I peeked at my WordPress stats the other day and realized that I had just passed three million page views on my blog.
According to Google Analytics, which I didn’t install into 2011, or three years in, I have hit three and a half million page views, with a million and a half unique visitors.
I’m totally blown away by those numbers. After all, I’m just one guy banging away on my keyboard a few times each week. I sit here writing about photography and exploring the ideas about creativity and picture taking that fascinate me, and yet, I’ve managed to attract a few visitors.
I started this blog in March of 2007, and in my first few posts, I featured some few recent skiing photos, liked to a feature article about me that had just been published in Outdoor Photographer Magazine, and wrote a retrospective on my experience being a professional photographer for ten years.
Over the next couple years, I continued to post new images, promote published work and updates to my website, share the occasional tip and write short “news” type articles announcing things like new products, notable events and interesting photography apps.
Occasionally, I would write longer articles about topics that drew my interest, like my personal goodbye to Kodachrome, or do fun pieces, like my 5 Worst Injuries as a Pro Photographer.
Holland America Line’s Mariner Magazine, Fall 2010 issue. Cover and inside photos by Dan Bailey
By 2010, I had started to do more “tips and insight” posts, drawing from nearly fifteen years of experience as a pro shooter. During that time, I also started a freelance position as Senior Contributor to a new photography blog called The Photoletariat, where I wrote the same kind of content, but to a larger audience.
My readership started to grow quite a bit during my two years writing for The Photoletariat and when the site eventually shut down after a two year run, I continued in full force with my own blog, bringing many of those readers with me.
By then, I had started to gain quite a bit of traction with my blog, and as my readership grew, I expanded on my overall approach and the types of content I offered. I wrote my first eBook in the fall of 2010, and by the next year, I had three eBooks under my belt and was contributing articles for a number of other sites as well.
I also discovered that my blog had become a powerful marketing arm for my business and my writing. In many ways, the blog has become the central hub for my business and everything I do as a professional photographer.
My blogging is what led the publisher for Focal Press to reach out and express interest in doing a book with me. It took a couple years to get things rolling, but in the winter of 2015, my first print book hit the stands.
Through the years, I’ve continued to refine both my writing and teaching style, I’ve published more eBooks and print books and have even been recognized as a top photography blogger in the industry. And, I’ve found that my blog has allowed me to connect with a huge number of other photographers around the world, some of who have ended up becoming close friends.
In addition, this outlet has allowed me to explore aspects of writing in a very personal and fulfilling way. For example, many of my blog posts are nothing more than thinly disguised journaling and travel writing pieces. I’ve always been fascinated by the craft of writing, and it looks like I accidentally became someone who now does it for a living. Who would have thought?
When I sit back and look at where this has come since March of 2007, I’m totally blown away. I know I’ve put in countless hours of hard work, writing, tweaking pages, researching plugins and continually refining things, but the reality is that you guys are the cog that has made this all happen.
Whether you’re a regular visitor, or if you’ve only stopped by once during a Google search, your readership is what has made me a successful blogger, and in many ways, a successful photographer.
I am so grateful for your support, especially those of you who have stuck with me since The Photoletariat and the early days of my blog. In fact, if you’re a longtime reader, I would love to hear how many years you’ve been following me, or if you even remember The Photoletariat!
With that in mind, to everyone who has ever read or shared my posts, I just want to extend my very sincere thanks to you guys for visiting my blog over three million times. I know that some blogs get a few million hits every single month, but again, I’m just one guy and the fact that I’ve attracted numbers like that simply blows my mind.
Anyway, I hope that you continue to stick with me. I’ve still got a lot of ideas that I want to write about… they never seem to stop coming, so if you’ll keep reading, I’ll keep pounding out more blog posts.
Take care and have a great weekend.
-Dan
