Blogging can be a fantastic business tool. Getting rankings in Google feels like winning a major award. But it isn't guaranteed...
The difficulty is - not every post is a winner. Sometimes you write something you think is great and it just flops. No rankings, no sharing, no comments. It's painful.
But when you do hit the right nerve and the post is skyrocketing with traffic, top rankings, active sharing, everyone is commenting - it is a glorious feeling.
The Key is Persistence
You've got to keep writing knowing that sometimes it will be like a tree falling in the forest that no one hears. Many times you won't be expecting a post to go anywhere and it blows you away. In a way, blogging is like rolling dice, occasionally you hit the jackpot. So keep rolling!
I thought it would be fun to share a few very unexpected "jackpots" we've hit.
Korean Ramen Noodles
On my personal blog I wrote a blog post sharing delicious Korean Ramen Noodles that I'm crazy about. Some Korean friends in college got me hooked on this spicy ramen. I wrote about it and how you can buy it on Amazon. Before I knew it I was getting traffic for all kinds of Korean Ramen related searches!
Takeaway: Share your passions and loves.
Accidentally Changed WordPress Site Address
This is my most commented post ever. Published over 6 years it has gained over 150 (grateful) comments and over 18k pageviews! It was born out of a very scary incident when I accidently took down my employer's popular blog. In my post I shared the solution for if you've "accidently changed your WordPress site address". Turns out people are still making this mistake haha.
Takeaway: Share problems you've faced and solutions you've found.
WordPress Hosting and Maintenance
This is a recent one and frankly unplanned. We provide WordPress Hosting & Maintenance as a key ancillary service. This is a very competitive space and we're playing with some very large companies. That aside, with a bit of work our hosting page is actually ranking on page 1 for "WordPress Hosting & Maintenance"!
Takeaway: Even if you are a small player you can rank for longtail keywords.