I have to admit that I’m not a huge fan of blogging about blogging. As a home organisation and Decluttering blog, I prefer to focus on sharing tips and strategies which help my readers simplify their lives. However, as I started culling my annual metrics for Tidymalism earlier this quarter, I found myself reflecting on the content I’ve created since starting this blog, and the progress I want to make going forward. That’s when I thought it might be interesting to do a year-in-review post after all.

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Writing this all out gives me the opportunity to summarise the blog’s performance in 2022 and also point new readers (hello!) to the most popular posts that resonated with my audience. So without further ado, here are some of the statistics, insights and highlights I’ve rounded up.

A Year of Blogging

I’m a small blogger. I’ve been more focused on quality over quantity since starting. I write all of the posts myself as opposed to a lot of other bloggers who use AI and bulk publish. This means it takes me quite some time to produce one single post. On average, I publish about three to four times a month.

In 2022, I published 37 blog posts, totaling 68,918 words. This equates to an average of 1,863 words per blog post. A few articles like my guide on turning cash to clutter went deep in-depth with about four thousand words or more. My shorter posts tend to be around 1,000 to 1,400 words in length.

Over on my newsletter, the Minimal Monthly (you can sign up here if you haven’t already!), I published another 8,017 words. The newsletter gets a good amount of traction these days. It’s authentic and rarely contains even a single affiliate link. The Sample picked up on it a while back, and has sent a lot of new subscribers my way. Their click-through rate is amazing, and I rarely see an unsubscribe, so I’m definitely continuing with the Minimal Monthly as is.

My Five Favourite Decluttering Blog Posts

Because this blog is still just a hobby, I’m generally very interested in any subject I delve into, whether it’s sharing some of my best cleaning hacks or decluttering tips, or talking about issues related to sustainability.

As I looked back at Tidymalism’s performance in 2022, I realised that some of my personal favourite posts didn’t necessarily receive the most Traffic or engagement. I still believe that they’re of a high value and worth sharing again:

Tidymalism’s Top 5 Faves

1. My monster guide devoted to turning clutter into cash offered a thorough run-down of all your online and offline options for selling all the stuff you’ve decluttered, from a single book to an entire household. Check it out if you’re moving house soon, have decluttered your closet, or if you’ve been designated the estate manager for a loved one who has passed on.
2. ​Why Choose Sustainable Fashion, and how can you build a more conscious closet? When I started researching about how much water and chemicals are used to produce one single pair of jeans, I was gobsmacked and dug deeper. Here’s why fast fashion truly sucks, plus little changes you can make in your closet without having to sacrifice the fun of fashion.
3. I dedicated an entire post to my roommate, Henrietta. She’s actually a plant. A very big plant. And she’s one of my favourite pops of green that doesn’t need much watering. Everything you need to know is in Philodendron Domesticum – A Great Plant for Minimalists.
4. Where do your clothes go when you don’t want them anymore? What’s the circular economy? What does it have to do with fashion and a minimalist wardrobe? Who rents clothes? And what the heck is microfibre shedding? I broke it all down for you in this post around sustainability.
5. It’s paradoxical how exclusive and alienating the positivity cult is. There’s a difference between toxic positivity and optimism, and it’s possible to avoid the former while still subscribing to the latter.

Your Favourite Decluttering Blog Posts

Aside from my own personal favourites, I also took a look at which blog posts resonated most with you – my readers – in 2022. Using metrics such as pageviews, unique visitors, and sessions, I identified the five top-performing posts that generated the most interest and value. From practical tips to inspiring stories, these blog posts showcase the wide range of content that my readers find valuable. Without further ado, these were your top five posts in 2022:

Readers’ Top 5 Faves

1. Small Kitchen Ideas to Maximise Space was a post I wrote in the summer of 2021 and it drove the most traffic to Tidymalism in 2022. When I originally wrote it, I had no idea how many of you also struggle with little kitchens!
2. The book Swedish Death Cleaning featured a decluttering method ultimately aimed at estate management. It lacked a straightforward how-to, however. Since I’m focused on my own death cleaning at home anyway, I put together a Simple Swedish Death Cleaning Checklist. Apparently there are tonnes of you out there also thinking about scaling your household back.
3. Why Under Bed Storage Is a Bad Idea is another post I wrote in 2021 that continues to be hugely popular. This took third place for most clicks and traffic in 2022. And, yes, I still think it’s a bad idea to keep stuff under the bed.
4. I shared an efficient cleaning and laundry schedule for solo households that’s relatively easy to stick to when you’re bogged down with two jobs and/or uni. You can tweak it to your own situation regardless of whether you live alone or with others.
5. Finally, at number five, Safety Tips for Living Alone continued to be a big traffic driver. This was another one I wrote in 2021 based off of my experience of living alone for three decades. There are some excellent tips in here for women, and I’m super glad it gets so much traffic.

Traffic Sources

Speaking of traffic, over 60% of visitors to Tidymalism arrive here through organic search, i.e. by googling. Another 30% come via social media. The remaining 10% are direct visitors. They might be folks who have bookmarked the site or a specific article and then return. Or they might arrive through a link share, for example when a friend of theirs tells them to check out this blog.

When I started Tidymalism, I had been away from long-form blogging for so many years that the entire SEO game had changed dramatically. I had a lot to learn again, and am still learning all the time! You really have to stay on top of the game, because the algorithms constantly get modified.

One of the things I’d like to improve on going forward though is my keyword research. Because I often just sit down and start writing without much ado, it’s highly likely I could be ranking a lot better if my keywords were optimised for the things you all are actually searching Google for.

Improving the Blog’s Speed

Another big issue I continue to have is with my page speed. I am fully aware that my loading speed is sub-optimal on mobile. I have two big changes planned for 2023 to help rectify this. One will entail migrating the entire site to a new host with a server location closest to the majority of my readers: in the US.

The other big project on my roadmap is a total overhaul of the site’s design. Tidymalism runs on WordPress and the theme I’m using is absolutely bloated with code. Despite the fact that I’ve minified everything I can in my backend, it’s just not doing well on mobile. And since most of you are on mobile these days, I want to make the loading times better for you.

To wrap up this belated year-in-review post, I’m grateful for the opportunity to reflect on the blog’s performance in 2022. And I’m even more grateful that so many of you have stopped by. I’ve learnt a lot about what works and what doesn’t, and I’m excited to tap into these insights to continue creating high-quality content that helps us all simplify our lives.

Thank you for your continued support!

The post A Year in Review: My Top Home Organisation & Decluttering Blog Posts of 2022 appeared first on Tidymalism.