Can a Blog Challenge Help Drive Traffic to Your Site?

Before learning about the Ultimate Blog Challenge, we had set Our Little Books goals for the month to increase traffic to the site by 25%, improve our Alexa ranking and get more comments on the posts. We had no specific idea at that time how we would achieve those specific goals, but sometimes you just plow ahead. I saw a tweet about The Ultimate Blog Challenge and it seemed like the perfect answer to make some headway on our goals. It involved posting a blog every day in August. Certainly a challenge (since we were blogging only three times a week), but not undoable. I decided to jump in.

Jumping in turned out to be the best decision to accomplish our goals. We are very excited with the results. So what benefits resulted from participating in the challenge? Could participating in a Blog Challenge help you and your business? We definitely think so.

Here are six actual results that helped me personally as a blogger and, as a result, also helped Our Little Books as a business:

• Accountability - I seem to need the accountability. It was like having a goal buddy. I don’t really think anyone would have reprimanded me if I had missed one day, but I felt accountable to the group. Everyone in the group was taking the challenge so I didn’t want to let them down.  
• Established a habit - I usually write in my journal daily but I had not disciplined myself to write a post daily. It actually was easier to plan a post daily than it was to plan 2-3 a week. I didn’t write all of the posts myself. I asked for guest posts and I was more proactive about telling them when I need the post. 
• Lead by Example - We tell authors the benefits of blogging to develop their online platform. We can’t expect someone to do something we are not willing to do. How can I tell someone the benefits of blogging if I don’t take it seriously?
• Relationships - I met some great people. I established relationships that will result in joint ventures in the future. We had an increase in requests for our Free e-book on the benefits of having a little book for you business and also in people wanting to learn more about Our Little Books from our newsletter. People read the posts and wanted to know more!
• Alexa Ranking - In an Alexa ranking, your site is ranked against other sites in the world and in the US. On August 1^st, we ranked 957,489 in the world and today (31 days later) we rank 417,189 (the lower the number the better). On August 1^st , we ranked 133,000 in the US and today we rank 54,590. We more than surpassed the goal for the month! 
• Site Traffic Statistics - Do you know your site traffic numbers? The traffic statistics are something we should all be checking. In August, we almost doubled our numbers!

Unique Visitors:          July   1901       August   3631
Number of Visits:        July   4230       August   8008

We love numbers! The fact that all of the numbers increased significant really gets us excited. We know the numbers are not as good as the big bloggers, but they have been blogging daily much longer than we have. Can you imagine what our numbers will look like in 3 months, or 1 year? But, as exciting as the numbers look, I am most excited about the relationships I built and the habit I formed by participating.

I don’t want the momentum to slow down so I have already started another Blog Challenge. 31 Days of Blogging Challenge is more about building a better blog. You can still sign up. It started on August 23^rd and we don’t have assignments on the weekend. You would only have 7 days to make up.

If you have the opportunity to participate in a blog challenge you, and your business, will not regret it.

Comments

[Marion]

Well done Julia!
Congratulations on the rankings and well done for being persistent and keeping up with the daily blog posts

[Beth Barany]

Julia, What a great example of what blogging can do for you! You're an inspiration! I'm inspired to kick my blogging up a notch! And to encourage my authors to do the same!

[Judy Stone-Goldman]

Julia, First, congratulations on finishing the August Ultimate Blog Challenge! Second, those numbers are amazing and exciting! Thank you for sharing how you track progress. I'm astounded you have already started a new challenge. Whew! I'm not launching into another one quite yet, but I'll look forward to hearing of your progress. -

Judy Stone-Goldman
The Reflective Writer

[Keyuri Joshi (on the ball parent coach)]

Now those are some impressive statistics! Congratulations on your success, and thank you for spreadiing the inspiration in this blog post!

[Kerry Hargraves]

This sounds like a great way to get and stay motivated. Tracking your stats really tells the story - another motivator - It Works!!

[Catarina Alexon]

Fantastic Julia! Love your numbers and look forward to hearing more good news about your achievements.

[Dvorah]

Hi Julia,

Bravo!!!! Blog challenges ROCK. I am in the middle of my third one in the past 5 months and LOVE them. The friendships, the traffic, the credibility, the fun, the strengthened habit for daily writing, and more!

Congrats again, you must feel a great sense of accomplishment!
D'vorah

[Susan Oakes]

Well done Julia and it looks like your commitment to the challenge has really paid off.
Did you also find in your stats that you increased the number of return visitors?

[Paul Novak]

Well done Julia. I'm particularly impressed that you had the foresight to have goals set, set baselines, and paid attention to how your efforts affected them. Very sharp. BTW, those are great Alexa numbers even without being in the 6 digit realm.

[Julia M Lindsey]

Thanks for all of the support during the challenge. It has been great to share with all of you.

[Sherryl Perry]

Congratulations Julia! Those are significant results. You’ve given me more reasons to participate in a blog challenge. I think “accountability” would be an excellent motivator for me.

[Hasham from Sell Property Fast]

Blog challenge can be a big help to set up more traffics for your site.