Back to Blogging – Five Observations from Week 1

It gotta say, I really enjoyed getting back to blogging for the first time in nearly a year. I’d forgotten how much I enjoy it.  I was also quickly reminded of how eagerly I await comments, so thanks for chiming in. I really appreciate your comments, support, and motivation to keep this whole blogging thing going. That said, here are my five observations from week one.

1) It strengthened my online community

I think the most powerful thing I discovered this week was the effectiveness of blogging for connecting or re-connecting with people. I received several blog comments and emails from industry peers and friends welcoming me back to blogging and providing encouragement. This extension of my community makes the world feel just a little bit smaller and reminded me of how cool it was posting to online forums and user groups back in the day. For example, I’ve never met Toronto SEO Dev Basu in person (Although I think we might’ve met at SMX Local in San Francisco – 2008). But I’ve respected his work for a long time and blogging is a great way to keep in touch with industry professionals like Dev and grow your network. I can only imagine how effective regular blogging + conference attendance is to growth in the industry. In fact, it was at SEOmoz Advanced 2009 that (after a little tequila if memory serves correct) I suggested Spokane as the first stop for Get Listed University. I always look forward to great conferences like SMX Advanced, Mozcon, & Searchfest to learn from the best in the industry, connect with my online marketing peeps, and have a great time. Regular blogging will likely help me grow my network so I can see more familiar faces in the crowd. Maybe I’ll even meet Dev at my next conference.

2) My website traffic jumped

There’s a pretty huge caveat here. I have very low traffic. It just hasn’t been a goal of mine. And with my infrequent blogging, let’s just say I haven’t exactly grown a large following. While I don’t put much merit in overall traffic increases, I am pleased with the increase in referral traffic and brand search traffic driven by my recent post. While it hasn’t translated into business this past week, I believe that putting out good content on a regular basis will put me in the right position to earn new business. I had a comment from Matt McGee that sums up this thought very well:

And if this increase in referral traffic (shown in my Google Analytics data below) continues it will likely lead to good things down the road, just like Matt says.

When you examine the referral traffic in detail you can see that this traffic comes from my business network in Spokane (Facebook & Twitter), industry peers (Twitter), my Get Listed University faculty friends, and my Mom.

3) It drove searches for my brand

And while my brand search traffic is low, there is certainly a nice increase compared to the previous week (as seen below). This is probably the biggest take-away for small businesses in my opinion. By providing good content to your audience they’ll be looking for more content from you. And in time, you’ll have the possibility of earning their long-term business.

4) Search isn’t always the big dog

My blogging failure post started ranking quickly for, guess what,… blogging failure.

Within two days it was ranking 2rd on Google for “blogging failure” (4th on Bing/Yahoo). And for a second I was lured into thinking this would be good for business. It won’t (for a variety of reasons). My point is that people tend to place too much emphasis on rankings (myself included at times) and not the bigger picture. For example, here’s a success story I was touting at Get Listed Spokane last February.  My wife’s nonprofit Bloom Spokane has ranked 5th for “birth advice” and 1st for “hospital birth advice” since her blog post was published in February. What has it gotten her? Fame? Fortune? Free t-shirt? Nope. Just thirty four visitors via organic search traffic.

Don’t get me wrong. I love long-tail organic search traffic. It can be really important to a business. But it’s important to see the bigger picture. Three months of searches for all things “birth advice” does not represent a game changer to her nonprofit.

But the 122% increase in overall traffic since her blog post went viral makes a difference. That’s 5,772 more visitors than the previous period. More importantly, those 5,772 visits represent social media influencers, industry experts, potential speaking opportunities, and increased national exposure.

5) There’s Always Some Risk

There’s always some risk when you put your neck out there. You could offend your audience, not research a topic thoroughly enough, or inadvertently drive Twitter traffic to the wrong Ed Reese.

Sorry other Ed Reese. I’ll do my best to keep my business major, marketing frat boy douchebag friends at bay. We’ve got some kegstands to do, anyway.