It happened. The first year since I started the blog has passed! This is a perfect opportunity to sum up what I managed to achieve over this year and what I plan for the coming year.

First of all, I want to thank you. Without you, this small success wouldn’t be possible because I wouldn’t have anyone to write for. 

Why I write

The idea to write came up when I was changing jobs. At that time, I had nothing to stand out with on the market, so my CV looked like almost anyone’s with a few years of experience. It was dry and boring. The only thing that could catch the eye and break away from the monotony were press articles I had written in the past. They were always a reason for an interesting conversation during recruitment. 

In the end, I got the job, but I thought I still needed a differentiator. Since other engineers were so interested in the way I write, it made sense to do something in that direction. I didn’t necessarily want to write press articles. It just so happened that exactly a year ago I was reading Michał Szafrański’s book “Zaufanie, czyli waluta przyszłości. Moja droga od zera do 7 milionów z bloga,” and that book pushed me to start a blog.

I still had to choose a topic. I generally deal with electronics and programming. There are tons of sites with DIY projects. Besides admiring the results, I don’t see much value in such articles. I also didn’t want to do what everyone else does. That’s why writing about Arduino was out from the start. Besides, my engineer’s spirit wouldn’t let me, hehe 🙂

While preparing for the job change, I was training intensively in microcontroller programming. I chose STM32 because they are popular and 32-bit. Looking for materials on them, I was disappointed. At that time there were few interesting places on the Polish internet that explained how to approach these great chips.

Since I can write detailed descriptions and explain things, I decided to write specifically about STM32. In addition, I wanted to help beginners, and that’s what’s happening. My articles are dedicated to everyone starting their adventure with STM32.

Some numbers

The first post was published on 11.07.2018. For convenience, I’ll count from 1.07.2018 to 30.06.2019.

Users

I’m not an Analytics expert, so in the first days I accidentally inflated my own views. Fortunately, it doesn’t have a big impact on the results.

Since the beginning of the blog, I’ve had 9100 unique users visit. That’s a lot!

These users generated 28240 page views across different pages, which is about 3 pages per person. Readers like to check out a few pages.

On my site, people spend on average just under two minutes. Quite good, considering that nowadays long posts are rarely read.

You probably see that spike in November 2018. That’s not a lack of interest in my site. Unfortunately, I accidentally disabled the Google Analytics plugin on the blog… For almost a month I didn’t monitor traffic on the site 🙁

Most popular posts

The most popular is… the homepage 🙂 Apparently most people scan what I have and don’t quite decide to read on. A pity, because they’re missing a lot.

Second place is interesting to me because it’s not directly about STM32, but about designing enclosures for displays. It’s probably so popular because it’s a topic hardly anyone talks about, yet it’s incredibly important for the aesthetics of the devices we build. If you don’t know it yet, be sure to check it out. Never do this with a display!

The next post is a review of a book for beginners. This shows me how important the audience taking their first steps with STM32 is to me.

From this list, it’s worth noting positions 6 and 8. They are among the newer posts and have already ranked very high in the yearly summary. Both articles were written with beginners in mind, which further emphasizes what I should focus on.

Key achievements

The mere fact that the blog runs is not my only achievement. I managed to maintain the planned posting frequency. It’s every other Wednesday at 20:00. I didn’t miss a single post.

The second success was opening a store. I sell parts there that I discuss on the blog as well as those that are useful on an electronics workbench. I’m gradually expanding my offer. I’d be grateful for suggestions on what else I can put in stock. I opened it with the idea of financing the parts I have to buy to produce my posts. Some of my readers place orders, for which I want to say a big thank you!

I managed to build a very nice Facebook group STM32 Polska. It currently has 775 members. I’m very happy with it. There’s no shortage of people willing to help. I sometimes ask questions myself. Beginners ask questions in a polite and orderly way. It’s clear how to help them and everyone is satisfied. Keep it up, group!

I tested myself as a video host. It was admittedly a short VLOG series, but now I know I’m able to talk to the camera. You’ll find it on my personal channel.

Plans for the next year

It’s a good habit to plan. Next year I intend to keep up the pace of publishing articles. It will still be every other Wednesday at 20:00. 

I’d like to continue the VLOG. Maybe not daily, but from time to time I’d share something interesting and valuable.

I’d like to start recording on YouTube. Today’s world revolves around video, so it would be good to take advantage of that. How about doing a LIVE as well? For example, building some little device? Be sure to let me know in the comments 🙂

Of course, I want to write as much content useful to beginners as possible. My goal is to help!

Recently I announced that I’m creating an STM32 course for beginners (content in Polish). Work has already started and I want to finish it in 2019. It would be best if it came out in October. I recommend joining the waiting list (content in Polish). We’re discussing there what the course should look like.

Contest

There won’t be a separate summary today because this entire post is a summary. Instead, I’d like to thank you in some way for reading me. Unfortunately, I can’t give something to everyone individually, but I can organize a contest 🙂 

You can win 16×2 LCD displays. There will be 3 sets of displays: green, black and blue.

What do you need to do?

• You must be a member of my newsletter: https://msalamon.pl/newsletter (content in Polish)
• Like my fanpage msalamon.pl
• Comment under this post what topic you’d like to see on my blog

I’ll choose the answers I like the most 🙂 Good luck!