30 day blogging challenge week 1 review
So I’ve completed a full week of my 30 day blogging challenge and just in this short period of time a lot has been learned. Probably not the lessons or insights I’d hoped to find or be able to share at this stage but good lessons none the less. Keep in mind, 7 days does not generate enough points to conclude anything but I’ll share my initial observations regardless.
Does continued blogging increase views?
There are two answers to this question. First, seven days of blogging does not seem to have an impact on the number of views I’m getting on an individual article, though I’d like to think this changes as the challenge progresses as I am getting new followers on each article published.
Second answer is yes. The total views and reads of the blog are up in comparison with the week before when only one article was published. Kind of an obvious conclusion given that most posts are being done on Medium and I’m sharing every article published in some form or another.
Conclusion: publishing more does lead to more overall traffic.
Are there any conclusions on days or hours of posting?
Only one. The article on Sunday was a flop. Very few views despite sharing on LinkedIn and twitter. My article for Saturday was not published on Medium and is awaiting editorial approval from another publication. This, because it will be posted on another site, will not be used in my comparisons as it’s not like for like. Therefore, this week I’ll need to be sure to publish on Medium, on Saturday.
Regarding the time of day. This week I’ve kept posting times at roughly the same hour as I was hoping to get fluctuations on time of day. I’m going to continue posting at roughly the same time all of this week so that I have a full two weeks period to for my day of week tests. Next week I’ll start fluctuating the time of day.
Conclusion: To be determined.
What is the impact of increased channel distribution
My initial assumption was that LinkedIn would be a great distribution channel for gaining views and reads and the data weakly supports this view. Let me clear, I need to get better at defining and quantifying my assumptions. The term great is loosely defined. The articles that were shared on Linkedin saw additional views from Linkedin of around 10%. While the effort required to share on Linkedin is minimal, I had hoped that the uplift would be much higher.
In contrast, the article written in response to a Quora question received just over 30% additional traffic from Quora. Important to note that Quora is a lasting link to the article so this number may increase while the Linkedin share is buried somewhere way way way down their timeline. What I’ve not tried yet is writing on LinkedIn and then sharing on medium. I’ll conduct this trial this week and let you know in next week’s summary.
Conclusion: Quora works well when you can answer a question directly.
This week I need to be sharper about ensuring the comparisons remain equal. I also need to test the impact of posting on LinkedIn first. Stay tuned, more to come.
