Estimated reading time: 2 minutes

A look at the data.

This blog has had ups and downs. Over 2018, 2019, and 2020 I published on average once a week, mostly photos. My average traffic for these three years was nine, five, and nine visitors per day.

In 2021 I published a lot more, 348 times exactly. Between January and September, almost exclusively photos. Since then adding a weekly essay.

Paolo.blog average traffic increased to 37 daily visitors in 2021, trending up and reaching 50 in recent weeks.

In the fall of last year, I also started sending Morfternight, a weekly newsletter.

I sent the first one to 22 recipients. Today I am sending the 15th issue of Morfternight to 184 subscribers.

While the absolute numbers are small, the data is unambiguous: increasing the frequency, and consistency, of publishing, has increased my traffic by 500% and my newsletter’s audience by 836%

How did I do it?

First, I hedged my bets by finding an activity with multiple benefits. I love taking photos, and after one year of lockdowns, I wasn’t in my best shape and needed some outdoor activity.

I decided to go out and walk each day with my camera. At least I could fail at increasing my blog’s traffic and still get a benefit.

Then I followed Write of Passage. I use writing as my primary communication medium at work and in my personal life each day, but I realized I could learn tons from other people who went through the same journey.

That’s where I realized the importance of doing this within a community.

What’s next?

This!

To get from a weekly to a daily writing habit, I joined 🚢 Ship30for30. You are reading my first atomic essay in this course, hopefully, the first of a very long series.