Two years of me running this blog have just passed! Sometimes it’s hard for me to believe that I’ve already been working on it for so long, and yet it’s still only the beginning. Around the same time, my store also has its anniversary. True, I officially opened it in June, but I’m going to count it as part of the joint celebration 🙂 Just like a year ago, I invite you to a short summary.
Recently I decided that I’ll make some of my blog’s statistics public. I think it’s worth being transparent. What I decide I can share, I will show. Everyone likes to know “how the neighbor is doing,” right? 🙂
By the way, a fun fact: apparently we’re so curious because the curiosity center in the brain is very close to the pain center. So in a way curiosity hurts us, and pain—as we know—should be relieved as quickly as possible 😉
The goal of the blog
Let me remind you that my goal is to spread knowledge and embedded programming skills among beginners. I focus on STM32 microcontrollers because, in my opinion, starting with AVR (Arduino) is not the best path for people who would like to really know how to program. Sure, you can learn on them, but today’s market increasingly expects you to be able to work with ARMs.
An equally important second goal is improving my programming skills. I’m still learning all the time, so when writing articles I often think about how to convey to you what I’m describing. Not only do I have to think about how to program something, but also about how to explain it to you. It’s not as easy as it seems… Besides, I also learn from my readers. More than once someone has pointed out a mistake in a comment, or I’ve discussed something—whether in the comments section, in emails, or on Facebook. I like talking with my readers.
A secondary goal is simply having an interesting activity. Writing the blog has become, in a way, my hobby. Additionally, opening the store supports me financially to some extent. Slowly, it’s starting to come together.
Numbers
I’m an engineer, so numbers are a fairly clear indicator for me of how my blogging is going. At the beginning of 2020, I even brushed up a bit on Google Analytics. The data comes from the period 1.07.2019 ÷ 30.06.2020.
Posts
I published as many as 25 blog posts in 2019. I’m still sticking to one post every two weeks, on Wednesdays at 20:00. For now, I don’t want to change that. I think it’s the right interval between posts—enough time for me to prepare new materials. Although for more difficult topics, sometimes I’d prefer to have a bit more time.
Users
In the second year of the blog’s operation almost 21 thousand people visited me! More than double growth (+130%) compared to the previous year. It’s becoming a really nice number, and the trend is still upward.
All users visited a total of 81 thousand pages. That gives 3.75 pages / user. A better result than last year by 0.65 pages / user. There are more materials to read, so readers read more. I’ve currently improved the suggestion of subsequent articles, so this result should improve even more.
Similarly, the average session duration improved. Last year it was 2 minutes 30 seconds, at the same time increasing by 40 seconds compared to the previous period. We have less and less time for everything, and yet people read me more. I’m happy 🙂
The users chart looks like this visually. And compared to the previous year.
Most popular posts
This is valuable information for me, because thanks to it I know what kind of content interests my readers.
Many people see only the first page. These are probably people who landed on the blog’s home page and didn’t find anything for themselves at first glance. I’ve recently worked a bit on the presentation of the first page. Maybe it will be better 🙂
Taking a quick look at the second ten, it’s similar—mainly basic components used when learning programming.
I mainly revolve on the blog around showing how to program such things, so I think the direction is pretty good. One day, however, these chips will run out, but I hope my ideas won’t.
I have a big TO DO list in my notebook 🙂
Achievements
Original evaluation boards from ST have just appeared in the store! I finally managed to make it happen. Many people asked me about these boards. Right now there are a few types of Nucleo. More kits will appear gradually. Just like with developing the store, I finance everything from my own capital, so the development is slower than faster 😉
As I mentioned at the beginning of the article, a major achievement is the consistency of published posts. Unchanged for two years, every two weeks on Wednesdays at 20:00 a new article comes out.
Maybe it’s not related to the blog, but I became a co-organizer of Gdańsk Embedded Meetup. Currently, due to the pandemic, meetings have been suspended, but I can’t wait for the return.
I was a speaker at Arduino & Raspberry Pi Day 2020. My first time “on stage.” True, online, but it’s something. Next time maybe it will be in front of an audience.
Our STM32 Polska Facebook group has doubled! At the time of writing the post it’s 1441 people. Additionally, I launched a Discord server for this very group. There are many smart and active people in the group. Beginners can also feel comfortable, because the experienced folks don’t bite 🙂
Failures
Not everything worked out the way I planned. Maybe I plan too much 😉
I didn’t manage to continue the VLOG. Editing takes a terribly long time, so I gave up 🙁 Instead, I do a bit more Insta Story – private IG, and electronics IG.
I also didn’t start YouTube or LIVE on it. It’s still hanging on my to-do list, so the plan has only shifted. Once I start, I’ll probably stick to it rigidly like with the blog.
I didn’t release the STM32 Course for beginners (content delivered in Polish) in 2019. I started work intensively, but reality verified my ideas about such a course. I have a huge amount of work on it! It will probably appear right after the holidays 🙂
Plans for the next year
Course, course, course! Priority number 1. It must be released in 2020, period.
YouTube. I already have a topic for the first LIVE, which came up after my appearance at Arduino Day. Additionally, on LIVE I want to tackle things with viewers—for example new boards from ST, and I have quite a few of them in my cabinet.
I’m not planning more—better not. Of course, besides that I still intend to stick to systematically publishing content and carrying out my mission of teaching beginners.
CONTEST
To wrap up, a birthday contest. I’d like to somehow thank you for reading me. Unfortunately, I can’t give something to each of you individually, but I can organize a contest ?
Since the LCD topic was the most popular last year, I have 3 sets of such displays to give away. Each set is 3 colors: green, black, and blue.
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