In the moments when you lose focus, get tired or just don't have the same enthusiasm about life, that's when you need a stronger force to carry you through.

There's this popular meme about a man's conversation with Jesus where they were walking on a path. Apparently, the man could only see his and Jesus' footsteps as they conversed on their journey i.e the man saw two pairs of footprints advancing. At one point, the path got steep and narrow. The man panicked, starting to be afraid. He looked around and noticed only one set of footprints in the soft sand.

He started to cry and complain, "Jesus, you said you would never leave me. Where are you now, especially in this difficult moment?". He kept at this till he came to level ground. Here, the other set of footprints returned.

"Jesus, why did you leave me when the path got steep and narrow?", the man cried out. Silence. Then a soft whisper, "I never left you. I am always with you". "-but the footprints…I saw only one set. I was alone", he continued.

To this Jesus replied, "The footprints you saw were mine. I carried you through the hard part. I am always with you."

Boom!

I've seen this story recreated in so many ways - memes, podcasts, skits. It was very revolutionary for me the first time I heard it. Sometimes when you're tired or unmotivated or just not having it, you need someone to carry you. This week, I carried my Team.

THE TASK

The task we were given was straightforward - carry out SEO and content audit on your blog using seoptimer.com. Optimize your contents till you have a score of 90.

Make no mistake, the directness of this task did not equate simplicity. In other words, it's a lot harder than it seems at face value. It takes a lot of work to optimize your blog's SEO especially when the WordPress free plan is so limited.

CHALLENGES

1. The first challenge was understanding how SEOptimer works.
2. The next was to figure out how to translate the suggestions made to effect the required changes on our blog.

WHERE WE'RE AT

SEOptimer recommended that we add a meta description tag, cite our image sources, work out our internal and external linking, fix our website responsiveness amidst others. We've only gone so far but it's looking so good already. We had to change our theme to gain more flexibility as to how to set our blog appearance and usability. Here, have a look.

Currently, we have a score of B+ and that's coming from the initial C-. I'd say that is a great improvement.

HOW WE GOT THERE

Remember when I said I carried my Team? Here's the full gist. I'll just dive into it - the morale was low, really low. I guess people were just tired of the task. I myself was very tempted to get bored with the blog. Who wasn't? We've been at it for the last three weeks.

It can get tiring to be going at something for a while, especially when it's not your strongest point or if it doesn't seem like you're making progress at rocket speed. My answer to you is something my Pastor tells us every time - stay there. I bet you weren't expecting something so short and simple from him 😄, yet those two words are very profound when unraveled. At the point where the progress looks slow is the best time to hit the throttle the hardest. Where your weak points are is the best place to stay and build strength. If you stay on it long enough, you'll break out big. This is wisdom.

If you're a bit short on the courage and strength to stay there, get accountable to someone who can keep you on track. I took the pains to effect as many recommendations as I could when my team members were down. I shouldered the responsibilities and carried us through. This doesn't mean that they totally shirked their duties, some of them made good attempts but the path was rather steep and narrow. In those moments, only one set of footprints could be seen on the soft sand. Whose do you think it was? (Your guess is accurate, I'm sure).

IN PARTING

Becoming World-class is a sacrifice, a joy and a privilege. Through it all, we're grateful for the opportunity to deliver ourselves to this process so that our generation can experience what it means to have World-class Digital Marketers and Content Creators.

Thank you Side Hustle for this platform.

To our wonderful readers and supporters in the diaspora, we thank you for cheering us on regardless of the seasons.

Till next time, take care 💛