The Small Bets community mantra is that we learn a lot more from small wins than from big failures. So in late 2022 I decided to take a small bet on a side project of mine.
It's a small, niche website I set up originally as a directory for a piece of software I use. Noticing two things.
First, there was a lack of resources online, I decided to go after this market gap. Second, the software itself was in a growth trajectory – recently moving from bootstrapped to funding.
Marketing To get a single page directory site to rank in Google,
With so much focus on social media marketing these days, it's easy to forget something important – social content requires constant work, whereas SEO content compounds.
And, as it turns out, slow and steady effort works when it comes to SEO.
Just over a year ago I decided on an experiment with a side project, having always been guilty of expecting quick returns like everyone else.
I spent 2023 putting in regular, manageable work on a small niche site of mine – like a micro habit. Now, that seems to be compounding.
Monthly site traffic is growing faster in 2024, without increasing how much content I add.
The site will soon hit monthly stats of 2k page views and 400 clicks from Google (for comparison, Nov was 1.4k views and 130 clicks).
These aren't huge numbers – it's a niche site after all. But for me, it's incredibly validating to see.
Much of this has been achieved simply, through regularly:
– Adding relevant content (1 article/wk)
– Making tiny SEO tweaks & improvements