Strangers at My Door: Why Most of My Blog Readers Don’t Know Me And Why That’s Beautiful
There’s a quiet moment that happens when you launch something personal into the world.
A blog.
A book.
A business.
You hit publish, and a small part of you waits…watches…for the people you know to show up.
Some do.
And I’m deeply grateful for every friend, family member, or old coworker who has read even one line of what I’ve written. Your kindness echoes louder than you think.
But here’s the strange truth that most creators don’t say aloud: most of the people who read my blog aren’t people I know.
In fact, the majority of them are complete strangers.
Ghosts with IP addresses.
Curious minds I’ll never meet.
And that’s not sad.
That’s magic.
28,000 Visits From People I’ll Likely Never Meet
In the past 30 days alone, my blog had over 28,000 visits.
Out of those, 19,146 came from Google search.
Another 6,644 were direct visits…people who typed my site into the bar and came back. Not once. Not twice. Routinely.
Only 1,570 came from social media.
And of those 1,570, almost half came from people I personally know.
On Twitter (now X), I have 20 followers, and I don’t personally know a single one of them.
That means the majority of people who check my blog every day?
They found me because they were looking for something.
A story. A recipe. A strange scientific mystery. A moment of understanding.
And somehow, what I wrote helped.
The Silent Kindness of Strangers
There’s something freeing about being found by strangers.
They have no obligation to support you. No bias. No loyalty. No guilt.
If they show up, it’s because they want to.
They’re not reading out of politeness or pressure.
They’re reading because something you wrote mattered to them.
The piece I wrote about why I switched from American flour to Italian flour gets dozens of clicks every day from people I’ve never met.
Same with my deep dive into The Emotional Lives of Fish, or What Is Soul Fatigue.
Over 15,000 people in the past two weeks have read Japan Has Created the First Artificial Womb.
Strangers. All of them.
And yet, we’re connected…by curiosity, by pain, by humor, by a shared need to understand the world just a little better.
Why You Shouldn’t Wait for Familiar Faces
If you're starting something (whether it's a blog, a bakery, a podcast, or a YouTube channel) let me say this clearly:
Don't let the silence from your friends be the reason you stop.
Most of them are cheering for you silently. Some are just busy.
And a few? They may never read a word you write.
That’s okay.
The internet is wide. The world is wild.
And there are millions of people out there searching for the thing you make.
You don't need everyone you know to validate you.
You just need to be brave enough to keep posting.
A Real Moment from My Analytics
I had a day recently (June 10, 2025) where my blog hit over 2,500 visits in a single day.
I couldn’t stop smiling.
Not because of the number, but because I could see the graph.
Spikes. Return readers. People checking multiple articles.
And I knew that those weren’t my high school classmates.
They weren’t my coworkers.
They weren’t my cousins or neighbors or old college friends.
They were strangers.
Which means they were also…my readers.
The Myth of “Support” in the Beginning
When we start something new, we imagine a rush of support.
Friends sharing every post.
Family cheering us on.
But most of the time?
It's quiet.
Not because people don't care, but because they're busy, distracted, or don’t know what to say.
And sometimes, your work simply isn’t for them.
That doesn’t mean it isn’t valuable.
In fact, it means you’re expanding beyond your inner circle.
You're stepping into a global conversation, and that’s where real growth begins.
Familiarity Doesn’t Equal Audience
It took me a while to understand that knowing someone doesn’t make them my target reader.
Just because someone knows my name doesn’t mean they care about the science of nostalgia, plants that eat metal, or how aquaculture can mislead us.
That’s not personal, it’s natural.
We all have our own interests.
The people who do read my work every day?
They care about weird science, poetic history, and curiosity-driven living.
That’s my true audience.
And they found me not because of who I am, but because of what I offer.
Momentum Lives in the Mundane
Growth doesn’t come from fireworks.
It comes from days that feel invisible.
Publishing posts when no one responds.
Updating tags.
Fixing links.
Reworking headlines.
These small, unglamorous steps build the runway for a blog that takes off.
The silence isn’t failure, it’s incubation.
It’s where confidence is born. And if you can keep going without applause, you’ll eventually get the kind that echoes.
You’re Not “Too Late” to Be Discovered
We tell ourselves we missed the window.
“If I’d started earlier…” or “There’s too much content out there already.”
But the truth is, every day someone new discovers your work, and when they do, they don’t care how long you’ve been at it.
They care that they found you today.
Most of my recent traffic came from blog posts I wrote weeks or even months ago.
Some of them had barely any clicks when I first hit publish.
But search engines take time.
Readers take time.
Trust takes time.
Keep planting. The harvest comes.
Your Blog (or Social Media) Becomes a Mirror
Writing daily has a strange effect: it becomes impossible to lie to yourself.
When I look back at my posts, I see what I was wrestling with.
What I cared about.
What I was scared to say.
I see healing, risk, growth, and grief.
And I see the exact moment I stopped writing for people I knew, and started writing for people like me.
Strangers who think deeply, feel everything, and just want to know they’re not alone.
My Vision for the Future
I’m not doing this for hobby clicks.
I’m building a career.
My vision is clear: I want to be making $3,000/month by February 2026, fully covering my expenses through my writing alone.
That means 50,000+ monthly visits, Mediavine ads, affiliate income, and consistent book sales.
It’s a long road, but it’s already unfolding.
I post every day, even when the traffic dips.
Even when no one I know comments.
I believe in the power of showing up in the silence.
That’s how empires are built: not loudly, but brick by quiet brick.
Strangers Become Legacy
The most humbling thought I have is this: someone, somewhere, might remember something I wrote long after I’m gone.
Maybe it changed how they saw a fish.
Or history.
Or the world.
I’ll never know their names.
But they’re out there.
Reading in a café.
Or a hospital waiting room.
Or on a train, scrolling through articles about artificial wombs or forgotten wines.
I write for them.
Because strangers may be the ones who carry your words further than any friend ever could.
The Quiet, Invisible Community We Build
Every click from a stranger is a vote of confidence.
Every visit is a handshake I’ll never see.
Every Google search that lands on my site is someone whispering,
“Hey…maybe this person has something I need.”
We build invisible communities when we write.
Not everyone will cheer from the sidelines.
But that doesn’t mean no one is watching.
And some of the most loyal audiences in the world are made up of people who didn’t know you existed yesterday.
Words for the Creators
So here’s my message for anyone building something:
Your biggest fans may not be the people you expect.
Your most-read articles might be the ones you almost didn’t post.
Your growth might come not from shouting,but from showing up.
Let strangers discover you. Let your work speak for itself.
And know this: just because someone’s name isn’t in your contacts doesn’t mean they’re not rooting for you.
I’m living proof.
And I’ll keep showing up, every day, with something new.
For the strangers who might need it.
And for the version of me who once needed this reminder too.
The People You’ll Never Meet
Not all applause is loud.
Sometimes, it’s a quiet click at 2 a.m.
A stranger in another time zone, reading your words with a full heart and an empty cup of tea.
You may never hear their name.
They may never leave a comment.
But they are there, proof that your voice travels further than you think.
You write in silence.
You build without witnesses.
You show up, even when no one’s watching, and somehow, someone always is.
So write the next post.
Start the next thing.
Be brave in the quiet.
Because the echo?
It’s already on its way.
