Thursday, January 18, 2018

How one article can toss your blog hits beyond realistic expectations

So back in mid-Oct 2017, I'd started a blog Maritime Outlook to write about maritime events, marine engineering, navigation and maritime law.

It started off ok, with a decent number of views coming in through Oct and Nov and a slight dip in Dec when I had to take a break for a couple of weeks because of exams. Of course, the higher views in November were helped partly due to one specific article on e-migration for seafarers that was to be implemented in December.

January turned out to be a very interesting month thus far. I'd been posting at fairly regular intervals and towards the end of the first week of January, I posted an article about 7 collisions that took place in the first 7 days of the year. That showed a spurt in the views and I thought it was a decent write-up. But then I wrote in detail about one of those collisions which involved the Sanchi and CF Crystal and followed it up with updates on the rescue efforts and explosions thwarting the same and finally resulting in the Sanchi burning for over a week and sinking with the loss of lives of all seafarers onboard. And just like that, when I shared these updates on facebook maritime groups, the views on my blog shot up. So much so that on that ONE day I had more views on my blog compared to the total views on my blog prior to that day. And now mid-way through January, I've got 3 times the views I've had in the 2.5 months prior to this.

Is it a major jump? I think not. Though it does help to placate one's thinking when it comes to writing articles that people will read. Have I monetized that blog yet? Nope. Will I? Only time will tell. For now, I'd like to build a regular reader base. Hopefully, this will be something that I can continue well into the future. And then proceed with further plans that I had when I started that blog of providing more information with easier accessibility to fellow seafarers.

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