Anybody Out There?

So, I started a little experiment back in October. I had been away from the websites—my personal website that had started as an e-zine (here) and the Sword’s Edge Publishing website. I began to post very regularly to see what effect it would have on site visits and therefore on visibility. Lacking any skills in marketing, I used Twitter and Bluesky to announce whenever I posted anything. I also started to use Facebook for marketing and reach.

Well, interest has increased since October—just a snapshot, the site had a 36% increase in visitors in Dec 2024 vs. Dec 2023 and an increase in over 100% in views. But here’s something interesting, Sep 2024—before I had started posting regularly—had the highest number of visitors and views of all of 2024.

And I’m not including numbers because: They. Are. Embarrassing.

One the SEP site, there was no appreciable difference in visitors and views between Dec 2023 and Dec 2024. The average of the period before and after I started posting regularly was pretty much the same.

I only have very basic metrics for the website, the free stats provided by Jetpack (it’s a WordPress site) and I am questioning just how reliable they are. Maybe there’s no one coming to the site except the one or two friends that like it on Facebook. Is there even value in having a website?

Well, I won’t abandon it. Sunk cost fallacy maybe, but I don’t want to lose everything I built over the years.

There’ll probably be a decline in posting though hopefully not a full abandonment. If I have something I desperately need to say, it’ll be here. Or at SEP. Otherwise, I kind of feel like I’m shouting into the void. There’s nothing wrong with masturbation, I’m just not a fan of doing it in public.