Tag: website

WordPress is telling me that I have about 250 to 300 unique visitors per month to this site. That has remained constant since I started tracking numbers in 2013. That is not a large sample period, but it does include some quiet months and some very busy months. Case in point, August was very busy, with two to three posts every week whereas April was spotty at best, with only one post in the first three weeks.

I force myself to try to think of things to write here, things that might be of interest to either other designers (how would I approach turning Borderlands into a tabletop RPG) or just other gamers (the Savage Zanzibar posts). I do that to try to keep eyes on this site because this is my business, and more eyeballs hopefully means more purchases.

Since the number of eyeballs is consistent, the number of posts doesn’t seem to really matter.

Wow. Talk about a kick right in motivation’s junk.

I’m going to be straight with you: figuring out what to write is hard. Don’t get me wrong, I have no problem writing gaming stuff for my own use – rules, adventures, campaigns – and when I can, I’ll share it with you (like I did for Direct Action or the Sword Noir one-pagers), but most of my gaming writing is either 1) an attempt to obtain legal currency or 2) for my own use and would need serious work to be shared with the public. This means that I generally need to think up a topic and write an article specifically for this site.

Work. Huh. What is it good for? Absolutely . . .

I’m not sure. Looking at the numbers, they seem to be telling me that I am doing a lot of work for nothing. Post about new project, new products, Kickstarters, sales, etc. That should be enough. Maybe once a week. But that feels wrong. Really wrong. The evidence is there but my heart is telling me something else.

Will I stop writing articles? Like I said, my gut (heart, innards, whatever) tells me I need to keep posting, so I think I’d feel guilty not writing and posting. I don’t think I’m going to feel the need to do three posts a week consistently. But I also see no pattern in what articles draw attention.

So, I will keep plugging away. If you have suggestions, share them. If you are one of the 250 to 300, thanks.

There’s a good chance that if you tried to stop by in the last week or so, you got a malware warning. Turns out, someone got into our Word Press stuff and messed it up. It seemed to have been mostly re-directs to bad, bad places in Russia. It seems the crew at Liquid Web, the hosting service I use, cleaned it up. I’m waiting for final word from the Google review, but the fact that I got here this morning seems to indicate everyone is happy.

For now.

I am unfortunately not a very techy guy, so this is all over my head. It also means that other than updating everything and changing passwords, I have no idea what else I can do. There’s no way I can promise this won’t happen again. I really hope it won’t. That was a brutal week.

What could I possibly be talking about this Tuesday? My Mutants & Masterminds campaign? Sword Noir? More adventures? More fiction?

Google Analytics.

I can hear the collective intake of breath on that one.

Bear with me. Analytics might not be the absolute best way to track audience, but it’s pretty good. What it tells me is that SEP is losing audience. Like, a lot. Conversely, Sword’s Edge has been gaining audience. Like, a lot.

So, I’ve been working pretty hard to keep both websites current and populated with posts. Those of you keeping track will know that I have a new day job. I’m also doing distance education. My new day job offers less opportunity to do work on down time. I can’t really say why, just trust me, this is the case. My distance education courses are taking up time at night.

You know where this is going, right?

Since I don’t have time to write four posts a week (and that only allows for two posts per site), I need to focus my energies.

From here on in, pretty much everything will be posted at Sword’s Edge. The only exception will be Mundus Novit-themed articles and fiction. As much time as Dark Horizons robs from me, I’m keeping with it. You will see a conclusion.

All other articles, reviews, ideas, fiction, etc will be over at Sword’s Edge. I may be wrong, but looking at the numbers I’m guessing that a huge majority of the people visiting SEP, visit SE. If not, can you start doing so?

Or just keep track of everything me related at my tumblr page.

If you think this is a really bad idea, let me know why.

The easiest thing to do is follow the RSS feed. That’ll let you know when SEP is updated. You can expect something everything Thursday (Mundus Novit related), but once Dark Horizons is done, that will likely taper off.

Bummer, eh? It’s been in the cards for a while. My net presence has been deteriorating since the birth of my second daughter. Someday, maybe I’ll have more time again.

Someday.