I am not a business. I'm not selling a product or any kind of service. I also don't necessarily care if I get a lot of traffic. If this site gets just a few visitors per month that's not a robot, I'd be happy. Hell, even if I got a single visit from an actual human that got some sort of value from something I wrote, that would fill me with joy. But because I don't necessarily want to be talking into the void, I have submitted my URL to various places like Derek Sivers' nownownow.com, theforest.link, search.marginalia.nu, and a few other places. Standard search engines have been picking it up as well because of obscure things I've shared like "How to root the Onyx Boox Poke 3".
I also don't run analytics. Aside from the fact that I personally find tracking to be invasive and obnoxious, I don't see the point in collecting analytics on a noncommercial website. "Learning about your audience" is absurd on a personal site. This site is lightweight and just uses HTML and CSS - it works well on every browser I've tested it on, both desktop and mobile.
I don't do advertisements or ask for donations either. Advertisements are gross to have on a personal website. Donations are absolutely not needed because I pay for the domain and hosting from the income I get from my day job.
Do you run a commercial website? Well then maybe SEO, high traffic, and analytics are important. If, however, you have a personal website, maybe rethink exactly what the purpose of SEO, traffic, and analytics is. In my view, it adds unnecessary complexity to your site.
Thanks for reading. Feel free to send comments, questions, or recommendations to hey@chuck.is.