Happy Birthday to Diary Of A Detour!

Wow, I can’t believe it’s been a whole year since I started Diary Of A Detour!

When I had the idea of creating this website it was mainly because I wanted to be a travel blogger. I had enjoyed some really great adventures with my family and had used blogs to help find really cool things to do on them, so wanted to share my own stories to inspire others to do so.

However, the website grew arms and legs and soon I was writing about street art, a relatively new obsession of mine, and my cancer journey which was completely unexpected.

But by far the most popular posts are on the subject of scootering, a passion of mine for nearly 40 years. Some of my scooter posts are nostalgic, like my one about 80s scooter fashions which went viral in January, triggering my busiest ever day! Others are where I share some useful ideas and provide a service, like my 2019 rally dates and Isle of Wight Rally Tips posts. I also share stories, fun and photos from rallies and rideouts I’ve attended, something which I enjoy massively.

From the start, I wanted to try and cover my costs by including affiliate adverts, so that if anybody bought anything from them then I would get a tiny percentage. To run a site like this costs money, from web hosting to buying software and services to make it run smoothly. I’m delighted to have also included paid adverts in some of my most popular posts, like on my 2019 rallies page.

I also wanted to try my hand at writing for others and was delighted to secure a contract to write regularly for a US medical website, which is my first step on the ladder. My first piece for them was published in late 2018 and is on the subject of breast cancer.

I’ve also undertaken proofreading work for another website, where my grammar and spelling geekiness can be satisfied, and have written guest content for many other websites including SLUK and Tea And Cake For The Soul.

I’m sure I could seek out more opportunities like that, when I find some ‘spare’ time… I would love to earn an income from freelance writing and the website advertising, so that I can lead a more flexible lifestyle around my family commitments. I haven’t quite managed to balance that yet as the website is a massive time-stealer, which runs alongside my day job, but who knows what may happen in the future.

It takes a lot of work to build a website like this. Every article on DiaryOfADetour.com is planned, researched and written by me. All the graphics, including Pinterest pins, are designed by me. I review the Google analytics, do the SEO, marketing and social media management. I take the majority of the photos (except for a miniscule amount of stock images) and edit them, resize them and do all the behind-the-scenes tagging which makes them prominent on Google.

But I love it! It feeds my inner geek which has been mainly dormant since I gave up programming in 2000 to concentrate on analysis in the corporate IT world.

Facts and figures

Here are some facts about what I’ve achieved in the past year :

• Over 60 posts published
• Well over 100,000 page views
• My most popular post so far is 2019 Rally Dates with over 18,000 views, and rising daily!
• My biggest day was 12th January 2019 when I published the 80s scooter fashions post and achieved 3,395 views in a single day
• The ‘My First Rally’ series has proved to be extremely popular, with over 1000 people reading the article about Iggy Grainger alone.
• I have over 200,000 monthly Pinterest viewers, 500 followers on Instagram, and am growing my Twitter and Facebook presence. I have well over 2000 followers in total across all the social media platforms which I know is relatively low but it’s growing steadily and organically rather than using follow/no-follow techniques which I despise.
• I rank really well on Google for my scooter content, including #1 for many of the posts including the 2019 rallies page which explains why it gets so many views!

I realise I’m still a very small fish in a massive pond, but am proud of what I’ve achieved in a year. I’m extremely grateful to everyone who has read any of my articles, made a comment, shared it on Facebook or been there for a chat if I’ve needed advice.

The future

So, what do I have planned for 2019? I have ideas popping into my head all the time for scooter articles – it’s just finding the time to write them! I can’t wait to kick off the new season in a couple of weeks at the Modrapheniacs rally, to catch up with old friends, make new ones, and take lots of photos!

I also plan to have more travel adventures as soon as my cancer treatment is finished, which I will also write about to share any tips.

Thank you!

I’d like to thank everyone who has visited this website, as it’s you who make it worthwhile for me. I am a one-man band and really appreciate all the positive comments I’ve received.

I don’t want to think about how many hours I spend on it, but it’s been so worthwhile, just for the feedback that I get and the new friends I’ve made!

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