Two Golden Rules of Blogging

Our blog is now more than 1 year old. In fact, our first post took place on August 5th, 2006, just before last year’s SES San Jose. This post represents the 181st post on the blog. So to commemorate the anniversary of the blog, I thought I’d share a few metrics on how it’s worked out for us, and then the why of it all. First, the metrics:

1. On the day we opened the blog, our site showed 34 links in Yahoo!. You got it. 34.
2. Today, we show 26,300 on Yahoo!. This is a pretty substantial growth over 34.
3. We also have a very popular interview series which includes recent interviews with Danny Sullivan, Robert Scoble, Vanessa Fox, Seth Godin, and Adam Lasnik, and many other outstanding people.
4. I now blog regularly on the Search Engine Watch Blog
5. I also have a weekly column on Search Engine Watch called By The Numbers.
6. New client growth has enabled us to expand from 1 SEO consultant (me) to 5.
7. I spoke today for the first time at a Search Engine Strategies Conference.

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This is all very cool, but let’s focus on why it has happened.
As a prelude to that, I have heard people say don’t start blogging about a highly competitive topic, where all the A-listers are established. Many people will tell you that. I can assure you that in August of 2006, the SEO blogging space was already really crowded. It did not prevent me from “joining the conversation”.
This is the great thing about the blogosphere. As long as you follow these two (golden) rules, you can start blogging about almost anything:

1. Bring unique expertise OR a unique viewpoint into the market place you are targeting.
2. Join the conversation and give AT LEAST as much as you get.

So I am really pleased with the progress in the first year. During this coming year, look to have the amount of the content we produce increase, and to have additional contributors. I’ll continue to write for Search Engine Watch, do more interviews, and post on the Perficient Digital blog as well.
The basic message of this post is that you can start blogging in a really competitive space. Just follow the two golden rules and be patient.