Happy New Year and Best Wishes for 2021!
A new year that presents us with new opportunities to grow and achieve our goals. But first I want to take a look back and go over what’s behind us because 2020 had in store for me.
COVID-19
Early last year Holland had a lockdown and currently, we are in our second lockdown. This hasn’t really affected my day-to-day life as much as with other people. Because I’m a baker, I still have to go to work every day. No, I cannot produce thousands of loaves of bread from my home kitchen.
While I do my best to take safety precautions by not attending any events, wearing a mask, washing my hands, and disinfecting them, I still was infected with the Coronavirus in November. I’m not sure how it happened. The bakery is linked to a big distribution center, so there are a lot of people coming in and out that front door from all over the country.
Well, I felt crap for a week and it took a long time to get back to strength. I haven’t felt that ill in years, so I can’t recommend it. Stay safe! Although I was in isolation in the attic, separated from my family, my wife already was infected. While her first test came back negative, she did another one when I came out of my lockdown. That one returned positive and she had to go in isolation. Luckily the kids weren’t infected.
Website Growth
I have been working on this website for a very long time. It continues to surprise me what I have been able to achieve because of it. But it’s all because of you if you have visited the site, left a comment, or shared a post. Thank you for your support, it means the world to me!
While I’m not the guy that focuses on numbers and my “clout”, I can tell you that the number of visitors to the site has grown a lot over the last year. Yes, Borderlands 3 has brought a lot of folks to the site but after the initial hype tuned down, the new “normal” continued to increase.
I enjoyed adding Godfall to the site. Not because Gearbox Publishing brought this game to the market but because it was a game I was interested in. It did something new for me in a setting that appealed to me. I had fun playing the game, although I didn’t spend as much time on the game as liked due to focusing on getting well and taking care of my family. That said, I did see a lot of visitors coming for Godfall info as the “numbers” surpassed any other content on my site.
2021 Goals
- Improve the site
- There is still a lot I can improve on the site. Add more content, enrich old content, and update articles.
- Membership site
- In late 2020, I started experimenting with a new software plugin that would add perks to subscribers to the site. The package wasn’t up to my standards and therefore I deleted the whole thing. That said, it’s still something I would like to build.
- New Game(s)
- I want to add more games to the site because I’m passionate about gaming and not just Borderlands and Battleborn. Although those games will have my priority, I would like to expand the site.
- Video content
- Yes, I have a youtube channel. However, it got pushed to the back burner because I needed to focus more on my personal life. Having a second kid turned out to be more time and energy-consuming than anticipated. “Baby” Mike is more comfortable in his life and therefore my wife and I also have more time and energy to pick up different things. I want to make more video content. It won’t be a new video every day but I want to make a substantial amount.
- Redesign of the site
- This one is optional. I like the current design of the site but I know the creator of this theme has a new theme coming up year. I expect the new theme to be similar but up-to-date with the new internet standards. If I think it’s a fit for what I’m doing and pushing the site forward we might get a fresh coat of paint this year.
- XX Million Milestone
- We just hit the 25 million views milestone on the site. It would be insane if we hit XX million views but I don’t want to focus on the numbers. That’s also why I typed XX instead of the actual number I think is doable but still challenging. I just want to make a quality website that people find informative and enjoy coming back to.