Seth Godin once made a very powerful statement in a blog post.
“My most popular blog posts this year…weren’t my best ones. As usual, the most popular music wasn’t the best recorded this year either. Same for the highest-grossing movies, restaurants and politicians doing fundraising.
“Best” is rarely the same as “popular.” Which means that if you want to keep track of doing your best work, you’re going to have to avoid the distraction of letting the market decide if you’ve done a good job or not.”
I agree 100%. If find it amazingly interesting. I generally consider myself a “software” writer. I like talking about ideas and tactics rather than hardware. But that usually isn’t what my readers click on. This year 40% of the top 10 list consisted of gun and gear articles, despite those articles being less than 4% of my article topics.
“Most popular” is a very specific metric. It is an indication of broad or enduring appeal. That appeal may not be the market I’m targeting as future students, but it is a group of people who like what I am writing and are sharing it with their friends.
I am attempting to create enduring content, not just “click bait.” While I write timely pieces, my overarching goal is to create articles that are just as useful as a reference in years to come as they are interesting today. By that metric, I am succeeding. Only three of the top ten articles were actually written in 2023. I wrote some of the others as far back as 2012. Three of the ten also appeared on the Top 10 Most Popular Posts of 2022 article last year. People are digging back and finding useful information. That makes me happy.
So, keeping that in mind that “most popular” doesn’t equal “best,” here were my most popular blog posts (by page views) in 2023.
10. The 5 x 5 Shooting Drill and Some Thoughts on Training– 4,283 page views
9. Current Threats You Should Be Avoiding– 4,388 page views
8. Something to Consider– 4,423 page views
7. An Alternate Look at Handgun Stopping Power– 4,966 page views
6. How to Spot a Bad Guy- A Comprehensive Look at Body Language and Pre-Assault Indicators– 5,233 page views
5. Don’t Use Bird Shot for Self Defense– 5,402 page views
4. Preparation for Future “Days of Jihad”– 6,039 page views
3. Is the .380 ACP an Adequate Caliber for Defensive Use? – 7,023 page views
2.The Serpa Compendium-7,227 Pageviews
1. Recognizing the Sound of Gunfire– 7,524 page views
These are the top 10 posts by popularity, but I don’t think they all represented my best work. Stay tuned for next week’s compilation of what I think is my best writing from 2023.
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