ColumbusBourbon 500th Post Spectacular!

Welcome to my 500th article! This is absolutely bananas and I never would have guessed I'd be nearly 4 years in with over 550k pageviews! First, let me thank everyone for reading and checking in. It's always amazing to get emails, comments, and other interactions with people who have found the site. 

To mark this occasion, I thought it would be fun to do a quick Q&A. This is a combination of questions that come in (if the name is attached to the question) and some of the questions I get from people.  

My first Clippers game this year!

Q. Brad S writes - Do you guys have an address? You need one. The Village of Granville would love a fine bourbon bar. I have a 9600 SF restaurant and bar located on 3 levels with an outdoor balcony. Kitchens on 1st and 3rd floors. Stairs and elevator. Interested?

A. While the restaurant sounds great, my specialty is Kraft Mac & Cheese and I'm not sure there is a large enough market enough for that. Additionally, I don't have a bourbon product to sell so this is probably a pass at this time ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Q. Did you ever think you would get to 500 articles/posts?

A. Not in my wildest dreams. I figured I would post a few reviews per month (currently there are 40 reviews!) and a handful of people would find it. I started writing articles because it was crazy all the announcements and press releases and I thought people may be interested in reading them. 

Q. Anonymous commenter comments in response to my article Are Barrel Picks a Waste of Time? with "Wrong"

A. That's a hot take and I love the salient points that the commenter brings up. I think we can all appreciate the counter points that this person brings up. Thank you to him/her for being a part of the community.

Q. I see sometimes you write about various charities having bourbon events or fundraisers, do they pay you to do that?

A. No way. If it's bourbon related and a charity I believe in, I'm always more than happy to help promote it. If you have any fundraisers you think the readers may be excited about, hit me up mark at columbusbourbon.

Q. Why is traffic down and what are your thoughts? 

A. Traffic is definitely down and I have a few hypothesis' on why. For some reason, ever since I turned advertising on, traffic dipped immediately (Nov/Dec). Around that same time, people finding the site from search went down too. It is certainly odd that happened, but that's the trade-off of monetizing the site to recoup some of the costs of administering everything.

Another thing that could be negatively impacting traffic was when Google removed the ability to subscribe to blogs via email. This was a great feature that would email people anytime I posted an article without ads or fluff attached. At the time when they stopped decommissioned accepting new emails, the site had hundreds of people signed up.

It would be nice to have traffic keep growing, but I don't do a ton of gorilla marketing (or any marketing for that matter). As always, if you want to support the site, keep coming back and maybe tell a friend. 

Q. How much money and bourbon do you get from this site?

A. Sadly, not nearly as much as I wish. Big Brothers and Big Sisters invited me to attend their first Big Night of Bourbon in 2020 so that was cool. Recently, I was invited to a press event at Watershed for a new OHLQ Barrel Selection release so that was pretty cool. I was also sent a bottle of the new MGP brand Alias Straight Rye Whiskey. 

The good thing about not receiving much free bourbon is that none of the reviews could be biased since the bottles were a gift. Additionally, for full transparency, I always put where the bottle was obtained in every one of my reviews. 

If anyone ever wants to send me bourbon, hit me up mark at columbusbourbon.

Q. What is the future of the site?

A. After 500 posts, I'm incredibly proud of what I've created so far. At some point, I'll get around to promoting the site beyond a Facebook page. I was on instagram for a while, but that died down because most of the work for the site is done on a laptop and, at the time, I couldn't post on insta. 

I'm really excited about continuing to learn and follow everything going on in the bourbon industry. As you may know, I started this site because I had accumulated a lot of bourbon bottles and I was running out of space to store them.... My wife told I me I need to start drinking what I have before I buy any more. I still have way too many bottles so I'm looking forward to lots of reviews in the future. 

Lastly, as I wrap up my 500th post, I can't thank everyone enough for continuing to check out the site. Sincerly... Thank you!

~ Mark