My blog had more traffic in January 2022 than all of 2021. How did I do it?

The month of January was a good month for me. As I wrote the other day, I over-indexed on miles as part of my quest to walk or run 500 for the year. But another fortuitous thing has happened to start 2022.

This very blog got more traffic in January 2022 than it did for all of 2021.

I know it won’t be impressive to all of you with a big subscriber base and a substack raking in thousands of dollars every month, but check out the data:

• 16,115 page views
• 13,638 visitors
• 1.18 views per visitor
• 12 posts published

My stats for all of 2021:

• 11,233 page views
• 8,358 visitors
• 1.34 views per visitor
• 33 posts published

To be honest, I have only started to publish as often as I’d like. My aspiration is daily; reality is 2-3 times per week, probably at the maximum. However, quantity wasn’t my secret for success.

It was being observant and having a curiosity that apparently tens of thousands of other people have.

Where did all the Fritos go?

I noticed it and asked a worker at a local Walmart about it. Her answer made me realize that it was a thing, either partly caused by other supply chain issues, including a labor situation that boiled up earlier in 2021. I had also heard that ingredients needed to make the smaller Fritos (as opposed to the Scoops, which I don’t care for) were in short supply.

Whatever the reason, in the middle of winter this became a thing.

The blog post resonated.

How do I capitalize on it? I don’t think I want to become known as the Fritos guy or the guy who notices every time the store is out of something. However, I think ‘staying curious’ about what I see happening around me and asking questions about it — as a journalist is wont to do — is a good way to tap into content demand with supply.

Is there something you’re curious about? Heck, maybe I can find an answer!?

I still can’t find any Fritos although, to be fair, we also haven’t made chili in a few weeks.