January 2016 was a big month for this website. I started posting an article every single day on various writing topics.
Before I tell you about traffic figures, here are some of the results:
- I got my first regular readers.
- I got my first regular commenters. (Hat tip to Sam H of Mundane Product Reviews)
- I didn’t run out of steam or topics to write about. (I probably have more to write about.)
- I got my first traffic from Social Media and Bing, as well as more consistent traffic from Google.
- I wrote more for the site this month than I did for all the previous months combined.
Added to that, with an average of 800 words per article, I wrote more for this website daily than some writers do in total.
The Effects
Firstly, I actually care about the site more now. That’s basic psychology; the more you put in, the more you get out.
Secondly, I have gotten into the habit of doing an article a day, so it’s not really a trouble.
Thirdly, after some editing and other teething issues, I think the quality is going up.
Fourthly, site traffic more than doubled. (Which is probably what you want to know.)
What About Running Out Of Topics To Write About Though?
I’ve written about curing writer’s block before. Essentially, you need to write more.
I’ll add something new that I’ve learned this month to that; writer’s block can be cured by one thing, and that is doing.
On days where I couldn’t think of a topic to write about, it tended to be because I’d slacked off. Essentially, if you’re in the business of writing (or anything else) and you’re working on it every day, you’re probably going to encounter something new every day which you can then write about.
For instance, I have written about a load of topics in the past month. But after I’ve written this article, I’m getting to work on a set of four books I’ve planned, then I’m writing and designing a sales page for each of them (probably later in the week) and I’ll do some keyword research for when I do those. I’m also writing this blog post, and at some point I’m going to post about how I plan to increase traffic to more than double again this month.
Each of those topics is easily a day’s worth of writing about. If it’s like headlines, once I start writing I’ll realise that there’s more to write about. This weekend I spent three days talking about headlines, and I don’t even think I scratched the surface.
Add in the fact that like me you’re constantly learning on the job, and you have product reviews, the hunt for a decent product, how you could do a better job of a product you’ve bought… really, there are more topics to write about than you’ll ever have time to write about.
So don’t worry about running out of stuff to say.
Closing Thoughts
This site is a tiny website still in terms of site traffic. But by putting in about three quarters of an hour’s work each day, I’ve doubled the site traffic. It’s a start. I hope to do exactly the same again in the next month, so by March, I’ll have a small site as opposed to a tiny one.
Like I’ve written about before, every word you write is an asset. If I write 30+ articles for February (I’ll have to fit in two per day on a couple of days to do that) I’ll have nearly a hundred articles on this website.
I still haven’t figured out a long term plan for the site, but one hundred articles worth of material is one hundred assets which work to build traffic.
Also, to double site traffic again, it’s unlikely that just writing articles will cut it. I still don’t do any marketing for this site whatsoever, so I’ll have to jump in and do that at some point.
Anyway, there’s the site update. We’ll be back to regular programming tomorrow.