Behind the Scenes – 2015

shikungigi

So I just sat and thought that this would be a cool thing to do every year to take stock on de blog. This will be a great way for you to catch up on all the good stuff produced in here. Okay, I just didn’t sit, it took a while to analyse the numbers, so I gave up and did an estimation. Let’s start with the most searched terms that led you to Thoughts and Stuff in 2015:

Gathoni wa Muchomba/ Muigwithania Kameme FM

Seriously. Like why can’t Kameme folks not start websites dedicated to these subjects or something. It makes no sense that people keep clicking to this post in which I mentioned the two subjects in one sentence. Nothing more, nothing less. That’s all it took to be one of the top search results when people want to know Gathoni’s age or marital status. Honestly. That never ceases to amaze me.

Kikuyu Singing games etc

Well, who would have thought that one post would span a million different other results? I have this mantra; if I Google something and don’t find it, I make it, if I can. So that’s what happened. Search for Kanyoni ka nja and see the magic. 🙂

Now you can begin to see why I stopped writing too much Kikuyu stuff and opened a blog fully dedicated to all things Kikuyu. Still sleeping on the job but watch that space!

Ee Mungu Nguvu Yetu translation

Like seriously, this post is right below Wikipedia. Turns out I am not the only who gets uneasy that it was translated like that. Na si niliwaambia naweza anza uandishi kwa Kiswahili? Kidogokidogo unashtukia nimejua kuongea lugha nyingine na nimeanza kuringa naweza andika blog mzima nayo.

Perks of being a short girl

Need I say more? Basically all we short girls out here want validation. Catch the original post here.

Matatu Saccos

Remember that post? Well, turns out people search for matatu saccos online all the time. Search for Dakabo Sacco, for instance, and see what happens. 😀

Wallah bin Wallah na Kiswahili Mufti

I sat down one day and decided to rant about Wallah because he confused my baby sister. Now anyone who Googles him in Swahili ends up on this post. Maybe I should really start a Swahili blog now. Ama niaje, wenzangu? Ha!

OTHERS:

Gospel Industry in Kenya,
What does his hug say?
Alliance Girls High School classmates
Moi University and other Eldoret-y stuff, even though I left these behind. Best search term yet: Mr Furaha of Moi University. 🙂
Kikuyu meanings/ translations of various terms. Best search term yet: i love you and i’ll come to ask your dad for you in kikuyu 😀

The rest are mostly just people searching my name and related terms. The other bulk is random stuff I have ever spelt out here for one reason or the other.

What drove me to write in 2015

Except the 2014 posts that keep getting traffic from the searches above, the most popular posts I wrote in 2015 are in this order:

Single Is Awesome, Again. For Now. – The most popular post last year was also a post on singleness. Smh. People like consoling themselves y’all. 😀 It also led to like five more posts by lady guests on this very blog.

[Insert Matatu SACCO Name Here] – The first post I wrote in a packed matatu and realized that that’s where I get my mojo now, in packed matatus.

Kisses from Kisii – I was on a roll with this one. I did it just for fun. I had all these things pent up inside of me and had to let them out somehow, if only to propagate my very-alive dream of being a travel writer one day.

Mum – What do I say? People love their mums. And I was just very blank when I wrote it, but somehow you can never run out of things to say at midnight, especially about your mother. Dad’s post almost made it to the top five btw. Just saying. Ndio msiseme oh equality, oh Shiku, oh feminism.

Wait. Try. Move. I was feeling very at peace with this one. Also in a matatu. Also a pep talk. People love some pep in their lives. 😛

I will not even lie to you and tell you that I can never tell when a post will strike a chord. I totally know. Because those are the posts I take a while to actually pen down, just writing them in my head, and then when I do, I am running my fingers on the keyboard or screen like there’s no tomorrow. Most times, I very emotional when writing these posts. Sometimes I cry. I am not even kidding you. Sometimes I am feeling funny. The only time I am actually funny is when I write about annoying things I go through and need to laugh about them later. Sometimes, like with the singleness post, I just need to let out something I’ve been keeping in for many months.

I will also mention that aside from the top 5 above, three of the top 10 were posts by Barrack Obaga (a.k.a. B) and Kizzy Barbara. Thank you all who took time to help me spread the love in here!

Lessons

Images are very important in a blog, or rather visual content does do wonders to complement text. Most of the results above are only visible on Google Images Search. You know someone is desperate when they hit “Images” when they are not actually looking for an image.

Let it go. Literally. You will never know what you would have written unless you write it. And live it. You will never know what would have been unless you do it.

Facebook is important for your blog. I know it is as I have seen how I don’t get as much traffic now that I grew terribly tired of the social network. Sorry guys. This might just turn into another WhatsApp that I abandon forever and ever. Only that’s it’s not possible. I literally work on Facebook. Let’s see how long I can survive logging in as a Page(s).

Sometimes, all you need is to do is accept and move on. Like what happened when we tried to participate in the joke that is the BAKE awards as BuildingKE. Like I said. Wait. Try. Move.

I wonder what you all thought about while reading Thoughts and Stuff? I know I will get some answers somewhere. 🙂

Asanteni sana kwa kusoma na kuwa hapa kila wakati.

 

One thought on “Behind the Scenes – 2015

  1. What a year it has been being part of your readers in 2015.
    I can’t wait to see what 2016 will be like.
    So far.. I agree that fb is important for a blog like this.. especially when mailchimp decides to go rogue on a subscriber. ?? hehe!

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