[rocannon]

I can see a few problems.

I'm not an expert in SEO, so take this all with a grain of salt.

First, you have a number of websites hosted by blogger (*.blogspot.com). It is my impression that blogs with their own domain name get more traffic than those with blogspot as the domain name. If I am serious about my blog, I buy a domain name (a .com) and use it. You can still have blogger host the blog fwiw. Here's advice from namecheap: https://www.namecheap.com/support/knowledgebase/article.aspx...

Even if there's no login, I also host my blogs with an SSL certificate, because google's search algorithm is biased towards "https" sites.

You also want the site to be mobile-friendly - I didn't test your blogs, but they look good in that respect, so I don't think this is a problem for you.

Also, have you got a google analytics account which you can use to see what search terms are leading people to your sites? You want to see what people are searching for, and write more content for those search terms to help build yourself up as an authority in them.

If you need more traffic, you need to write a lot of posts. I can't tell you how many will do it, and there's no guarantee that it will work, but if your site does not look like an authoritative resource to a search engine's algorithms, you aren't going to get much search traffic. I looked at some of your blogs. I see two blog posts on http://1001histories.blogspot.com/ - this will not get you a lot of traffic. There are 3 posts listed in http://cysticfibrosisrevolution.blogspot.com/p/archive.html - again, unlikely to get you much organic search. So when you say you need more traffic for your websites, which one(s) do you expect or want to get more traffic?

Regarding patreon... Your patreon photo looks a little too much like a mugshot (sorry, I'm not trying to be rude or hurtful!). If you look at patreon photos, many successful ones look like they got a professional photog to take the picture. E.g.: https://www.patreon.com/explore/writing . That's expensive and probably not worth doing until patreon income justifies it. My suggestion here is to take a lot of pictures of yourself in different sorts of lighting, and go for the best one, the one that looks most friendly and looks like it belongs on that top 20 list. It looks like you don't have to use a photo of yourself, so you could also go with a photo of something else, or a logo. I don't know if the photo matters much.

I saw one patreon post that mentioned a personal crisis. I would not mention this on patreon, if it were me. I'm not sure if it's a negative, but I'd be afraid that it would turn off some people. I'm curious to hear what other HN people think. If I wanted to discuss personal problems on the web, I'd do it as anonymously as possible. Potential employers might get scared off by what they'd see as a lack of stability.

Speaking for myself, I've never supported anyone using patreon, but I could see myself doing so if the person provided content that I really like and consume frequently. If I used patreon as a creator, any patreon content that I'd add would mostly not be about myself, but about topics of interest for my supporters.

Some of your content seems tailored to an audience that can't afford to give you patreon donations (the homeless). Personally, I'd focus on topics that have a more potentially lucrative audience.

Again, take all this with a grain of salt, but I hope some of it helps!

[le-mark]

That was my thought as well, adopt a pen name and persona, and write about your journey with your disease. Accumulate a batch of posts as chapters to an ebook with a compelling story. I don't know, but seems like there'd be a thirst 'out there' for inspirational, and "here's what to expect" type of content from someone who'd been through the same situation. Just thinking out loud here.

[DoreenMichele]

It is a nice thought, but, no, no one wants to hear about my journey with my disease. I blog about it for three reasons:

1. Trying to keep my sanity in the face of being unable to talk about it anywhere else while the world tells me I imagined the entire thing.

2. It serves as a useful record for me to look back on and help me with some things.

3. One individual with my condition whose number was up tracked me down after I disappeared off all CF lists. They didn't want to die and were willing to take a gamble on "a crazy lady" on the internet. They have gotten stronger instead of dying. I feel a personal sense of obligation to this individual.

But it might make more sense to remove that blog from my Patreon profile and keep a lower profile on that particular blog. Other than the positive experience of being contacted by this one person, talking about getting myself healthier is nothing but drama and heartache for me. People are routinely dismissive, attacking and ugly.

I continue to have a hard time letting go of the idea that what I know could help other people with dreadful health issues. But the reality is that it is mostly downside for me to give a damn about the welfare of others. It routinely bites me in the butt. It never seems to in any way come back to me in a positive way.

I need to quit being someone who cares and become someone who makes an adequate income. Caring about others has helped keep me destitute. It just makes me a chump.

[rocannon]

no one wants to hear about my journey with my disease

May I ask why you believe this? I checked Amazon, and found a few books written by people with CF. They aren't best sellers, but all of the ones I've looked at have sold at least some copies, based on the reviews. Your own story would be different, and uniquely interesting.

I realize, as I'm sure you do, that one can't pursue every possible avenue when trying to generate an income; there's only so much time in the day. So maybe writing an ebook about your experience is not the most promising thing to do, in your mind. Then it's a judgment call to decide where to put your efforts.

People are routinely dismissive, attacking and ugly

For this reason, if it were me, I'd keep that content separate and anonymous (I would have done this from the beginning, because I know how these things go). But that doesn't mean you shouldn't write it.

FWIW, earning an income is not necessarily in line with self-promotion. The vast majority of people who support themselves do so in relative obscurity.

[DoreenMichele]

TLDR of a much longer, more bitter and angry reply:

I think no one wants to hear because of 17 years of being shit on for trying to talk about it.

My story is not just that I have a form of CF. It is that I am getting well. People straight up tell me I am deluded, I suffer Munchhausen Syndrome, etc.

The degree of ugliness I have been met with is pretty extreme. So I don't really want to tell my story at this point. I am mostly well. I want to get a "normal" life. That was the entire point.

[rocannon]

She had a pen name (+ persona?) previously, but now is dropping that.

An ebook seems like a good idea to me!

[DoreenMichele]

I have had sites with a lot of content. For various reasons, I have archived a number of them recently and started new projects. This is part of why there isn't much content on the sites you looked at.

Thank you for taking the time to look at so much and give me feedback.