![Photo courtesy of hfb [Flickr]](http://www.thepracticalnerd.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/2052055757_4e13e12c03.jpg "Photo courtesy of hfb [Flickr]")
Note to self: a Flickr search for “first birthday” will bring up a large number of pictures of crying babies.
On May 1st of last year, The Practical Nerd was born. It’s been a long and frustrating year, but endlessly rewarding as well. Here are some things I learned about life and blogging during the past 12 months:
Apple fanboys don’t care who you are. They will destroy you if given the chance. Don’t believe me? Check out the comments from this post, which morphed into the second-highest trafficked post on the site, just because I talked about how I don’t like Apple stuff.
Twitter is more than a bunch of narcissists. They are actually a very vibrant, giving community. I mean, yeah, the narcissists are out there, but a lot of them love to share content with each other and joke around a little bit. I like that.
No matter what you think, somebody is reading. If you’re an aspiring blogger and you don’t think somebody is reading, you’re wrong. I’m always surprised at the reaction I get on occasion from a little post here and there.
We all can afford the equipment to podcast. I have a cheap headset that I use for Skype calls, and I record in the free program Audacity. It really couldn’t get any easier.
You can hold a contest, but you can’t make them care. I got ONE entry from this contest I held back in September, and that’s only because the guy tweeted it to try and get me some reaction, and a tweet counted as an entry (thanks again, J. Money from Budgets Are Sexy!). He got the custom poster and proceeded to do nothing with it. I got one too, and I proceeded to do nothing with it. Maybe I should start looking into Amazon Gift Cards. Hmm…
Practical personal development is easier to write about than ‘90s pop culture. Devotees to this site know that I originally authored a blog called Vintage ‘90s, which now no longer exists. There was a wealth of content, but I lost all passion for it due to the difficulty and stress of trying to be funny. I don’t know how Cracked does it.
Money can’t drive your life – you need a bigger purpose. If your job is only there for monetary reasons, you’ll be miserable. You need to believe in what you are doing. I haven’t made a dime off this site. I’m here for the interaction and the exercise in writing.
Getting the “big boys” to notice isn’t hard. I’ve gotten small mentions on Zen Habits and Lifehacker, two of my favorite sites. All because I asked. And you’ll see below, Zen Habits gave me a crapload of traffic!
I should be doing this more. I’m not reaching out nearly enough.
15,306 visitors isn’t a lot on the Web, but I’m still proud. It’s pretty cool to think that my words have been read by 15,000 people. Pretty, pretty cool.
See those spikes up there? Those spikes are hope. This stuff is capable of driving traffic, and I didn’t buy that traffic. Sadly, that leveling off afterwards is a direct result of a failing business and a need for a 9-to-5 job for now, but it’ll be back. I have a feeling the next year will be much better…
Fourth of July was just plain fun. The highest spike up there (the left one) is from the July 4th, which was when I was linked to on Zen Habits. That was a lot of fun to watch that day.
On top of the numbers, this site has been viewed in 114 countries. When I started, I thought it was cool that Canadians were reading. I had no idea I had a Belgian following.
My cats are popular. Looking at the most-visited posts of the year, it’s clear that my cats have generated some interest. Rusty and Chandler are minor celebrities from one post that garnered the 3rd-most views on the site (and that includes the homepage!).
Original content rules. #10 on this list is a link to another site. The rest are all original posts done by me. Something for me to think about.
Comments from readers make it all worthwhile. The best moments I’ve had over the past year have been as a result of complete strangers commenting on my articles. That means I struck a chord with somebody. That’s the goal!
Here’s to another 12 months of awesomeness. Thanks for reading.
Tom is an entrepreneur and freelance writer, working out of his apartment full-time, or wherever he feels like taking his laptop. He doesn't take long European vacations or blogs on the beach. He's an Average Joe that took control of his life. He wants you to do the same.
