What I learned writing 100 SEO blog posts in a year
Behind-the-scenes lessons on consistency, content decay, and the 80/20 of ranking.
Last year I committed to publishing two posts per week — 100 total by December. Some flopped. A few exploded. Here’s what stuck.
First: topic selection is everything. I spent 40% of my time on keyword research and competitor gap analysis. The posts that ranked in the top 3 all had low competition (domain authority under 30 for the top results) and clear search intent (informational, not transactional). The ones that failed targeted high-volume terms where the SERP was dominated by giants.
Second: content decay is real. Posts I wrote in January dropped 60% in traffic by June — not because Google changed, but because new competitors published better content. I started a quarterly refresh cycle: update stats, add new examples, improve readability. That alone recovered 30% of lost traffic.
Third: the 80/20 rule holds. 20% of my posts drove 80% of the traffic. Those were long-form (2,000+ words) with original data, custom graphics, and a unique angle. The rest were shorter, time-sensitive pieces that had a shelf life of 3 months.
If you’re starting out, don’t aim for 100 posts. Aim for 10 that are genuinely better than what’s out there. Then scale.