This post officially marks my 100th blog post on Gone Travelling Productions. That’s a huge achievement that took me just over a year and a lot of hard work to achieve. I’m really proud of myself…but I also know I’ve made a whole lot of mistakes along the way.
As I celebrate this milestone, I want to reflect on both the things that have gone well and those that have not gone so well. There are highs and lows in every journey, and if I were to do this one again, there’s a lot that I would do differently!
To help you to grow your blog a lot faster than I grew mine, I’m sharing 10 blog lessons that I’ve learnt after watching my traffic over 100 blog posts written, published, and shared with the world.
Here’s to 100 more!
- How My Blog Has Grown in 100 Posts
- 10 Lessons to Grow Your Blog Faster than Mine
- 1. You Have to Manually Index Your Posts
- 2. Headings Matter
- 3. Don’t Ignore Pinterest
- 4. Vanity Keywords are a Waste of Time
- 5. Take Advantage of Domain Authority
- 6. Create a Blog Template
- 7. Interlinks Are More Than Links
- 8. Consistency is Hard (but important)
- 9. Quality Backlinks Are Worth the Time Investment
- 10. Get Smart with URLs
- What I’m Changing for the Next 100 Blog Posts
- Starting Your Blog: What Comes Next?
How My Blog Has Grown in 100 Posts
I’m so proud to say that not only has my blog grown a lot in 100 posts, but my blogging skills have grown exponentially. Without a doubt, I’ve become a better writer, editor, and SEO expert. Creating a new post takes a fraction of the time with the quality and SEO value infinitely higher.
Here’s the thing: this doesn’t happen overnight.
I was able to hone my skills across a year of consistent writing and posting. At the end of the day, the more you do something, the better you’re going to get at doing it. That’s just a fact. However, if you can learn the lessons that took me 100 blog posts to master now, you’ll be starting from a much better place than I did!
Now, I know you’re not here for just my words of wisdom. Here are the cold hard stats on my traffic after 100 blog posts…
100 Blog Posts Traffic
In 100 posts (okay, technically 99 as this is my 100th and I haven’t yet posted it), I have had 18k blog views and 13.8k visitors. But this isn’t the whole story. What you can really see is how my growth rate has been increasing over time.
The more high-quality posts I share, the more views I get. And this isn’t just because each post is getting equal views. Actually, a few posts get the majority of my views, with the other posts working to increase my EAT (expertise, authority, and trustworthiness). The better your EAT, the higher your top posts are going to climb in the search engine results.
In other words, with 100 posts, Google now trusts me to produce well-written and useful content that ranks high.
Now, you don’t need 100 blog posts to get high-ranking blog posts. To help you with your journey, I’m sharing 10 lessons to grow your blog faster than I grew mine.
10 Lessons to Grow Your Blog Faster than Mine
1. You Have to Manually Index Your Posts
Apparently, a lot of people already knew this, but I had no idea. When you publish a blog post, it doesn’t automatically get listed by search engines like Google…in fact, they have no idea your site even exists.
The best way to get your blog and blog posts indexed is to use the Google Search Console. Open the search console, log into your Google account, then add and verify your site.
Once you’re set up, you need to add your sitemap to the console. To find yours in WordPress, go to Tools → Traffic → Sitemaps. Copy the link and then go to ‘Sitemaps’ on Google Search Console and paste it in.
Even when you’re indexed, you’ll want to manually check each post as soon as it’s published. To do this, just copy and paste the URL into the search bar at the top and click ‘Request Indexing’.
2. Headings Matter
One of the very first things you’ll learn about SEO is the importance of headings. When I first started blogging, I knew the basics:
- H1 heading is for the title
- H2 headings are for sub-headings
- H3 headings are for smaller break downs
But that didn’t necessarily mean I appropriately used them. Headings are so important on paper for SEO…but they’re more important for making your posts as easy to read as possible. Most posts should have a minimum of three h2 headings and at least a few h3 headings – trust me, this is key to breaking up the information.
I also recommend adding a table of contents at the top of the post to display the h2 headings so that readers know exactly what to expect in your post.
3. Don’t Ignore Pinterest
I hate posting on social media…I think a lot of us do. So, let me be clear: Pinterest is not social media. It’s another search engine, but one that uses pictures instead of web pages. Sleeping on Pinterest is a big mistake. I get a minimum of 100 Pinterest outbound clicks to my blog every month, and this number is only growing.
If you know SEO, then you know Pinterest SEO. The only annoying thing is that making pins and publishing them can be a little time-consuming.
At the end of the day, we have no control over any of these search engines, so it’s important to diversify our audience leads with as many of them as possible. That way, if one crashes your incoming clicks with algorithm changes, you still have other avenues for readers to find your site.
4. Vanity Keywords are a Waste of Time
A vanity keyword is a word or phrase that you think will bring in a lot of clicks…but actually doesn’t. This can be for a bunch of reasons, here are some of the mistakes I made:
- Too vague, e.g. writing, blogging advice, and remote work
- Highly competitive, e.g. freelance writing jobs
- Sound good but never actually searched e.g. build writing confidence
Choosing genuinely high-quality keywords is make or break for a blog post’s success. Do not skip over your keyword research. There are lots of free SEO tools for this, my favourite is simply Google Ad’s keyword planner. Find a high-volume keyword, then put it into Google to see what type of competition you’d be facing.
5. Take Advantage of Domain Authority
If you don’t know, Domain Authority refers to a score from 1 to 100 on how likely your site is to rank on search engines. Here’s the thing, Google has told us explicitly that they no longer use domain authority in their algorithm, which means you shouldn’t really care too much about it.
Where it can be useful, however, is by identifying which ‘domains’ your site has high authority in. For example, my first high-ranking post was on the top work-friendly cafes in Tokyo. After a secondary success a few months later with the best Shinjuku coffee shops for remote work, I realised that Google believed my coffee content was high quality and worth a high SERP (search engine results page) ranking.
In other words, my coffee shop content gets fast passed to clicks. I’ve already proven my EAT in this domain, so posts related to it tend to do better faster.
6. Create a Blog Template
Speaking of time-saving tips, having a blog template is a game-changer. I used to think using a template was ‘cheating’ or that it would limit my creativity…it turns out to be the ultimate unlock for my creative flow.
This is because I don’t have to waste time coming up with a new outline for every single post. Instead, I take my already search-engine-optimised template, come up with the perfect post headings, and dive straight into writing.
Top tip: Write the intro last! I used to waste ages thinking of the perfect opening line when it’s so much easier after completing the rest of the post.
7. Interlinks Are More Than Links
Interlinking is SEO 101, but I don’t think I really understood it until deep into my 100 published posts. It’s not simply about inserting links, it’s about leading your readers to stay on your blog for longer with more useful content.
You want the links to be as natural as possible. Aka, instead of:
Learn more about this in my recent post ‘Your Easy SEO Blog Checklist for New Bloggers’.
Use in-text links with anchor text, e.g.:
Try using a beginner-friendly SEO checklist to help increase your audience.
Another way to naturally lead readers to other posts is to end every blog post with a ‘read more’ snippet just like this one:
8. Consistency is Hard (but important)
One sure-fire way to build your EAT score with Google is to post consistently. The algorithm likes blogs that are posting regularly because it shows you are maintaining your site to a high level with a constant supply of new content.
How do I know this? Because when I post consistently, my posts get automatically indexed almost immediately without me needing to manually request it.
Beyond SEO, being consistent keeps you on track with writing. The more you do it, the easier it becomes, and eventually, publishing new posts becomes second nature. Trust me, it is so much harder to get back into blogging after taking a break.
I won’t lie, being consistent isn’t easy. I ended up going a whole month without posting last year due to work and travelling…but then when I had the capacity to blog again, I found it SO HARD. You have to think of blogging as a discipline. It’s not always easy, and if you’re not ready to commit to this thing for a minimum of a year, there’s probably no point in starting at all.
9. Quality Backlinks Are Worth the Time Investment
Don’t waste your time falling down holes of ‘quick backlink hacks’. They don’t work. If getting a backlink from a high DA site was easy…everyone would be doing it. And that site’s spam score would shoot up, making the backlink redundant anyway.
Here’s the truth that no one wants to admit: building an actually quality portfolio of backlinks takes time. But that time is worth it! The best way I’ve found to gain reputable backlinks is through guest posts on other blogs with a higher DA score than mine.
Finding these sites, pitching blog posts, and actually writing them all takes time. To be honest, I’ve lost a lot of that time on people who have rejected my pitch or just never replied. To avoid more of that in the future, I now make sure to check if a site accepts guest posts before pitching, and then follow the pitching guidelines TO-A-TEE.
The good news? Eventually, you’ll find sites that not only accept guest posts, but pay for them! In other words, you can get paid and get high-quality backlinks at the same time.
10. Get Smart with URLs
I messed up big time with my first probably 30 URLs. I just didn’t know that there’s a way to format them for search engine optimisation and to avoid problems down the line. Here are two rules I wish I knew a year ago:
Simple is Best
Simplify to just the keywords, e.g. for this post, my URL will be blog-lessons-from-100-blog-posts-traffic. Take out the connectives, article (a or the), and any extra fluff that sounds good but isn’t directly related to the post or your keywords.
Avoid Numbers
If you have a ‘5 best’ blog post with 5-best in the URL but later down the line update it to be ‘6 best’…you can’t just change the URL. I mean, you can, but search engines hate it and it might tank your SERP ranking.
Similarly, you also want to avoid having the date in your URL if possible. At my WordPress tier, it isn’t, but it definitely would be preferable.
What I’m Changing for the Next 100 Blog Posts
I may have hit 100 blog posts on my blog…but that doesn’t mean I’m anywhere near hitting my goals. Right now, I’m working towards 5k monthly views before starting to consider monetisation.
My dream is to get 10k+ views and make a few hundred dollars every single month.
But to reach that point, a few things have to happen first. Here are just a few of the things I’m changing for the next 100 blog posts:
- Dropping my schedule to one post a week so I don’t burn out.
- Sharing more on LinkedIn to diversify my audience streams.
- Targeting high-value keywords in every single post.
- Including images in as many posts as possible (with keywords in the metadata)
- Change up my website design to prioritise readability
Starting Your Blog: What Comes Next?
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