I am usually quite good at completing my 30 day challenges, it can be painful but I get there – sometimes I stick with the change others I don’t. Today, I am here to admit failure to complete a challenge of writing 30 articles across 30 days, the 30 Day Blogging Challenge. To help understand why I failed and actually why it was a success that I did fail, here are some questions I’ve asked myself:
- How far did you get?
I posted 17 articles, between 17th October and 1st December. That is more regular daily articles that I have ever written before, and the furthest they were scheduled ahead was just one day. - Did I stick to the rules?
I set out 6 clear rules before starting the daily postings and made them public. I failed to meet the standards only once, when I didn’t quite make 500 words. I did indeed go without coffee for the remainder of that day. - How did the Analytics stack up?
Looking at Google Analytics, the stats look fairly good over the period. Across the time, compared with the same number of days previously, there was a 29% increase in sessions and 26% in users to the site, there was also a reduction in bounce rate of 3.5% with the average visit duration jumping up by almost 15% < these are great figures for an already busy website. The question is how much of this is related to the daily posting vs not so much the daily posting. - Did daily blogging contribute to better stats?
The simple answer is yes, it clearly did. How significant this was isn’t yet clear as across the month of November (when I returned to working as SEOAndy and not just blogging) traffic increased a huge 60+% when compared with October – there is no doubting the challenge helped further this but it must be said it was not alone the only reason for the increase in traffic. - So, was it a success?
Ultimately yes, I’ve learned a lot from my challenge – it’s a challenge I think everyone should take part in at some point, maybe as a new years resolution. – You can find info on it here. - Learned what exactly?
Firstly, If I have the time I do love writing about what I am doing, especially if there is a topic readers want covered (as was clearly the case with Google Analytics topics). Secondly, I can usually find time to write posts each day, however I failed because sometimes I simply don’t have the time – its part and parcel of also being a Local Councillor and working for yourself that means at some point you have to stop and have some ‘family’ time to relax. Thirdly, I learned that I miss being part of groups that contain people who are all learning and moving forward, discussing issues and resolving them – but also it reminded me that SEOAndy whilst offering services such as SEO Training was set up to explain in easy to understand terms about SEO and Digital Marketing. Finally, I learned that sometimes, failure isn’t failure its a success because you’ve learned so much.
Original SEO Content by SEOAndy @ Failing a 30 Day Challenge – Why I Failed
