30 Day Blogging Challenge Aftermath
As you probably noticed, last month, I made 30 blog posts in one month (instead of my usual 1 to 3).
Why did I do it? I wanted to see if it would build my list faster, make me more money, and make more connections with the other participants of the challenge.
How did I do it? I outlined a few lists like "5 Elements of Social Proof to Explode Your Business" ... "11 Easy-to-Implement Ideas for Your Next Webinar to Ensure Maximum Attendance, Interest, and Profit" or even "12 Can't Miss Rules of Highly Effective Membership Sites" ... dictated them, got them transcribed, and scheduled all 30.
How long did it take? It took about two days to make all the posts. Half a day to outline everything, a day to dictate, then half a day to schedule and edit the transcribed posts.
What were the results? I'm glad you asked... the big reason I did this was to get more email subscribers. In May (before the 30 Day Challenge) I got 1,867 new e-mail optins... and in June (during the challenge), I only got 1,537 optins.
In other words, blogging 30 times in 1 month instead of once per month... got me the same number of optins!
But Didn't It Get You MORE Audience Participation?
Good question. In May (before the challenge), I had 198 comments on my blog. In June (during the challenge), 660 comments.
30 times the work, to get triple the comments. If I had spaced out those 30 posts into 3 posts per month, I would have 10 months of blogging scheduled and out of the way to get the same comments.
But Weren't those all NEW Commenters?
Let's look for fresh blood. In May when I had those 198 comments, 78 comments were from people who had NEVER commented on my blog before -- 39 percent.
In June, out of those 660 comments, 83 comments were from brand new people on my blog -- 13 percent.
See what happened there? Triple the comments, but the exact same amount of new people.
I segmented my list for this month and only sent ONE sublist a notification about a new post on most days. But even when I mailed the WHOLE list about a blog post, it usually got the same number of comments.
But Did the Challenge Make You More Money?
My earnings in May after commission, fees, and expenses: $19,400.71. June earnings after expenses: $21,412.78.
Before you say, "The blog challenge made you an extra 2000 dollars..." Keep in mind I have a lot of recurring membership sites and autoresponder followup sequences, so you can't automatically assume that this extra 10% boost in income was due to blogging.
Will it Pay off in the Long Term?
I'll have to check back in a month or so to see if this extra 30,000 words of blog content gets me more search engine listings, but for now, it didn't get me a big boost in traffic.
RobertPlank.com had 6057 visitors in May, and 8586 in June. A 41% boost, but not 30 times or even 3 times the traffic as a normal month.
Did Anyone Comment Every Day?
At the beginning of June, I asked you guys to promise to leave a comment once a day every 30 days. Almost everyone said something like, "No, I won't do it. I'll forget."
It looks like Melanie Kissell and Henrik Blunck both managed to leave me a comment every day for a month, so I want you to leave a blog comment congratulating them right now.
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Congrats Melanie and Henrik!
And nice experiment, Robert.
Just got in on the tail end of the 30 days but nice to see your stats. Lots of catching up and mining your old posts for gold. Keep up the good work.
Very Interesting research! I am happy to see that you tracked it so well. I think 30 posts in 30 days is a lot to do for the results you get but it is a great challenege for people with new blogs to add 30 to the count in 30 days.. it gets you into the habit and builds your confidence with being a ‘blogger’.
I think it is hard to calculate the real value. I’ve made some amazing connections.. some that will change me or how I do things, some that I will do work/JV with in the future and some that I’ll travel around the world to visit.
You received support in the form of comments which had to feel really great! What did you do to connect and support others… there can be great value in that as well, not always in the moment but it does come.
Congratulations Melanie & Henrik.
Thank you Robert for sharing your research!!
xox
Helen
Congratulations Melanie and Henrik!
I tried to post as often as I could.. but I’m still very new and some of the topics (like membership sites) I haven’t branched out to yet.
However.. because of the 30 day challenge.. I’m starting to get 10 COMMENTS on a blog post. My last one was successful and now I’m going to do it again and again.
Thanks Robert, for doing the challenge, and for the excellent advice you give everyday.
So…you didn’t exactly say it, Robert, but are you concluding that for YOU, it wasn’t worth your time?
I’ve been running my blog for a little over a year now, posting around 5 times per week during that time. I think LOTS of posts early on helped me get traffic via search engines, etc. but now you’ve got me wondering if cutting back on posts will hurt. It’ll certainly help make more time for products, etc.
Looks like 1-3 times a week is best to me. As brilliant as you are it’s hard to come up with fab ideas every day
Congratulations to Melanie and Henrik.
Thanks for doing the research Robert. Is it possible your results are skewed by the fact that you already are a known commodity?
What I mean is that you have membership sites and products and have been out there for long enough that you have already picked the “low hanging fruit” in terms of readers.
Has anyone without Robert’s clout tried this?
Hi Robert,
Just started to follow your blog recently only so I didn’t manage to follow your 30 days-challenge.
One thing I observed from you is you never failed to measure your result.
“You can’t manage what you don’t measure.”
This alone from you inspired me a lot and I am thinking how to make this works in my life and business too.
Thanks for sharing your results. More is not always good and you will never know the result until you measure.
And congrats! Melaine & Henrik. 🙂
Robert,
You have some very interesting statistics and I thank you for sharing them. Yep! Melanie is a faithful online friend and a constant commenter. She’s awesome.
This has been an interesting season for my online business. Amazingly, my “day job” (as you call it) has grown while I wasn’t looking. I guess the principles are the same – put the right systems in place and they work for you, not against you.
Hope you’re having a great day.
Jeanne
In June I started tapering off my posting. I’m planning on about once a week from here out.
The year of daily content is driving 100+ hits per day in search traffic though, which I believe will be a long term asset (otherwise I wouldn’t have done it).
Clearly, dictation is a skill I need to learn, soon.
Congratulations Henrik and Melanie!
Fascinating results, too. Thanks for sharing!
Hi Robert,
I’m not sure the test has been run for long enough to judge results. If the internet is anything like what newspapers used to be, your name has to be very familiar to people before they’ll start any investigation into you or your products.
You’ve already got your format down. Your posts each have your photo. Each of your posts are actually related to your headline. You give clear-cut instructions for the actions you want your readers to take. There appears to be something in each post for almost everyone. What’s not to like??
Out of all the copywriting courses out there, I signed up for yours. Why? Probably because of the strength of the trust you’ve built by the quality of your blog posts. An occasional post or two might not have accomplished that.
Melanie & Henrik, do you not have anything else to do??
Dan
Congrats to Melanie and Henrik for fulfilling your commitment! And thank you Robert for all your posts – I was late in coming to the party here and have a lot of catching up to do. I did the blog challenge — 32 in 30 days with very minimal results. I don’t have B2B products but still hoped for something more for the work. Your statistics are very interesting!
Evelyn
Melanie & Henry – Congratulations! That is AWESOME! We often start with great intentions, but fizzle out along the way, letting Life intervene. YOU stuck with it. Obviously you’ve learned well from your mentor Robert, who is the personification of consistent effort.
Thanks again, Robert, for participating in the Blog Challenge. Although your monetary results don’t show it, you inspired a lot of people to consistent action and modeled a great process for daily blogging.
Jeanette
OK, some of my stats: in May, my blog had 506 visitors. In June, 1,143.
I had 4 comments in May, 52 in June.
I could not build my list from my blog commenters, because you still haven’t given me the action comment plugin upgrade that i paid for… [hint, hint]
I have gone from virtually unknown, to known and respected by a few of my peers…
It was as good an investment as any of the 997 dollar courses I’ve done.
I would do it again in a heartbeat.
Sophie
@Jeanette Cates… I double it… he did inspire a lot of people, including me.
Let’s do it again! lol
Thanks for doing it, thank for allowing us to grow
Sophie,
You do have access to action comments… it’s in your action popup download area.
Thanks for the kind words, and congratulations. Very much appreciated.
Thanks, Robert, for tracking this so well. It is indeed thought-provoking since the results go a little bit against the common myth of extra blogs creating extra income.
Will have to check & compare the numbers, and will definitely use your feedback on the blog challenge to plan ahead on my own blogging efforts.
Have a nice weekend everyone. 🙂
Hey Everyone ~
So nice to read all of your kudos and notes of congratulations — Thank You!
Robert, you are one gutsy online marketer and a right-off-the-cuff kind of guy. Here’s the reason I decided to say “yes” to your request to stop by every day for 30 days:
1) You asked
2) Was going to be reading other participant’s blogs every day anyway, so why not include yours?
3) I’m a proponent of consistency
4) High quality linkbacks (the ultimate SEO) – figured you probably had some pretty outstanding and responsive people on your list
5) Enjoy a challenge
6) Was counting on getting my hands on some great blogging and business building tips here
7) Reading and commenting on blogs is an easy and enjoyable activity — wish I could make a living at it. 🙂
Melanie
P.S. Dan — YES! I have a myriad of online marketing projects and activities going on daily and I work three part time jobs offline, as well. I’m a single mom and I’m great and I’ve got my juggling act perfected!
I’d like to extend a giant-sized “Congratulations!” to Henrik! Looks like I’ve just met another pea in the pod. 🙂
Robert, thank you
First, Congrats to Melanie and Henrik. Also to Robert for a job well done especially in the stats department.
I tend to have the same question as Warren though. Do you not think something like the 30 day/30 posts would help some who is not already well known considerably more than it helped you? That is if they promote it not just make the posts.
Thanks again for all your help,
Clyde
Congratulations to Melanie and Henrik! Fanastic job!
Perhaps the advantages are not seen yet. Your blog posts are here to stay. Some posts may get extremely visible in the search results in time to come.
A blog post of mine that I had written in 3 years ago, has attracted over 971 comments, without me doing anything. It has taken a life of its own.
Only problem is I don’t know how to monetize that.
July 29th, 2007 | Posted in Investment, Wine | 971 Comments
Congrats Melanie and Henrick
Robert, I really like seeing your stats. Keeping better stats is one thing I have learned from you. Although my numbers aren’t as high as yours my percentages are close.
Interesting side note that I have not figured out….I had the highest ever in optins in June from optin pages that had nothing to do with my blog.
And, thanks for the action comment plugin.
Congrats to Melanie and Henrik – in fact their job was harder than yours Robert ‘cos I doubt they pre-loaded all their comments and so logged on each day. 🙂
Love the way you do something then check the stats. I get so busy doing and ticking off my list and forget to see if it’s worth it….When’s your product coming out on ‘The IM Follow-up Stats System? 🙂
Congratulations Henrik and Melanie!
Thanks for sharing Robert. Your posts will continue to bring in traffic, I couldn’t make it everyday, but I have many of the posts bookmarked to come back to and read later.
Hey Robert,
Sorry that your 30 day challenge didn’t give the results that you wanted in the short term. In the long run however, you may have just increased your readership.
Which will translates into more possible sales.
One idea is hold a contest. give away one of your products or a free month in one of your membership sites.
Or write a blog post for the winner.
I know you will figure something out.
Hi Robert,
Thanks for sharing your results.
I would hope that the longer term benefit would be better natural search traffic. As you say, you’ll need to look at that over time.
On my blog, lots of my older ‘regular posts’ get 30-50 visitors per month from search engines. Those add up.
My ‘big’ posts can get thousands of visitors per month. It’s great to hit a home run, but I don’t forget that 30 articles getting 50 visitors per month adds 1500 visitors per month.
I was also really interested in Alexa rank and traffic. Right now, I see your alexa rank as 65,000 – and you say that you are getting 8500 visitors per month.
That is an eye opener for me. My blog gets generally over 40K unique visitors per month, and yet my alexa rank sits around 370,000. That just shows that in non-marketing niches, you don’t get accurate alexa ranks, because so few people have the alexa tool bar (compared to internet marketers, as is your case).
Best,
Kenny
Robert I have tryed on numerous occasions to leave comments, but when I have checked to see if they have posted they are never there. what you don’t post comments from Minnesota?
Where’s Minnesota? Isn’t that on the Don’t Fly List?
A Blogathon is mostly about getting the habit of writing and doing something online every day. Which, Robert, you’re pretty good at already.
But lot’s of people are not.
When I do my trainings I have to encourage people to invest a measly 30-minutes a day in their economic freedom. Mostly, they’re too busy to bother.
So, Melanie and Henrik, good job!
Rich
Thanks for your positive sentiment, Rich!
Next to public speaking (which I love, BTW), writing is the most paralyzing endeavor for myriads of people. Even blogging two times a week can feel like a really daunting task.
Robert shared some strategies during the 30-day challenge to help people get beyond that brick wall. And I imagine you offer similar tips via your training.
Best of success with getting your students out of first gear and into fifth!
Melanie
Hi Robert,
I was in the 30 days of blog challenge and I am with you on the results.
Blogging daily (for 30 days, 30 blogs) didn’t increase the traffic or income, as far as I could tell.
I think that part of the problem is that those of us participating in the blog challenge did not understand yet the power of networking.
For instance, if I posted a blog then you and anyone else who were in the challenge would then broadcast it to their own personal lists, which would generate some buzz and hopefully a lot different results.
(Imagine a 100 participants each having a 100 friends in their network and you get the idea of what the actual buzz would be like. At least that’s what I think would happen)
What I think happened instead, at least from my own experience, is that just a few individuals did this, and those were only broadcasting the posts to their very limited audience. (That’s why they were in the challenge.)
Anyway, lessons learned … 🙂
thanks for the post, very insightful.
Joe Cepeda
PS: Congratulations to Melanie Kissell and Henrik Blunck. You were a very committed and loyal pair of individuals. I’m impressed.
Thanks, Joe, and I can see your train of thought here. It makes sense.
However, the most recent blogging challenge had over 250 participants. I knew, going into it, that the most logical approach would be to find a way to establish a “core” group of challengers to follow and support consistently. From where I sit and given my personal set of circumstances, it wasn’t humanly possible to read and comment on everyone’s blogs. Not even half would have been feasible.
The blog30 philosophy for me was “manageable and do-able”.
Best of success to you, Joe!
Melanie
Good Blog with many interesting thoughts! Thanks – keep up the good work!
Ron:
I was one of the people who bought from you -two products by now- and be your commentary Nº 5000; and I discovered you from the #30 Blog Challenge. So, $84 explained as Challenge results; $1916 more to go…
(Visit my blog and try to guess one of the products I got!!)
Saludos,
Gonzalo.
whoa! that is awesome, I do not think I can engage in this kind of challenge, it have have been so stressful for you, I am so sure the search engine would definitely reward you for your fresh new daily content, most times the reward we get in this online business might be measured immediately, you know?
I would try to copy a part of this challenge, maybe 2 post each week and see how far I can go about that! that for the challenge…