Been considering adding Google Analytics to this blog, or any other way to see the traffic the site receives, if it even receives any. The simpler the tool, the better. This blog is powered with the static-site generator Eleventy and my setup is super simple. My process is write a Markdown file, git commit it, git push it, and Netlify takes care of the rest. I blog like a hacker.
I don't like fiddling with the site's configuration if I don't have to and Eleventy can be finicky when messing with its config file. It wasn't until recently when I finally added the RSS/Atom plugin to make this blog into a subscription ready feed. But I do eventually want to add other features to the blog like an archive and search.
My fear of adding traffic analytics is that it will dictate how I measure the blog's success. Back when I had a WordPress blog I had traffic analytics and I remember going down that rabbit hole. The problem with numbers and seeking an audience is that you start writing for everyone, but when you try to write for everyone, you write for no one.
But I would like to have an idea if it's reaching anybody out there. I don't have a whole social media strategy when I post something new, but I do share them on Twitter. Knowing if traffic comes from Twitter will give me a good idea of who could be reading.
Would this be helpful? Will it push me to write more or will it push me to write less? This is what I have to think about.