Today, I want to talk a little bit more about October’s results for the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge. In addition, I’d like to cover a couple of positive behind-the-scenes developments that didn’t show up in those results.
To begin, I should acknowledge that patience isn’t exactly my strong point – and like you, I want a ton of traffic – and I want it NOW! 
However, I am encouraged by the way things are progressing (i.e. a six-fold increase in traffic from search engines in 60 days) – and am confident that this experiment is creating a solid foundation for the future.
Even so, today was still one of those days where I needed to go back and internalize my own advice. What I mean by this is that whenever I talk to prospective clients about employing Content Marketing as part of their promotional efforts – I focus on 3 important principles:
- The need to add and distribute fresh, keyword-optimized content on an ongoing basis.
- The need to build quality back links pointing into their site.
- The need to understand and accept that this process takes time.
In fact, here is an excerpt from a page I published when I first launched this site back in June:
A third and very important principle of organic SEO is that the results from these efforts accumulate over time. The results don’t happen overnight and require a sustained effort to reach a critical mass. It is easy to get frustrated while building toward that point where things begin to snowball and the traffic gates to your site burst open.
It takes vision. It takes time. It takes a plan.
A good reminder, I think, regardless of where you might be in terms of your own Content Marketing efforts. Take a moment and take stock of what you have accomplished so far – and think about what the long-term benefits of that progress might be. I don’t know about you, but thinking about what today’s efforts will produce down the road is a big part of what keeps me going when the progress seems slow.
That said, here are a couple not-so-visible results of this project:
- Since the inception of the 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge, this site has grown to over 90 pages of content (from less than 30). By the time it concludes, that number should reach approximately 120 – 130 pages.
- Off-site content (on article directories, etc…) will total nearly 40 articles (on 25+ directories), plus guest blog posts and comments on related blogs/forums.
All of this new content (on site and off) represents additional long-term opportunities for new visitors to find this site via the search engines. Therefore, the benefit from creating this content will continue long after this Challenge concludes.
In addition, the content created for this project has:
- Prompted an invite from Lynn Terry at ClickNewz.com to participate as a guest host during one of her very popular live webinars. I am a huge fan of Lynn’s work and for this site to be included on her list of preferred content creation resources was very meaningful to me. (Thanks again for the opportunity, Lynn!
). - Opened the door to write for a print publication and a PR 6 rated site. (This hasn’t been finalized yet, but is in the works).
- Helped me land a number of additional customers who have retained my writing services on a monthly basis.
All in all, I’m pretty happy with how things are going in terms of building a solid library of content and establishing credibility – but recognize the need to keep at it and step up the pace in a couple places. There were definitely things I could of and should have done better last month – but rather than dwell on that, I prefer to see those areas as opportunities for improvement.
Let’s talk more about those opportunities tomorrow and ways you can use them to advance your own efforts.
Til Next Time,
PS How about you? How are your own content creation efforts going? Do you have a publishing schedule in place? If so, is it helping you get more accomplished? Leave a comment below and let me know what is and isn’t working for you!
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