I’ve got one topic that gets a lot of referral traffic, and then people follow the other more rambling personal stories. Twitter and YouTube drive a lot of traffic too.
I had the same experience. Have a few very popular posts that rank quite high even on Google (with absolutely no SEO bullshit done to them) but they represent maybe 5% of what I wrote about.
People find me through those posts and end up sticky around for the more personal/rambly stuff.
danluu.com, plover.com, ciechanow.ski, essays by pg and many others have very high quality writing and are insightful.
I don't accept there is a shortage of blogs.