click on my articles.

Over the last 7 days I have had a little over 400 visitors. Last year I got a $103 payment from Google for Adsense ads.

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bt3|3 years ago

Can you explain the thought process behind Google Ads on the site?

Despite my various ad blockers (Pihole, etc), I would generally view ads on a blog as setting a tone akin to microtransactions on a video game, rather than trying to build a brand or simply document thoughts/ be viewed as a thought leader.

misterbrian|3 years ago

Sure, I wrote one of my recent articles on this topic: https://briancaffey.github.io/2021/10/31/how-and-why-i-added.... I mostly treated Adsense as a learning experience.

I realize that most people who visit my site will use an ad blocker, so they won't see ads.

At one point I built an ad-block blocker (like you see on news websites), but doing that is sort of a cat-and-mouse exercise. It worked with some ad-blockers, but not others, so I disabled it. It also seemed to really bother people! I got lots of nasty chat messages through my Drift integration.

It is also an incentive for me to write articles that get a big audience.