90-Day Content Marketing Challenge Wrap Up

Whew – sometimes I thought this day would never come! (Note to Self: Make all future challenges 30 days in length rather than 90…)

All kidding aside – I am really happy I took the plunge and created this live case study to share with you – even though it was a little stressful at times worrying what the results might be!

So, let’s jump right into the results. (I hesitate to call them the “final results” because they aren’t).  In fact, that is THE BEST part of this entire project – the numbers reported here are really just a starting point. The great thing about Content Marketing is that once the content  is created – it will continue to work for you long into the future.  I think the REALLY exciting part is going to be to check progress in another  6 to 12 months from now – especially if I continue to create and promote content at the same rate.

But I digress….

Here is a screenshot of overall traffic from August 2009.  It shows number of unique visitors, total # of visits and # of page views:

Here is November 2009:

The number of unique visitors increased by 2.81 times – which  is just “ok” in my opinion.  However, what I am most encouraged by is the marked increase in total number of visits, which increased from 671 to 3232 – or almost 5 times more.

Take away: In August – the average number of visitors to the site per day was 21.6.  By November, that number had increased to 107.7.   Not bad for just 3 months worth of effort. More unique visitors coming back more often – and staying on the site longer (average time on site increased from 7:16 in August to 7:50 in November).

Other Measurables:

Per Yahoo – # of backlinks increased to 94 (up from 18 in August). I have to believe the number is higher based on the Article Marketing and commenting I’ve done, as well as the inbound links received from other sites. Perhaps those results will show up more over time. Regardless, definitely an opportunity for improvement going forward.

Finally – the numbers I am most excited about: inbound traffic delivered by the Search Engines.

Here are the results from August:

November Results:

Of course, I am inspired by these numbers because I create search engine optimized content and copy for a living. So, to see this type of increase in search engine results over a period of 90 days is validating – and hopefully reassuring to you if you are just getting started on this journey.

At the inception of this project, WebCopyResults.com had fewer than 30 pages of content – today, that number is above 120 – most of which have been optimized for a particular keyword or phrase. In time, this type of a concerted effort will produce a snowball effect that will ultimately reach a critical mass in terms of traffic generation.

I can’t say exactly when that will happen, but am excited by the progress made so far – and am very excited to continue building upon this trend into the future.

Over the next day or so, I have a few more thougths to add to this topic. Most importantly, I would like to share a couple of the things I’ve learned along the way – including a couple of “A Ha” moments that would have made life a bit easier if they had come along a little sooner!

Til Next Time,