Hard Work Hasn’t Changed

Over 4 years ago I started a blog (www.talkapex.com). A lot of people can say that they have done that as well. What a lot of people can’t say is that they’ve had over a quarter of a million page views since its adoption.

Though this is no Facebook success story I do consider my blog a huge personal success. For one person, who was an unknown in his respective industry at the time, going from zero page views to over 250,000 page views on a very technical specific topic is a very big feat. What’s bigger (a story for another day) is that it has opened more doors than I can ever have imagined.

How did I do it? Tons of SEO (Search Engine Optimization)? Trying to cross link my site whenever possible? Paying for advertisement on Google Ad-words? The answer: none of the above. I had initially contemplated using such services and techniques when I first started out but then read an excellent article on Seth Godin’s (http://sethgodin.typepad.com/) blog. In his blog post Seth said that if you want your site to be at the top of search engines produce consistent good content.

What? That’s it? That’s all it takes? The difficult thing is found exactly in Seth’s suggestion: consistent good content. That’s the hardest part. To post a few initial articles and get people to read it was easy. To continue to produce original and new content week in and week out was the hard part.

Though my blog is focused on a specific technical domain this example is relevant to any topic or industry that you may be trying to market. If you want to promote a product you can try to buy your way to the top of search engines or roll up your sleeves and get out the proverbial elbow grease and put some hard work into it.

Just to be clear I’m not saying that SEO is a waste of time. It is only a tool that you should use to complement your hard work, not something to replace it.

Martin Giffy D’Souza (www.talkapex.com) CTO and Co-Founder at ClariFit (www.clarifit.com)