Around the time I decided to quit my job and work for myself I made the decision that this little site should no longer be a personal blog, but a marketing page for my design work.
The site’s design has changed several times along the way, all with the intention of improving its appeal to potential clients. I updated it with new work, made it responsive, and added pretty new buttons, all the while tracking how each change affected the number of inquiries I received from potential clients.
Quite frankly, it didn’t.
In the past two years, one client has found me through my site.1 All other clients have come through word-of-mouth and relationships I’ve built over the past 4 years I’ve been in this industry. That’s not to say my site didn’t help at all, but I realized that the time I was investing trying to entice people I didn’t know to become clients wasn’t paying off, especially when a steady stream of people I had a connection with were already happy to hire me.
About a month ago, I took down my portfolio of work from this site. I moved the blog (including link posts) back to the home page.2 Most of you likely didn’t notice, as the majority of you read my site through an RSS reader. I didn’t announce it because it didn’t really matter; you were already reading.
I’ve been thinking about this quite a bit lately, why I feel so passionate about keeping a personal blog. These thoughts have been stirring in my head and this evening I finally feel like I have the capacity to put those thoughts into words.
One of my favourite things to do with this site is to share the amazing things people are doing all over the world. Whether it’s a friend asking for help to record an album or a stranger taking my breath away, I want to do what I can to get the word out about it.
I rarely if ever get feedback about the things I share or write. I don’t do this for comments (they aren’t enabled) or tweets or emails. I do it because it’s the best way I know to let you know about what’s on my mind or to share something I’ve discovered.
A couple of years ago, I took some time away from checking my site’s traffic statistics. It was a great way to gain some perspective on why I was blogging, and to realize what was important were the connections I was making with others through my writing. As I prepare for a trip to LA this week, and as the sweet smell of Christmas begins to permeate the air, I think it’s about time to take another step back until the new year. Not from writing or posting links, but from worrying about how many people are following along.
Before I do, though, I’d love to hear how you feel about what I do here. I’ve never taken a survey of my readership, but I think before I stop worrying about how many of you there are, it would be good to get a sense of the overall attitude towards my blog. If you wouldn’t mind taking about 5 minutes to fill this out for me, I would really appreciate it.