on life, ambitions, and dreams

Happy Second Blogiversary, lamiki!

By Pink Sherbert Photography

Two years ago I was a wannabe blogger. The kind who want a blog so desperately that it paralyzed me from picking out a theme and sitting down to do the hard work – writing. So with the help of my husband, I slapped a landing page on my domain with a gorgeous (and accurate) ticker. I set an arbitrary date for launch, and I watched the months, weeks, days, and hours disappear.

Then, hours before I was supposed to launch, I did what most people do when they’re faced with a deadline – I freaked out. Lucky for me, John was still there to hold my hand. He helped me decide on a theme that would work, add a little branding, and got it live. Then he went to bed, while I stayed up to write my first post.

The date was a Sunday, February 14th, 2010, and I didn’t crawl into bed until 6am the following morning.

But I wrote, edited, and published my first post. My blog went live, and I tweeted, and then caught up on my sleep.

When I woke up, my life changed.

There were tweets, comments, and mentions galore. I remember going over to a friend’s house for dinner on that evening and checking the most comments for the first time – there were fifteen.

Oh. My. God. People were actually reading my brand new blog.

And they liked what I had to say.

My legs went weak. I felt like I was going to throw up.

But I didn’t.

Instead I calmed down and replied to those tweets and those comments. I thanked my new readers – people who heard my excitement about launching a blog in the past and were thrilled that lamiki.com was finally live.

I became a blogger.

Over the course of the past two years, I have thought, I have written, and I have published. Through this blog I have met people, landed some amazing jobs, and built some deep relationships. Blogging, and this identity that is “lamiki” has helped me open doors that I never knew existed before.

lamiki is an acronym that stands for my full name, and out of that I have found an identity, a brand, that is 100% me.

The Second Year in Posts

The best part about writing (and doing anything, actually) is the more you do it, the better you become. Some pretty big, awesome, amazing things happened since lamiki turned one, here are the highlights through posts:

Milestone posts from the archives

Most popular blog posts this past year

Posts I’m most proud of writing

Posts I had the most fun writing

Posts I had the hardest time writing

The Second Year by the Numbers

Since launching, I have published 114 posts, received 497 comments, and there have been 21,393 views to my site. In November 2011 when I was cranking out one post a day, my blog received an average of 114 views each day.

But what’s more fun, is how people stumbled across my blog from searching.

Top Search Terms

  • hipster love
  • flat stanley letter, flat Stanley, flat stanley letters
  • trey ratcliff
  • handstand
  • mazda mascot
  • 24 hours of lemons
  • ira glass quote nobody tells this to beginners
  • lamiki (made it in the Top 10, phew!)
  • how to become a crossfit athlete

Most Interesting Search Terms

This list is just too awesome not to share, and apparently it’s telling me something about posts I’ve written – or need to write.

  • procrastination flowchart
  • handstand skirt (and) handstand in a skirt
  • proof of pregnancy letter (um, what?)
  • procrastination algorithm
  • “hipster entrepreneur” (my goal is to own this search term, by the way)
  • against procrastination algorithm (I feel sorry for the person who was trying to search for this term)
  • are you a hipster flowchart (good to know, I think I should create one…)
  • i’m learning real skills that i can apply throughout the rest of my life … procrastinating and rationalizing. (not sure if this is a good or a band thing…)
  • what i must do is all that concerns me not what the people think
  • trust in your fucking self poster
  • got talent? competition to hire the best and motivate the rest
  • i’m taking care of my procrastination issues
  • what’s up with crossfitters doing handstands
  • what to do with flat stanley after i receive him
  • today is friday what i write on my twitter quotes
  • how to set up meetings with corporate decision makers

Hipster Search Terms

The best decision I ever did was on November 12, 2010 when I published In Observance of Date Night. The reason is that this was the first time during NaBloPoMo that I was literally tired and did not want to write. But I had a goal to meet and had to post something.

So I wrote a quick and dirty “cheater” post, found a picture, and slapped it up. The hilarious part is that this blog post has gotten me more traffic than any other post, which goes to show that keyword popularity trumps quality content (for search at least, quality still rules for acquiring a readers).

Apparently if you want to learn about hipsters, this is what you search for:

  • are you a hipster flowchart (good to know, I think I should create one…)
  • “hipster entrepreneur” (my goal is to own this search term, by the way)
  • what is a hipster?
  • american hipster
  • hipster love pictures
  • hipster social entrepreneur
  • i am a hipster entrepreneur
  • hipster pictures love
  • hipster girls crafting
  • how to be hipster
  • cute hipster love

Since then, I’ve been on a very quiet, non-strategic vendetta to own words such as “hipster love” and “hipster entrepreneur.” I’m doing this because it amuses me. So do watch out for more hipsters to appear throughout the next year.

What’s next, lamiki?

More hipsters. They will make an appearance.

One of my three main goals for this year is to write more. I created this blog because I wanted a place where I could process everything that I encounter in life, on the Internet, and in the world that doesn’t even exist yet. And there’s still so much more to write about.

Now before I light my blog birthday candles and make a wish, I want to thank you for reading. This would not be a blog, if you weren’t here too. Thank you.

What would you like to see more of on lamiki this year?

Photo Credit: Pink Sherbet Photography

This template is browed, in part, from the great Jenny Blake’s Fourth Blogiversary post on her blog, Life After College.

Share

9 Responses

  1. Cheers to the first two years! As for me, you wouldn’t believe (or maybe you would) what kind of search terms land people on your site when you title the thing Life Without Pants. It’s…interesting, and we’ll just say I think there are a lot of disappointed teenagers who come to my site looking for, well, definitely not entrepreneurial insight and inspiration. 🙂

  2. WOOHOO!!! Huge congrats on your two year blogiversary!! It’s so exciting to see how much your blog has grown in two short years. And girl, “hipster entrepreneur” is the best niche ever!! I love it 😀 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *