Does Content Marketing Work?

In the last 12 months, WebCopyResults.com has become a living case study for the long-term benefits of Content Marketing.

Therefore, before we start the 2010 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge, let’s take a look at what has happened in terms of traffic, etc… over the last year.

Note: I sent out a worksheet last night to everyone who signed up for this year’s challenge. Much of what we talk about today will cover how to establish your own baseline. (To get a copy of this worksheet and future action plans – you can sign up at the bottom of this post).

First, a Quick Look Back

By the conclusion of the 2009 90DCMC, this site had approximately 120 pages/posts – 90 of which were added during the challenge itself. Today, the site has just under 180 pages/posts – so less than 60 new pages were added in the last 9 months.

In fact, I took a major step back from this site about 6 months ago – and have only added about 2 dozen posts since then. (“Bad Blogger!”) I didn’t abandon the site because I got bored or lost interest – I’ve completely revamped it since then in order to tie it in better with my long-term business goals. (We’ll talk a lot more about branding and developing a long-term strategic vision throughout this challenge).

I am pointing this out for 2 reasons:

1.) This makes the results I am about to share even more encouraging.

2.) Imagine how much better these numbers would be if I had maintained a consistent publishing schedule over those 9 months?

Lesson learned!

Okay, Let’s Look at the Numbers:

The following screenshots show August 2009, November 2009 and August 2010 results in terms of Unique Visitors and Number of Visits to the site:

Note: The average number of visitors per day to the site has increased from 21.65 in August 2009, to 107.73 in November 2009 and 163.48 in August 2010

Also, check out the dramatic increase in incoming links from search engines staring with August 2009, (also shows November 2009 and August 2010):

Number of Keyword Phrases Returning Organic Search Engine Results (for the same 3 time periods):

Remember, each keyword phrase represents one more doorway into your site – so the more of these you have delivering traffic to you, the better!

CONCLUSION: As each of these series of screenshots demonstrate – traffic to the site has continued to grow IN SPITE OF a drastically reduced publishing and promotional schedule over the last 6 months.

Of course, there is A LOT of room for improvement – and that is where we will focus our efforts during the 2010 Challenge. Tomorrow, we’ll talk about backlinks and how they will tie into the 2010 90-Day Content Marketing Challenge.

Til Next Time,

PS Don’t forget to sign up below to join the 90 DCMC – you’ll receive worksheets and weekly action plans to help you get the most out of your Content Marketing efforts