I’ve been working in the WordPress and online marketing world since 2009. In that time, I’ve seen little blogs and individual posts blow up and become big deals. 

I’ve also seen a more organized SEO research-driven approach at Nexcess, LinkedIn Learning, and WooThemes. 

Their process involves finding the perfect:

• Keywords
• Article Length 
• Images 
• Linking strategy

The goal is to increase a piece of content’s SEO value and draw more traffic — and the bigger the organization, the more strategies and tools are used.

The Downside of Tools & Strategy

While I’m a big fan of strategy and tools, they can mislead you. 

For example, I’ve tried to write posts about “How to Use Google Shopping with WooCommerce.” But, after going through an SEO optimization process, it turns into “What is Google Shopping?”

Now, maybe there’s an opportunity to capitalize on that SEO keyword — but it’s also become a fundamentally different topic. 

I care about helping eCommerce and WooCommerce store owners. And I’m only concerned with Google Shopping in that context — as a way to help store owners. It becomes challenging to write compelling content about Google Shopping if I’m not relating it to my area of expertise.

And now I wonder if we use too many tools? Too much strategy? Perhaps it’s better to focus on what I know instead of what Google says is within my grasp.

Announcing the Quantity vs Quality SEO Challenge

So, I’ve made a bet: 

My friend, Maddy Osman, runs a content agency and loves SEO strategy. For the next three months, she will focus on technical SEO strategies, and I’m going to focus on putting out content that I’m passionate about. 

We’re going to see who can improve their site traffic the most.

The Gist

• The challenge will run for three months. 
• I can post as many times as I want — but I can’t do any SEO research or strategy. 
• Maddy can only post once a week — but she can do as much SEO research as she wants.

Rules

• Time Frame
  • Starts 02/01/2021
  • Ends 04/30/2021
• Content Promotion
  • We allow content promotion (i.e., sharing on social media and newsletters)
  • We allow guest posts
• Maintenance
  • We can both continue to update our sites are per usual
  • We can’t try to improve our site speed during the challenge
• Websites
  • Patrick – https://www.speakinginbytes.com
  • Maddy – https://www.the-blogsmith.com

Determining the Winner

We’ll compare the three months prior to challenge to the three months during the challenge. 

The metrics we’ll judge are:

1. The traffic increase
   1. Excluding social referrers
   2. Excluding our newsletters
2. Google Analytics goals

Maddy and I have each bet $50. The winner decides where we’ll donate the full $100.

Starting Statistics

According to Google Analytics here are my starting stats:

There does seem to be a spike – likely from bot traffic on January and I'll have to discuss this with Maddy. Perhaps go from November through January 30th to ignore this outlier.

I’m hoping for a 10-20% increase by posting regularly. Hopefully, I’ll get lucky with a topic that resonates with a wide audience. I honestly don’t know what will happen with this challenge but I’m excited to find out. 

Here’s to Maddy and our grand experiment!. 🍾