Lessons Learned From Writing 39 Blogs And Generating 29,000 Pageviews

When we embarked on our content writing journey, we didn’t know what to expect.

Between the last half of 2019 and the first half of 2020, we wrote 39 blog posts and generated 29,000 pageviews on our website.

Along the way, we’ve learned some very valuable lessons about content marketing, which we wanted to share freely with you today.

1. Free Traffic = Free Leads

One of the biggest things we learned during our content marketing journey was that, when our content was generating traffic, we got consistent free leads.

After all, with thousands of people visiting our website, each user was potentially a free lead we could generate with our free marketing guides and other downloadable content.

This generated significantly more leads for us than in any other year before.

2. Results Take Time

It became clear to us in the first few months that we’d have to be patient with our content. While we expected to start seeing results within a few weeks, almost every post that we published didn’t start generating SEO traffic for between 2-5 months.

As you can probably expect, this was frustrating at first.

But we’re so glad that we persevered through the frustration to find success on the other side.

3. Consistency is Key

At the start of our journey, we committed to publishing between 2-5 blog posts every month.

However, within that plan, there was a lot of trial and error as we worked to figure out what topics would generate not only good results but better brand awareness.

Our advice is that if you’re feeling stuck because your blog isn’t generating enough traffic, don’t stop writing.

4. Our Most Successful Blogs Surprised Us

When we were planning our blog content, we of course had expectations that some topics would perform better than others.

But, saying that, our predictions didn’t always align with reality.

When it came to checking our analytics, we were often surprised by which blog posts were our most popular.

Where You Should Start With Blogging

If you’re looking to get started with blogging, but you’re not sure if it’s a good strategy for you, take it from us – after 39 blog posts and 29,000 page views, it has been a strategically important part of our marketing.

With that in mind, here is how we started blogging and the tips we found useful at the start of our journey.

1. Keyword Research

No matter what you’re planning on writing about, and whether you’ve picked a mainstream topic or something a little more niche, it’s vital that you do your keyword research and come up with a content plan.

Tools like SEMrush, Moz, and Ahrefs are fantastic for keyword research and analytics, and we couldn’t recommend them enough for anyone looking to get started with blogging. Moz also has a limited free plan, so you can use it for keyword research even if you don’t have the budget to spend on SEO tools yet.

2. Know Your Competition

Before you put pen to paper, we recommend checking out the competition and seeing what they’re ranking for. Even if you’re not planning on selling anything just yet, seeing how well your competitors are performing will give you a great idea about what topics perform well in your niche.

Our top tip is to always study your competitors so you can improve on their content. Even if they’re a huge blogger with thousands of followers, that’s not to say that you can’t improve on it.

3. Experiment Endlessly

The biggest thing to remember is that content writing and SEO in particular aren’t exact sciences. As we found out through our experiences with content writing, sometimes things will take a different turn than what you expected.

So, don’t be afraid to experiment with your tone, content, or style. Different approaches will always work for different people, so take the time to change things around and see what works for you.

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