It has been 6 months since I created this blog. Time for an update on what has changed. This time, I will provide updates in two sections. One section states what I am using and another states how much traffic my blog gets.
β οΈ Please Note: This post compares everything against my initial setup from 2024 Jan.
Blog Report
- Blogging Platform: WordPress. No change.
- Web Hosting: Doze Host.
Host Koala started to feel a bit slow so I switched out. I used DozeHost cause I am familiar with it from my previous blog (forthright48.com). - Domain: Doze Host. No change.
- Theme: Astra Free.
- Plugins
- β Removed
- Emoji Toolbar: Removed. I configured an emoji picker instead.
- Admin Panel, Editor, and Post Enhancements
- WP Dark Mode: I use it to enable dark mode on the WordPress admin site.
- Classic Editor: Block-based editor lags a lot. I find the classic to be much more smoother.
- Enlighter β Customizable Syntax Highlighter: This is to show highlighted code blocks.
- Reading Time WP: To show quick hints on how long it will take to read the post.
- Simple Custom CSS and JS: To highlight inline codes more nicely.
- SEO, Analytics, and Subscription
- Google Analytics for WordPress by MonsterInsights: To monitor how much traffic my blog gets.
- MailPoet: To provide email subscriptions as an option to my loyal readers. I currently have 5 subscribers π. Have you subscribed yet?
- Yoast SEO: Plugin to make my posts more SEO-friendly. Also helps generate the sitemap for my blog.
- CookieYes | GDPR Cookie Consent: Needed to satisfy GDPR law in Europe.
- Core Functionality and Security
- Akismet Anti-spam: Spam Protection: To combat against spam messages. I got 2 spam messages so far and no real comments π.
- wpDiscuz: In case someday real users want to leave comments on my blog, I am prepared.
- WPS Hide Login: This makes hackersβ lives harder by moving the login page to a custom link.
- WPS Limit Login: Limits the attempts to log in. Prevents brute force attack.
- UpdraftPlus β Backup/Restore: I regularly back up my whole blog to my Google Drive using this plugin. Also helped out during the migration of the blog.
- Broken Link Checker: Sends email whenever it finds broken links on my blog.
- β Removed
Analytics Report
I messed up my SEO game a bit. I thought Google would automatically find and index my blog posts but that didnβt happen. So for 6 months, I had 0 traffic to my blog (other than me). I recently submitted the sitemap to Google Search Console (GSC) and promoted my blog on social media. I managed to get 33 users to my site.
Conclusion
While the numbers look miserable, I donβt mind it. I have been having fun!
My current goal π― is to promote my blog to 1000 new users. This will take time and effort, but the challenge is part of the fun!
Hey Samiul!
Itβs great to get some insight and see how you run your blog. The SEO and getting people to read your blog seems pretty hard and scary π
Hey Axel. Thanks for the comment. The SEO has been very confusing. I am still struggling to get Google to index all the pages correctly. Hopefully, things will get easier as I figure things out.