How to Write Just 10–15 Blog posts & Enjoy a Steady Stream of Traffic for Years?
It was Friday night.
I was all alone in the office.
I checked the time. — it was past 8 PM.
Though I could have been doing a dozen other things like leaving office on time and taking my beautiful wife out for dinner date or reaching home early, making dinner for both of us, and eating it comfortably in my bed watching Netflix.
But instead, I’d finished writing (what I thought was) my best article so far.
I was pretty excited. And who wouldn’t be? — I spent my entire week on this piece, doing research, fixing typos, and polishing my copy.
I proofread the entire piece top to bottom 6 times to make sure every fundamental was covered.
In my mind I was thinking “This ought to work!”.
So, I hit publish.
And…
And nothing. No traffic.
I waited a week but still nothing.
Okay I’m exaggerating a little. I did saw a bit traffic hike and received couple of inquiries.
But the blog did not generate the result it was supposed to.
And the worst part? — This was happening with every blog since last 2 months. I was failing to grow business through blogging.
Was I making any mistakes?
You bet I was!
I was writing (what I’d like to call it now) “Temporal content”.
And this is the first mistake what I (and I’m sure many of you) have been making.
Focusing on Trends
I know it’s tempting to write about whatever excites us at any given moment.
It could be about an exciting new app release, a hot industry topic, or just any random stuff.
Whatever it may be, I want you to just kill that temptation.
Whenever you have an urge to write about some hot topic, just ask yourself this simple question:
Will this blog generate traffic months and years from now?
I know from personal experience that 9 out of 10 times, the answer is NO.
So, don’t do it. Don’t write temporal content on your blog for the sake of trend.
Here’s an example:
This is the best illustration of what I call temporal content. While this may be relevant now and it must have generated a spike of traffic. But what about 1 week after? 1 month after? And 1 year after?
Do you think people will be searching for this?
Boy I hope not!
Anyway, the point is this! — If you want to generate passive traffic, focus on High Organic Search Potential topics only.
Find blog topics that people are searching for month after month, year after year.
Once you find 10–15 of those blog topics, write “great” content for each of them.
Remember, without “great” content, you won’t see the success. You won’t see passive traffic every month.
Now, I’m sure you must be thinking –
Publish “great” content? Thanks mate, I’d never heard that advice before…
Thanks for the sarcasm but you know what? — I also hate such vague advices, which is why I’m going to explain what exactly I mean by great content.
What is “GREAT” Content?
Though great content can be subjective, just as success is subjective to everyone.
But, if I had to define the exact traits of great content, then those would be Quality, Uniqueness, and Authority.
Quality
Quality of a content is again, subjective. But in my 4 years of writing online, I’ve found that when people talk about quality of content, they generally refer to well-written, solution providing, and visually appealing.
So if you want to ensure that every person who sees your content consider it as a high-quality content, then you need to keep all three points in mind while writing it.
Uniqueness
Since I’ve advised not to write temporal content and focus on writing topics with high organic search potential, there is a very good chance that somebody has already published a well-researched article on that topic.
Thousands of people might already have.
So what should you do?
Drop the topic idea? — Of course not!
The answer is to write 100% unique content for that topic, except for the fact that achieving 100% uniqueness is extremely hard.
So, unless you’re a genius, there is only one way to publish something unique. — Blend your own personal experience.
That’s what I do in every blog that I write.
In fact, that’s what I did in the beginning of this article as well.
Authority
Authority is very important.
For example, if you wanted to lose weight, would you read weight loss tips from a shredded person or a fatty guy?
The same goes with everything.
Take me for example. People today hire me to get their articles published on globally popular platforms like Clutch, Entrepreneur, Upwork, and more.
And it’s not just because I’ve 4+ years of experience in writing articles. These people, well my clients hire me because they know my articles generate traffic and gets shared. They hire me because they know I write epic content that give results.
And how do they know that I write epic content?
It’s because I have my work published on Medium’s top publications including ART + Marketing, Writing Cooperative, The Ascent, and India’s top Media Platform — Yourstory.
Though most of my clients read my work on these platforms and then reached out to me, but just publishing my articles on these platforms was not enough to attract these clients.
I also had to promote those articles non-stop. In fact, that’s what you should do as well.
Promote Your Content Non-Stop
Simply put, instead of publishing 10–15 blogs every month, just write 10–15 blogs with good organic search potential and focus all your resources on creating backlinks to rank them in Google for relevant keywords.
No matter how great content you write, you won’t stand a chance in ranking on top for your target search terms if you’re not promoting it.
Always remember,
More promotion = more backlinks.
More backlinks = higher ranking.
Higher ranking = more passive traffic each month.
Therefore, promote your blogs where people are likely to find it useful and from where you’ll also get a ‘do-follow’ backlink.
That’s It!
That’s all you need to do to generate a steady stream of passive traffic for months & years.
Originally published at www.screwedupengineer.com on February 11, 2019.
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