SEO Tip #55: Are You Going to do Another 30 Day Challenge?
Matt Cutts: Yes. I love 30 day challenges. For those who haven’t heard a 30 day challenge is just something very simple that you can come up with, and you say “I’m going to try to do something for 30 days” like walking 10,000 a day. Or maybe you’re going to bike into work every day, or give up caffeine, or giving up Microsoft Operating systems, or give up your iPhone, or not answer external email for 30 days.
These are all different things that I have tried. They are all a lot of fun. The hardest one frankly was giving up sugar for 30 days. I think human beings are wired to like sugar so that was hard to do. Right now I’m in the middle of trying 30 days without FaceBook to see how that works. I’m trying a lot of different things. I have a lot of fun ideas.
What’s really neat is to see how other people are responding whenever I talk about 30 day challenges on my blog. For example my wife is doing a 30 day challenge where she tries to read 50 pages a day. She’s worried that the net is causing her attention span to get too short so she’s sort of saying, “okay, I’m going to read some challenging books 50 pages a day.”
There is another guy, Jason Nazar, who is the CEO of Docstoc and he’s trying to do one nice thing or charitable act per day for 30 days. So whether it’s trying to make sure you take some time to reflect and be grateful for your life, whether it’s getting up early, whether it’s trying to make sure you run every day, whatever it is try to do something for 30 days.
It is a good way to form a habit but it’s not so long that you can’t stick to it. So I highly encourage the people you know to come up with an idea. Think about it a little bit and then try it for 30 days. You could surprise yourself. It could be fun.
About the Author
Andy Johnson has been on the Internet since the its dawn(ie his first computer program was recorded on cassette tape) and his first hard drive cost about as much his current MacBook. His first byline was in 1993 for a local newspaper rag he eventually helmed, and his last “real job” was at a computer start up which ended when it ended. Throughout it all he’s freelanced and blogged. Now he is mesmerized by Search Engine Optimization forever trying to “rise to the top” for the right reasons. He’s been married to his wife Julia for as long as he can remember and has two lovely, wonderful children. He looks forward to sharing the latest in the technical best for all the online entrepreneurs.