On consistency, quality, and luck.
Happy Wednesday!
There’s something to be said for consistency, publishing every day as Seth Godin has done for years, or weekly as many of the most popular blogs do.
There’s an equal argument for quality, for writing long-form, well-researched articles that few others would take the time to produce.
There’s also something to be said for luck, for the random whims of what’ll flare and what’ll flop.
And somewhere in the middle of those two is how, in a half hour stuck in a mechanic’s office, I accidentally wrote what is still, years later, one of the most popular posts on Zapier’s blog.
When you’re starting out a new blog, perhaps the most discouraging thing is how unpopular almost everything you publish will be. No one’s going to show up, most of the time.
But if you do it enough, keep writing and publishing, eventually you’re going to hit a home run, write something that is far more popular than you’d ever imagined.
Here’s the story behind my randomly-popular article, with some surprising stats on how few posts often drive so much of the traffic to popular sites.
Do you have a blog? Because, first up, I’d love to read it if you’d reply with a link! And second, keep writing. Don’t give up. That’s the only way you’re going to write those most popular pieces.
Happy writing!
~Matt + the Reproof team