It’s Time for Me to Be Honest…

ByMichael Dwamena

Hey,

This is Mike/Michael from 3D Printerly.

I’ve been neglecting 3D Printerly and my audience by not giving my best.

When I first started out in March of 2019, I had much more of a fire and passion to create tons of value.

I used to put in at least 12 hours a day. Weekends included. Birthdays, Holidays, Christmas, you name it.

I’d wake up and be straight on my laptop.

Sometimes I wouldn’t eat until the evening because I was so into the flow.

Researching everywhere I could, writing valuable jam-packed content, and publishing proudly.

As time went on, I overcame a lot of obstacles.

I broke previous records every month with how many page views I was getting. It was addicting.

My main goals were:

  • Build something of value I can call my own to overcome my insecurity of not having anything of monetary value
  • Make money to give myself security and more freedom
  • Help people
  • Improve my writing skills

3D Printerly did all of these things and I’m very grateful for it.

Although I kept mostly private, I met a lot of cool people along the way through messaging and emails.

I wanted to grow my audience more and more through articles, that rank on Google through SEO (SEO is basically ranking higher on search engines).

I created several articles that ranked on Google and got page views.

With the method I learned, a lot of it felt like it was created for the Google algorithm rather than for the audience themselves.

It wasn’t audience-based content, it was algorithm-based.

After around my 200th article, I started hiring ghostwriters.

This was a great move.

I taught them how I create articles, the process behind it, the research, everything.

They would write an article, I’d read over it.

I’d give them feedback, tell them what changes to make, then receive a revision.

Once I was happy, I’d take that article, make some edits to make it how I wanted, then hit publish.

We created some great content, had some ups and downs, but it was an exciting journey in itself.

Things were great. Until they weren’t.

Google did an update back in September 2023 called HCU (Helpful Content Update). This has heavily penalized my website, along with several others.

Google does plenty of updates, but this was like no other.

My website had never been hit by an update since the start. Many others had.

I’ve never shown anyone my traffic before.

Here it is.

I thought I was doing everything right in Google’s eyes.

I felt proected.

I did some research into trying to fix this, but there aren’t clear cut answers. It’s a goose chase from several content creators.

A lot of vague comments to do better, but not a simple action plan to follow.

This has me at a stand-still.

I have over 900 articles on the website. Where do I start? Will it actually make a difference?

I haven’t been putting nearly as much work into 3D Printerly and content for a while and to some of you it shows.

Some of you world have recently joined, have no idea what I’m talking about and enjoy the content.

Well, I want to make changes to 3D Printerly and how things will move going forward.

Google, I’m realizing, is slowly phasing out giving websites page views.

They will concentrate it to a few bigger sites.

They aim to keep people on Google for longer while taking content from websites.

This has been happening for many years with updates like:

  • Google Snippets
  • People also ask
  • And a new one…Things to know

If I want to stay a valuable publisher in the 3D printing industry, I need to make changes, and fast.

I’ve been thinking about a few avenues.

The ones that I have come up with are as follows:

  • ​Facebook​ – I have a page created that has 1 like from someone I was going to hire to help build it.
  • ​Pinterest​ – I created an account (who knows how long ago), that has no pins.
  • ​YouTube​ – I’ve got around 400 subscribers, mostly from 1 video. This is better than the others.
  • ​Instagram​ – Had a page that I deleted pretty much right after. Recreated an account recently, around 20 followers, 1 post.
  • Email – I have around 3,000 email subscribers. That’s you guys. Over time, I created a sequence of emails with 3D printing tips, that links back to a 3D Printerly article for more details. I’m going to change how I do emails now.

I’ve decided to stop the sequence of emails going to you guys.

I’m going to craft each email with the reader in mind.

To deliver value and to make a real difference to you.

I’m also going to create small e-books of useful content for you guys in the near future.

I’ve got two email services, ConvertKit and Kartra. I’m going to move everything over to Kartra from now on.

Basically a fresh start.

If you read to the end, I appreciate you.

Happy 2024, to a year of honesty and progress.