2023 review
We're approaching the end of 2023. And I'd like to take stock of the past year.
I'll try to give some figures and also talk about how this blog has evolved.
I say try, because I've had a lot of problems with analytics tools, and I've lost a lot of data over 2023. But I had made some partial backups, so I'll still be able to give some information.
Reading stats
First of all, the number of monthly visits has been relatively stable over the last 3 years. It fluctuates between 2000 and 4000 visits.
I can't offer you any comparisons with other blogs. That's an average of around a hundred visits a day. Which is respectable, but not incredible.
And let me be clear, these aren't just vanity metrics, I'm interested in understanding the reach I can have. I hope that what I write is useful to people, so yes, I find it useful to see if the posts I make here have an echo.
I hope I've finally found an analytics tool that will allow me to track year-on-year evolution for next year.
Since I've lost most of the stats from 2023, it's hard for me to know which articles are the most widely read. With the limited data at my disposal, it seems to be
With over 1500 views each.
By the way, if we're talking average stats, it's funny to see the correlation between content type and number of views.
For example, if we consider the popularity of a post in terms of its number of views,
- a "very good article" averages over 3,000 views, with the most viewed being over 5,000.
In this category, you'll find posts that talk about salaries, freelance income, the tech crisis, the tech ecosystem. In short, for the most part, subjects that are a little broad and can reach more people. But above all, as soon as I talk about income, it attracts people :)
Please note that a few old articles on mongodb are also in this category.
- a "good article" averages between 1000 and 3000 views.
There are a good number of articles on the theme of seniority, the role of staff and the role of EM. But they all came out in the last 18 months, so they can all pass the 3000 mark over time.
- Most of the articles that are a little more "techy" and therefore more niche are often between 500 and 1500 views.
And then there are all the articles that have more difficulties to interest people, with less than 500 views.
Since 2020, the most widely read article remains "Salaries in tech" with around 17k views (only in french).
Unfortunately, I no longer have the stats to compare with "Working differently (french only)", which came out in 2013 and garnered between 15 and 25k views from memory. But all the stats from that time were on an old Wordpress that I no longer have.
On the other hand, the stat that's 100% reliable is the number of articles published in 2023: 24 (with this one), so that's 8 more than in 2022.
What's new in 2023
2022 was a complete overhaul with Nuxtjs.
2023 was the year I decided to go multi-language on the blog. Previously, I published English articles on Medium and French articles here. From now on, I'll concentrate solely on my blog.
Of the 24 posts published in 2023, 19 are in English, available here, and 3 are on Medium. The switchover took place in January.
2023 marks the start of writing "impactful-software-engineering", which already contains 14 chapters. In theory, that's more than half of what I've planned. But it can change, since I can still change my plan. That's the whole point of doing it online.
2023 is also the first Youtube video of the channel eventuallycoding (in French only), which so far has around a hundred views. It's still very low, much less than an article and notably less than its written equivalent. This isn't surprising given the change in format, and I'm not overly concerned. We'll take stock later. I'm also very interested to see how Youtube is going to make the video live.
Finances
On the money side, the blog has a few expenses.
So there are
- the eventuallycoding.com domain name for 18€.
- pirsch.io the analytics tool I've just set up, for $6/month
- Hyvor which I use for comments, at $6/month (*)
- Filmora for video editing, with an annual subscription of 36 euros
(*) I admit it's a bit expensive given the use of comments on the blog, but I still find that having comments is a plus. I appreciate the feedback.
So the annual cost for 2023 is 132 euros.
However, I had 2 donors on buy me a coffee for a total of 22 euros (19 euros after the platform's commission). This allowed me to mitigate, a little, the cost of this blog (I reassure you, I'm not in danger, and I'm not appealing for help). I thank them very very much!
I did splurge a bit, though, at the end of the year, and bought a bit of equipment to try and improve the video quality of future releases. It cost 190 euros. It may not have been reasonable, but I reckon I could afford it and I hope the result will show.
What's next?
It's hard to say. Of course, I still want to finish the "Impactful software engineering" book. And I'd like to see where the Youtube challenge takes me.
Let's see :)
