Looking back on 2021

This is the 4th year I’ve written one of these posts. To be honest it’s as much for my benefit as it might be for anyone who happens along. 2021 hasn’t been the best year in any way, less of all for my blogging output. But that doesn’t mean there is nothing to celebrate because of course there is. 118 posts (including this one) is pretty awful and my worst since 2013. Definitely going to have to do better in 2022.

Statistics

With so few posts (my highest was 236 in 2019) it’s not surprising that my visitor numbers are considerably down. However page views are slightly up. Some, but definitely not all of this can be attributed to some strange bot like behaviour. I tried blocking IP addresses but it was intermittent anyway.

Top posts for this year are:

• Chastity – does a girl need to be locked in? ( a kink of the week post from 2016 and consistently top of the charts)
• Female chastity – physical or emotional? (2019, a subsequent post to the one above)
• Review – the kinky suite Amsterdam (2019, a brilliant place to stay if you are ever in Amsterdam)
• A weekend in a chastity belt (2021, my only fiction this year. I have written part 2 and need to get it published!)
• Love lock (2019 erotica on the same theme)
• Talking dirty (2019 Erotic Journal Challenge post)
• Submissive Training – Is it necessary? (2019 Tell me about.. post)
• Ultimate Fucking (2021 Blogging A-Z and Sinful Sunday post)
• Figged and Tied (2015)
• Sexual Service (2020 Tell me about… post)

Referrals

Participating in memes is a great way to generate traffic. But so is having blogger friends who drive interest your way and twitter. My 6 top referrals after search engines were:

• Sinful Sunday
• Fondles
• Twitter
• Various meme links (Inlinx) (Quote Quest, No True Way, Every Damn Day in June, January Jumpstart, LIFE, Lustitude, Blog Days of Summer, Erotic Journal Challenge)
• Molly’s Daily Kiss Molly remains one of the key driving forces in the sex blogging community, host of Kink of the Week and Sinful Sunday. Plus she is the person behind the Top 100 Sex Blogs
• A reluctant Bitch – jz doesn’t post so much these days, but she drives traffic to me and her posts are sometimes fun and often poignant

Not all the memes have run all year, but I hope that both Quote Quest and Lustitude will return. Also there will be new memes for 2022, more of which below.

MPB posts

Unlike in previous years when I wrote constantly throughout the year, in 2021 most of my output was between January and April. This was thanks to January Jumpstart, February Photofest and the Blogging A-Z in April. This was partly because lockdown eased in April and we began to go out, but also work.

2021 saw me return to proper paid work, 3 full days a week. I struggled to swop my busy work head for my creative blogging one. This is something I’m hoping better organisation will fix this year. Plus I need to pace myself better, if I can!

Some favourites from this year were:

• The lover and the love (Jan, a quote about the search for the perfect lover rather than the perfect love)
• Celebration (Jan, a photo taken when we thought there might be something to celebrate)
• February Photofest (Whole of Feb, I used a lot of older images many of which I hadn’t shared before or had used ages ago. Hello up there was newer from September 2020)
• Blogging A-Z challenge 2021, I’m really proud of all of these posts with the theme of Ageing.
• Early memories of sexual experience..(June)
• Room with a view (August, and all my other holiday photos, some of which are shared to the Scavenger Hunt)
• What is sex? (November, shared for No True Way

Memes

Without memes to participate in my output would not only be sparse but probably pretty dull. I’m so grateful to all of my fellow bloggers who have led the way this year. I’m excited that Floss has a new meme starting in January and so have I!

My new meme is called Five Things and it starts in a week’s time. The site is still work in progress, but why not pop over and see what it is about. I’ll write more about it in 2022, which is only 2 days away!

So that was 2021. Not the best year for living life or blogging. But with the help of a few friends we’ve all written, read and commented as we usually do. Here’s to 2022.