I started this blog on June 1, 2018 with a post on the Marxist concepts of the base and superstructure. This is the end of the first year, and my 32nd post. Here’s an overview of that year.

Most Viewed Posts

I use Google Analytics with this blog to view stats about which posts people read, which search terms people use in finding this blog, and how many people read the blog each day.

Since June 2018, here are the most viewed posts:

1. Cathy Glasson and Elections in the Midwest
2. Economic Anxiety and Trump’s Base
3. Is Trumpism a Fascist Movement?

If there’s a common theme to popular posts, it’s Midwestern responses to Trumpism. The first is about a failed Sandersista campaign in Iowa. The second is an analysis of Trump’s base. The third is an argument that Trumpism is a distinct, but non-fascist, far right wing movement.

Popular Search Terms

Sticking with Google Analytics for a minute, how do people find this blog? What search terms do they use? Here are the most popular terms, along with the post that goes with that term:

1. Toure Reed (Between Ta-Nehisi Coates and Touré Reed)
2. Identitarianism (Identity Politics and Identitarianism)
3. Political Flowchart (Political Terms: A Flowchart for Using New Language)

“Political Flowchart” is particularly interesting, because this blog is apparently one of the top 5 worldwide results in Google searches for that term. Pretty neat!

The Financials of Blogging

Am I trying to make money with this blog? Have I?

The answers to those questions are: It’s not a big priority. And no.

It costs me about $100 per year to maintain this blog. That includes things like paying for the URL, hosting fees, etc. I have a decent, middle-income job, so $100 per year isn’t breaking the bank. I can afford it.

But I did try out a couple of ways to generate revenue, mostly to see if I could recover the costs of maintaining the blog. One method is a Google AdSense account. That’s why you see ads on the site. I tried to make the ads relatively unobtrusive, and hopefully you don’t find that they detract from the posts. A second method is an affiliate account with Amazon. I reference many books here, and sometimes I review books. And so it made sense to link to a place where the reader could buy those books.

I decided pretty quickly that the Amazon affiliate account wasn’t the best idea, largely because Amazon turned out to be a company that works with ICE on immigration issues. So I put that on hold.

As far as the AdSense account goes, it has generated $2.38 in ad revenue for me in 7 months. At that rate, I’m obviously a wee bit short of $100 per year. And, ultimately, that’s fine. I could ask for donations, and I may get around to doing that some day. I probably wouldn’t turn down any offers, but I can keep the site running without the money. If you do want to support the site financially, click an ad! It’s also likely that as the site gains more readers, there will be more ad revenue.

Where Do Readers Live, and What Devices Do They Use?

These turn out to be fairly straightforward questions. Readers of this blog live overwhelmingly in the United States (about 73%).  That’s not a big shocker. I write quite a bit about American political issues, and so I’d expect it to be a mostly American audience.

As far as how people access this blog, it’s about 54% mobile phones and 42% desktop or laptop computers. The rest access the site via tablet. This is actually something of a surprise to me. Personally, I prefer reading articles on my laptop, so I expected most people to access via desktop/laptop. But, to my credit, I’ve checked the blog on my cell phone and have to say that it reads pretty nicely on one!

What Will I Write About Next Year?

Who knows? I’m involved with a tenants union in the city where I live, and I expect to write about that soon. I live in Iowa, and the US presidential election always goes through here. So expect something about that. Other than that, it’s an open question.

Any recommendations?