I recently ran an experiment of writing on CrossingColorado.com for 30 days. The idea was to see how much of a difference it makes blogging every day for a website that has been around for a while. Today, I’ll share the results and talk about where I’ll go from here.

Though I gotta admit, a lot of the blog posts I wrote throughout the month were not really focused on SEO. For the most part, I was blogging about my experiences trying to lose weight. And some posts didn’t get a single view.

Still, it looks like the website as a whole grew a little bit over the last month.

What Did I Do This Past Month

Although I wanted to do a bit more for CrossingColorado.com, I was only able to spend time working on blog posts. So, this month’s results are all based on nothing more than publishing 30 consecutive articles.

I did manage to optimize the site back in May and June, which already contributed to a bit of growth in terms of traffic. However, this past month was probably the biggest bump I’ve had on the site for nearly a year.

And even then it was short-lived as traffic continued to decrease shortly thereafter.

The Data from Search Console

The data from Search Console is more focused on articles that are already on the site and had been established in search. Not to mention how the posts I wrote this past month weren’t really all that geared towards search anyway.

Overall, the clicks, impressions, and average position all grew within the last month of blogging. The only thing that didn’t really change much was the click-through rate.

The impressions grew by more than 10,000, and the average position was slightly better overall.

For example, the Bodyblade article I wrote was sitting at position 45 at the beginning. But, it moved to the 33rd spot, probably thanks to the number of times I linked to the article throughout the past month.

This goes to show how effective internal linking is if you want to boost traffic.

Another good example is the cheap workout equipment article I wrote for Five Below. It went from 57.8 down to 30.9.

The Take-Away

I already knew how this part of the experiment would have ended. In the past, I’ve seen improvements to blogs across the board as Google loves active websites. When you have a consistent schedule of content, all of your posts perform better in search.

This time around, I just wanted to make sure the same principle applies. And based on the last 30 days, it still does.

Not to mention how internal linking from the new posts demonstrates to Google the importance of those articles. It illustrates to the search algorithm that those articles are still valid and relevant to your site and the content from which you’re linking.

The fun part now is going through 600+ articles and rewriting or revamping older pieces.

Google Analytics Data

According to Google Analytics, every metric for traffic improved except for the bounce rate. But, the bounce rate for CrossingColorado.com is relatively low, to begin with. So, I’m not overly concerned in this regard.

Having a bounce rate of 68.83% for a basic blog is nothing to scoff at.

The overall pageview traffic went up by 647 visits. As the new posts from the past month only account for 170 new pageviews, that means quite a few visits were regarding older content.

For a site that was hit so hard from Google’s “Medic” update, this is a good sign. Especially considering the amount of work I still need to do to revive this blog.

The Take-Away

Although the traffic increase has been good, there is still more I could do to drive additional traffic. For one thing, I need to do a bit more SEO work than I have been doing. As I said, some of the posts from the past month haven’t received a single read.

I also need to go through these posts and see what I can do to boost on-page time. Part of this has to do with how jacked up the theme is. I’m hoping to replace it in the near future and will track the data after the change.

Still, it’s a bit of a pain to lose people so quickly on certain articles. Though, the pages that get the most on-page time are all Amp pages. This means people on mobile devices are more likely to spend far more time reading the post than people from desktops.

I’m talking about the difference between spending 7 minutes reading a post from a smartphone to less than a minute from a desktop.

I’ll need to figure out what is driving that stark contrast between device types.

What’s Next for CrossingColorado?

I’m currently using the blog to drive my weight loss journey. This means it’s going to be active for quite a while nowadays. Not to mention how the site is nowhere near completely fixed.

I still have a lot of work ahead of me.

And keep in mind that I also have a ton of other projects running at the same time. So, considering the time I have available, it’s not looking too bad in the grand scheme of things.

More Content, Including SEO-Driven Material

Even though the blogging aspect is keeping the site active, I still need some better SEO-minded content. And I have a few reviews and listicles planned out for August, so all should be well.

I know that it’ll take some time before the SEO stuff to really gain momentum in Google. But according to past numbers, it means those articles should do fairly well by the end of the year. Especially since I’ll market them later on for gift ideas during the Christmas season.

And yes, they will have proper Amazon links and such.

Finding the Issue for Desktops

The on-page time difference between desktops and mobile devices is night and day. I need to go through and figure out what is causing desktop users to abandon the pages so soon.

Then again, I bet a lot of that is either content scraping or other bots hitting the material.

Still, even Search Console says there is nothing wrong with the articles from a technical perspective. I’ll have to dive a bit deeper into the data to find the issues.

Scheduling Some Revamps

It’s always good to go back through older posts and revamp the content to keep it fresh, current, and relevant. Not to mention that I found a few keyphrases I want certain articles to rank for.

That’s going to be the most difficult part of this experiment. I don’t have an endless amount of time as I am also working on several blogs, YouTube channels, and working on publishing my own books soon.

But, I really do need to give some of the older posts a bit of love if I want the trend of growth to continue.

More Social Media Interaction

I really need to do more for social media. This means interacting on Twitter, Facebook, more Instagram pics, and getting more video content on YouTube. Although it doesn’t drive an immense amount of traffic, WriterSanctuary has been growing nicely in 2021 thanks to social media.

Especially when it comes to YouTube.

But like everything else, I need to schedule specific times to get that content up and going. I’m half tempted to pay for a scheduling service such as Buffer to make sure I can keep all of the sites active on social channels.

Let’s Do Another 30-Day Update

On September 3rd, I’ll do another update and a breakdown of everything I’ve done thus far. I want to see if it’s just a summer fluke that is boosting traffic, or if it’s a pattern that is sustainable over the long term.

At any rate, I still have a lot to do if I want to get CrossingColorado.com back to where it was in 2018.