OK Guys here is my top secret golden nugget advice to get more traffic, ready?… Wait first let me tell you some myths behind traffic and getting traffic;
- It’s not difficult.
- You don’t have to live in silicon valley to understand traffic.
- You don’t need ‘feeder’ sites driving traffic to you.
Trust me the secret to more traffic is coming, but before I go into that here’s the way I look at traffic myself; it’s like building a house you need to support it before it falls down. Traffic is like a wave it goes up when you publish fresh content and drops when people have read it.
Think about your own site right now, when do you see the most RT’s or the most amount of people visiting? When you publish some new content right? I’m also go to go out on a limb and suggest that in most cases, unless your site gets the majority of traffic from search engines, if you can’t publish fresh content for a few days, a week or longer your traffic will drop off right?
- Once I have read the latest offerings from any website I will in most cases never re-visit unless a; they produce fresh content for me to read OR b; the site has a stack of valuable content for me to keep reading.
- Your visitors are the same, once they have read your latest creation they (in the majority of cases) will wait till you produce something new for them to read.
So here is my top secret way of building traffic quickly; ready?….
POST MORE!
Seriously this is one of the biggest factors into why this site grew and continues to grow so quickly;
- More content keeps those traffic dips away.
- Keep giving your readers the option to read fresh articles on your site.
Think back to what I was saying about once a reader has consumed your latest creation they will stay away until you give them something else to read. So, guess what?! The shorter the period of time between fresh content and old content is the shorter your traffic will be until you can consistently build on your traffic.
Now I’m talking from my own experience here and I know my technique won’t work for everyone and every type of site, but seriously if you want more traffic, try publishing more quality content more frequently.
photo credit: Markus Raffeis
Trust me this is how I did it and continue to do it.
What does everyone think?
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Good points, I think it all really boils down to fresh content and a conversational tone.
Certainly the more you post, the more traffic you get.. You also get to re-tweet more links, which can get considerable traffic if you have a large following. Each post is a new place people can visit, so, obviously, if you have more new posts, your visitors will have more things to read and will like your site more.
I remember back around four years ago, I had a site that I was posting thirty times a day to for a few months. It wasn’t just small posts, either; really helpful articles. Soon, I was getting thousands of visitors. I ran an experiment on one of my sites based on some of your advice for posting more and found that you’re certainly right. I found that if I didn’t post on one of the blogs for a while, I would still get good traffic, as it ranks #1 for very competitive keywords, and I found pretty much the same thing on a few of my other established blogs. I still found on these, though, that if I posted consistently like I do, my traffic, after a week, can easily grow to at least double of if I didn’t post for a little while.
But on my newer blogs that don’t really have a great readership yet, if I didn’t post for a while, the traffic, at first, stayed high, but, after a few days, dwindled lower and lower, and then stayed at an extremely low rate.
Definitely I advise posting at least twice a day if you have the time. Six to ten a week is okay still, but you have to be consistent and post, at the very minimum, five times a week (every week day), and your traffic will not only increase, but continue to increase at a steady rate.
I agree. When I go to a blog that hasn’t posted in a couple of days, and I’ve already seen the last one, I leave. It does make one feel that the blog owner’s aren’t making their site a priority.
I used to post everyday. I did that for a long time. That’s tough. It can get stressful knowing you have to meet that deadline. 2 Months ago I changed that. I started posting every other day and it’s done wonders to my stress and it’s allowed me to start up other projects and get more accomplished.
I don’t worry about my followers since mine is 90% search driven. And traffic actually is climbing greatly, so I’m going to continue on this course.
Yeah you’re the example I was talking about, it doesn’t really matter so much for sites that are virtually purely search engine driven good job man
I’m still finding my way on this. I’m paying close attention to what repeat readers tell me they want because they hold the keys to the long-term growth of the blog. Right now I’m hearing that they’re busy and feeling a little overwhelmed by information and life in general. They want to settle in and really read a post fully, process it, and even interact a bit. It seems like 3 times a week, maybe 4, is about optimal for them to be able to get that experience/feeling they want.
.-= Jean Sarauer´s last blog ..What Trips Your Unsubscribe Trigger? =-.
Hey Jean I’m sending you an email on this right now
I agree to a certain extent, but I think Tim Ferriss was on to something when he talked about focusing on content that provides continuing value:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdOUkUSgMmo
I know that you talked about *quality* content, but it is obviously extraordinarily difficult to pump out *quality* content on a daily basis.
.-= Mark Cancellieri´s last blog ..The Week in Review =-.
Tim certainly has a lot of followers and a huge amount of traffic, but then again he has a hugely succesful book and a ton of content on the site. So, he doesn’t need to publish such a lot of content.
.-= Matthew Needham´s last blog ..Blog Giveaway: The 20 x 7 Rule – The Result =-.
I’m seeing the results of this right now. On my old blog I would post once a week and that’s about how often I got traffic. Now, I’m posting daily and it’s working!
.-= Mike Roosa´s last blog ..Don’t Obsess Over Stats =-.
Yeah brother, simple hey!
I like it, sounds like a simple enough strategy! I try to publish 3-4 times a week which seems to be a good balance between fresh content and shoving too much people’s throats
.-= Jorgen Sundberg´s last blog ..5 Good Ways NOT to Network =-.
Cranking out content very often and quality content at that can be really tiresome at times but if you really want to succeed such as in getting loads of traffic then you really have to keep at it.
.-= Shirley Osei-Mensah´s last blog ..Know When Someone Unfollows You On Twitter – Qwitter =-.
OH absolutely it’s hard going, but it needs to be done for sure.
If you can keep cranking out the *quality* content day after day, then it is a no-brainer. However, we have to be careful not to post things to take up space.
Here is what Seth Godin had to say:
“The web, of course, doesn’t have the problem of paying for paper, so the length of a website isn’t driven by ads, it’s driven by reader attention and writer fatigue. If you run less material, then readers with attention to spare will just go read more on someone else’s site. Hence the temptation to write more and more and more and try to milk pageviews…
…Just because you can write more doesn’t mean you should.”
http://sethgodin.typepad.com/seths_blog/2010/05/all-the-news-that-fits.html
.-= Mark Cancellieri´s last blog ..The Week in Review =-.
Hey Mark, While I apreaciate the expertise seth and tim ferris have, it’s different for them because their traffic and following is already there, they have a foundation that’s already built. Now take me and this site for example, 6 months ago no one would have heard of me, if I didn’t come out the way I did the site would have the following it does now, see what I mean?
Man…he’s like a drill seargeant…it’s never good enough! Kidding.
I don’t know…call it being competitive, but I hate being second. Granted, if I could be runner-up to the best bloggers…that might work. Nah, I thought about it for a second. I want to be the best.
BrandonBurgh
.-= BrandonBurgh´s last blog ..TheInfoPreneur Blogging Conspiracy =-.
Yeah on the right path brother with videos like your last you are going to kill it
I wish I could write more frequently, but my critical writing style is holding me back.
Hey Walter, yeah that’s one of the big things that kills sites off is over thinking everything
My articles tend to be a minimum of 1,300 words. I did a test where I published like that everyday for a week and the result was my traffic went down. What I realised is consistency is more important than frequency unless your writing a news site. If you publish every other day, then stick to every other day. This has just been my experience, but your right James, posting frequently typically has a direct correlation to traffic increases for the most part.
.-= David´s last blog ..Break Free and Leave the World Behind =-.
Hey David Exactly what I was saying, be consistant. and just as you say more content does relate to more readers you just have to be consistant with it
Interesting article James. I indeed believe that posting more content will help you to get more traffic. I dont post articles that often only around once a week. I like to take more time to create my content dont know whether it will pay out
hey brother, just try for a month posting two or three a week if you have time to measure the difference?
This is good advice. Building a blog audience is building a business. Tactics such as how often to post will differ depending on the stage of the blog business. The established bloggers definitely don’t have to post as much because they have a large following and fan base. The dedicated fan base will come back on a consistent basis to check and the volume is large enough that they don’t miss a few hundred people here and there.
When you’re starting out and only have a handful of readers, daily posting is necessary because any missed reader is a larger proportion of the base.
For example, I need to be posting twice a day (but I don’t – still in beta and not enough time) because I have two different types of audience that I am writing for. The needs for both are different. They are the same audience in my mind but it’s the perception of the readers of what their needs are that is important. What works for each blogger is going to be different also based upon their marketing or outreach efforts.
I think bloggers also need to balance between evergreen content and topical content. Articles that provide information that never go stale anchor the site while topical content helps the reader stay interested. Jean is very smart to get feedback from her readers as well because they are the customers.
The bulk of my readers right now are from referrals because I see a lot of email links. I’m getting 250-300 readers a day when I post. Not sure how they know but they do. Otherwise, my traffic drops down to 50. I’ve only been blogging for 4 weeks so it’s not a good sample to go on. When I couldn’t post for 6 days, traffic dropped quite a bit.
I haven’t started to market the site so I think that the traffic is from posting frequently and with good content. People randomly found my posts then refer to their friends.
.-= Kim | Money and Risk´s last blog ..Twitter, Facebook and Linkedin…oh my! Danger Ahead =-.
Hey Kim,
Yeah prime example then, the more you post the more readers arrive, the less fresh content the less readers. Just like a buffett if it’s only got a handful of sandwiches on it it’ll attract some hungry people not many, but the buffett that has a stack of food, way too much food will attract more hungry people whether they want one sandwich or a four course meal, purely because there is more choice
You’re absolutely right in every way buddy. For me though, I’ve found that while I can produce more content, rather than the measly one or two posts a week that I do now, I find that I just cannot maintain that level of output, while also responding to comments and keeping my life interesting enough to keep the content fresh and exciting. So I’ve had to reach a compromise. Still, you’ve said this is more applicable to some sites than others!
.-= Mo “Mad Dog” Stoneskin´s last blog ..Cheap Dutch Lager =-.
James, this is so right. I’ve increased both my alexa rankings and followers by upping the content to 5 times a week. Just keeps me busier!
.-= Matthew Needham´s last blog ..Blog Giveaway: The 20 x 7 Rule – The Result =-.
It does very much depend on how you use your blog. If you are writing for people who subscribe to your blog then you do need to write regularly.
If on the other hand you are just using the blogging software as a content management system to publish non-related content which is found by web searchers (as a lot of people do) then you don’t get those drop-offs.
I have pretty much no subscribers as the content of my posts from one to the next can be very varied. I do however get a lot of people going to specific pages as a result of finding them in the SERPs.
I could get away with not writing anything for the next few months and the traffic would remain fairly constant (or at least the drop off would be very slow).
On the other hand posting a new article doesn’t give me much of a boost in traffic due to the absence of subscribers.
.-= reviewmylife´s last blog ..Protective sleeve for MacBook Pro 13 inch =-.
Hey yeah exactly right that’s why I said it depended on your goal and type of site, but again if you want people subscribing you need more content
Yeah but what happens when you post regular content and get a trickle of comments at best? That is one discouraging thing. I guess you need to devote equal time to making your face seen on certain blogs that are your peers or slightly ahead in terms of traffic.
Awesome points… man . !!
Thanks for sharing this great post !!