Three weeks ago I started a content site about AI coding tools. No audience, no backlinks, no Twitter following. Just articles and a WordPress install.
Here's what actually happened.
The numbers nobody shows you
35 articles published
1,660 impressions on Google
5 clicks total
0.3% CTR
Average position: 34 (page 3-4)
Reddit karma: 157 after hundreds of comments
Everyone talks about "building in public" but nobody shows the part where you have 96 impressions on a keyword and zero clicks because you're buried on page 3.
What's actually working
The articles that lead with real cost math outperform everything else. Not feature lists — actual numbers. "One Codex agent session burns through your daily quota before lunch" gets clicks. "Here are 10 tools to consider" does not.
Instant indexing through Google Search Console got me from 4 to 30+ indexed pages in 48 hours. That part worked exactly as advertised.
What isn't working
Reddit. I have 157 karma after weeks of comments. One joke about Chrome's DOM API got 169 upvotes. Every technical answer I've written has gotten 1.
The lesson: Reddit rewards wit, not expertise.
What I'm doing differently this week
Fixing position 34 requires backlinks, not more articles. So I'm posting here instead of writing article 36.
If you're building something similar or have been through this — what actually moved the needle for you?
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