End of the first 30 day challenge: 30 Blog Posts in 30 days!

Well, the first challenge is done!

So what did I learn over the last 30 days:

1. The discipline of writing everyday really causes you to think creatively.
2. Not everything you write is worth posting – but write is anyone (just save it as a draft and come back to it).
3. When you spend a lot of time writing, you spend less time promoting your site. According to Analytics – the number of new visitors to my site fell.
4. When you add regular content, the number of repeat visitors goes up, and it goes up a lot! Readers also spend longer on your site and view more pages.
5. Give people takeaways when writing an article that is to bring about a change of some kind. Takeaways is a term given to me by Rob Brown (thanks Rob!) describing an action people can do (usually quickly).

The most popular posts from the last 30 days (in order)

1. Today, I had a great leaders meeting at church…I know, I was surprised too! (Posted 10.06.2010). This took the most hits, but bizarrely had no Tweets (using the site tweet button) or Comments. It is the article people mention the most to me when they see me though.
2. Performance lessons from the iceberg: pt I (Posted 04.06.2010).  This was popular on twitter.
3. The best sales advice I can give you: authentic selling (posted 09.06.2010). This sparked a number of great conversations (both on the web and face-to-face), that then led to a series of posts on what Authentic Selling looks like. All of these posts have become popular so I have just added the link to the first post.
4. A new definition of marketing (posted 21.06.2010). This is the one post that has sparked the most involvement and contribution from people and led to my post from last night: Update – A New Definition of Marketing. These posts I can see becoming some of the all time populars as they are only a few days old, but already up to number four on the hits parade!

Ironically – these are the posts that I have enjoyed writing the most. It has been great for me to cement my thoughts on Sales (Authentic Sales Posts) and Marketing (The New Definition Posts) – it is very relevent to me and my business that is for sure. I never thought that the church meeting one would do so well (it just goes to show you!) – I imaging a lot of the success there was the title of the post (a brief moment of inspired genius).

I have really enjoyed working on my blog with this much focus and emphasis. I do think the number of posts will drop (to maybe 2 per week), but the writing will continue and I’ll be a little more selective of what to actually post.

Something that I have not been able to do is as many Vlogs as I would have liked (they are recorded and being edited the few that I did do) – but this should hopefully change as I am changing some of the technology set up that I have to make this quicker and easier.

I’ll post about my next challenge tomorrow – just trying to decide which one to do!

So thanks for reading, and stay tuned!

Question: What is the one thing that you think I could do to instantly improve the quality of this blog?