As the year winds down, we prepare for CES but also 2017 as a whole – we have started reflecting on 2016. If you don’t know; we’ve been around for years now, but Digital Bounds proper began in late 2013. At the start we didn’t have a focus, didn’t have an idea we’d make it this far, or even think we’d stick with all of this. In 2015, we had the best year with thousands of views daily and started the process of growing from me just blogging to adding more writers and expanding our reach. The early stages of these processes caused problems because we couldn’t break the news right away or stay on top of everything going on around the tech industry. Our content wasn’t timely, and many times we were rehashing what other blogs were republishing. The constant writing grind made the part-time, vastly underpaid writers leave for less stress writing jobs, which could pay better. Then with the stress, I took a 3-week break after CES to recoup and refocus.
The long break caused readers to leave, and without evergreen, SEO optimized content our readership went to the other mainstream blogs. The loss of thousands of views meant I had to focus more time on social media exposure and trying to write timely breaking news articles to bring in viewers. During the summer a lot of change happened; two longtime friends and I combined our businesses together into SLK Media, we had a redesign, I focused on gadget blogging, and I hired freelance writers to start writing evergreen, SEO optimized articles that would bring views in even during the slow months. Views are still nowhere near where they were in early 2015, but they’re starting to trend up again.
While we’ve struggled over the year, 2017 will have a lot more focus on a lot more growth. Everything wasn’t doom and gloom in 2016 – I attended CES, SXSW, and wrote some of the best reviews to date. Our contributing writers wrote some of the best “everything you need to know” list and helped explain VR and USB-C to you.
Some of the most read articles:
- Dreamscreen TV Review
- Rowkin Bit Review
- Lectric’s new budget electric longboard will kill the Boosted Board
- Pivot all-in-one smart home hub security camera
- What is Pokemon Go?
2017 will start with our team (Sunny, Kyle, and myself) flying to Las Vegas for CES. We’re going to try more live videos, shoot some great videos, have some fantastic fun, and most importantly publish some great content on the site. We already have SXSW planned out, and we’ll be attending more press conferences than ever.
We’d love to hear from you – tell us what you want to read on the site, what you enjoyed the most from 2016 and what you’re looking forward to reading about from CES.