Lessons I learned from posting 30 blog posts in 30 days

On April 16, 2023 I challenged myself to write 30 blog posts in 30 days.

You can read more about the motivations behind the experiment and what Dispatch posts and Weekly Roundups looked like here.

When I finished the challenge on May 16, 2023, I was happy but also relieved. At that time, I wasn’t sure what I would glean from the process and incorporate into my website or email newsletter in the future.

A month later, I’m still uncertain about precise details or what my posting schedule and content strategy will look like.

But taking some time away from the demands of daily posting gave me the space to reflect on what I learned in those 30 days.

Ideas

Begin physically, refine and execute digitally.

I capture ideas best by writing and drawing in notebooks or sketchpads in a more visual manner. I used to leave it at this and refer back to my handwritten plans when I wrote online.

But for this challenge, I then typed them up so there was a cleaner digital document with a simple bullet point list of what I could write about instead and my process improved drastically.

Before starting the experiment I spent time generating 30 blog post ideas with loose titles on paper.

The hardest part of writing is creating something from nothing, so I tried to give myself a head start with this idea pool.

Most of the original 30 ideas made it as Dispatch blog posts.

Others, when I revisited them, didn’t inspire me or I spent too long staring at a blank page with the title at the top of the screen.

As more days went by, I’d sometimes have flashes of inspiration and simply add new ideas to the list. These were often my favourite posts to write since they were so organic and compelling.

The underlying lesson was when I had those flashes of inspiration, my instinct was to start writing that initial idea up right away. However, I realised that the mindset or headspace or whatever you want to call it I was in at the time was supercharged for coming up with more ideas.

When I recognised this trend I adapted to it so if I felt a flash of inspiration, I’d adjust my schedule or plans to sit with the mindset to generate more ideas rather than diving into writing straight away.

Social media

Some is better than none.

Before the 30 day experiment my ‘social media strategy’ was sporadic.

Sometimes I posted to my social media platforms, often I didn’t due to insecurity or simply not thinking about it.

The challenge didn’t magically transform me into a savvy social media sharer, but I definitely improved the number of articles I shared on Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook.

A few of these posts generated a solid amount of traffic back to the website, others felt like tumbleweed pirouetting into obscurity.

I was surprised that LinkedIn seemed to distribute my content best because it’s the platform I know least about and I only just started using it properly again for my new job.

The takeaway here was fairly obvious: social media sharing is a great way to generate traffic back to your website and engage with existing and prospective readers.

But to see results, you need consistency and volume because using the platforms boosts your profile in the eyes of the algorithm gods and therefore puts your posts in front of more eyes.

Closely tied to social media sharing outcomes…

Stats increase

Volume begets volume.

Over the course of the 30 day experiment (April 16 – May 16, 2023):

• 129 new users arrived on the website
• The average engagement timed was 1m 07 seconds, compared to the previous 30 day period where it was was 37 seconds.
• My website received 765 page views, compared to 336 the during the previous 30 days.
• User engagements went from 216 to 587.

I include these stats not because the number of eyes on your content is the be-all and end-all metric – the quality of the eyes on your page is more important in my humble opinion. Nor do I include them to brag because these are very small numbers in the grand scheme of things.

But I was over the moon to see more people coming to the website, commenting on social media posts and downloading my free flatplan template – and the new members or visitors were arriving from beyond my immediate bubble of family, friends and colleagues.

In the course of the experiment, a handful of new members signed up to the website through organic search meaning they Googled something, found my website and signed up to be a member. I was thrilled each time this happened.

Of course, I’m grateful to the people I know supporting what I’m doing here, but for total strangers to find value in what I create as well is a phenomenal feeling.

Learning

Data and insights are key.

Connected to the lesson that stats are vital and volume begets volume, I realised I have room for improvement when it comes to data.

My skills in Google Analytics are rudimentary, but the experiment made me want to learn more about the platform.

I gleaned some useful insights from the website user data and as I publish more content this will only increase over time.

For now, the main takeaway is I want to enrol in a free Google Analytics course of some kind online and chip away at some extracurricular learning.

Blips occur

Be kind to yourself.

It was no surprise that some days I was more motivated than others – an extended 30-day commitment to writing is always going to be challenging.

I battled through the blips and even on a couple of days where I missed a post – for instance, the day I proposed to my now fiancée – I still made up for it with back posting. It wasn’t ideal and the feeling of letting myself down due to the commitment I made publicly was jarring.

But ultimately it taught me to be kind to myself and I reframed the experiment as something playful where I had nothing to lose, rather than some kind of indicator of my worth as a writer, creator or person.

Of course, I wanted to enjoy the process and maybe see some new members arrive – that’s part of the reason we create and share, right?

However I reminded myself of the bigger picture 'whys' behind the 30-day challenge were to add value to readers and that I started because I enjoy writing.

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