The Wins: May 2016
It's one day until the end of the month, and I am compelled to write a monthly update as usual.
Here are the goals I set last month:
Rank on top 5 of Google for one keyword.(I ranked number 4!)Continue to experiment with SEO and keyword research.
A quick recap
There has been a lot of ups and down on my side. Fortunately or unfortunately, it has to do with my personal life.
One of the worst is my cat, Meow, passing away. We didn't see it coming since she was so young, but I'm glad she didn't have to suffer for long.
Rest in peace, Meow.
To be honest, I was very destabilized after the event but managed to pull through to be a better version of myself.
I started to create a process instead of working on impulse. Thanks to that, I got a lot more stuffs done 3, 4 times faster.
How did I do that?
I follow this daily schedule with 100% focus:
- 1 hour to write my post
- 15 minutes to get comments on WA + 10 minutes to submit Bloggingthing to an online directory
- 1 hour to learn about content marketing and connect (comment on one blog posted in the day)
It's amazing how I do more in 2 hours and 30 minutes than working all day long. I want to slowly improve on this process as I move forward. To add more tasks while being mindful of my energy level.
If you haven't already, I highly encourage you start a schedule of your own.
Another great thing is I am able to wake up at 7 AM everyday today, something that's impossible only a month ago.
The successes
As mentioned above, I managed to follow through my goals with flying colours. Even ranking on Google for my targeted keyword.
I was initially worried I may be off track, but my SERP is clearly moving up.
On the other hand, I fell in love with content marketing more than ever before.
I learned things like the average time for a site to rank on Google is about 3 - 6 months. What success is like for online marketers like Dom, Natheniell and Steve (spoiler: it's a lot of work), and most important of all you digest more information bit by bit everyday than a whole bunch at a time.
Also, after a turn of event, I even got featured on the Huffington Post.
What's next?
Last month, I only focused on goals outside of my control like search engine ranks, this time I will focus on the things I can control.
For June, I will:
- Keep up and improve on my schedule,
- Improve my content quality and brand awareness,
- Continue to build relationships with other bloggers.
Alright, let's see how it goes!
Recent Comments
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hey, i like your work a lot! i would like to colaborate with you somehow, or get in touch. We could exange some ideas. I have been here for 4 months and i like that your work is well structered. you have follow the right people and that why i want to follow you.
Hope to hear back from you.
Nice work Anh! Sounds like you've had a productive month. I'm working towards a schedule such as the one you suggest myself. It's great to hear of others having success with it.
I'm really sorry to hear about your cat.
Thanks Cathy! I try to think that at least my cat had a good life.
About the scheduling and creating habits, I found reading James Clear to be very helpful and inspiring. You may want to check this post out:
http://jamesclear.com/marginal-gains
Wow that is awesome! Thanks for the recommend. I wonder what 1% improvements I can make this month...
Sounds like good goals, and I hope you achieve them! I think I need to establish a schedule weekly and set myself some goals!
Regards, Lisa
That's a good idea, Lisa. What I found helpful is to write these monthly posts as well. They are good milestones for me.
That sounds great! I find I work better as well when I have written out a schedule for myself.
Just curious, does it really only take you an hour to write a post from start to finish? It takes me 3-4 hours. This time includes research (subject and keyword), finding images, editing/compressing images and adding affiliate links where needed. When I publish the article, I submit to google and bing, add to social media, get WA comments. Somehow this entire process takes me 3-4 hours (some articles have taken even longer).
Thanks, Tanja! Personally, I take days to write a post. So when I say writing one hour a day, I mean spending one hour on my content. It could be the research, writing, adding images etc.
It's okay to take your time to write posts. It's much more about strategy and quality than quantity.
You may want to check this post, where I asked over 100 experts for their ultimate advice to new bloggers.
http://bloggingthing.com/bloggers-advice
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Thanks for the great motivation and submit my blog to an online directory is a new thing I learned via your post and I have added it on my daily schedule. Thanks a lot.