Create a companion project to drive traffic to your own

The article’s core argument is that content marketing is taking longer to produce and its impact is harder to measure, while more and more people are paying to avoid ads. Rather than chasing that diminishing return, you’re better off carving out some time to build a small side project that can bring in fast, reliable traffic from your audience.

Here’s what the piece highlights: GMass, which brings in $450,000 a month—the product was originally an attached add-on so popular it ended up overtaking the main offering. Then there’s Unsplash (yes, one of those legendary no-copyright, free-for-commercial-use image sites), which funnels 11 million visitors a month straight into its parent business.

The takeaway? Instead of trying to outrun blog fatigue with yet another round of SEO-heavy content, consider launching a small tool, template, or piece of information—whether sold at a discount or given away for free—that your audience can reuse. That kind of attached project often drives far more consistent growth than churning out more blog posts.

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