Web Traffic isn’t Always King

Traffic dips when I stop posting

You’ll notice that in the picture I’m showing here that there’s a dip in traffic after June 5, the last day I published a post on this blog. The other dips are on weekends, but the general trend is downward as soon as I quit posting for a few days.

The reason for this downtime isn’t just an experiment. Unfortunately (or fortunately!), I’ve been too busy with client work and travelling the last few days too get a post out.

Whenever this happens, which is pretty rare, I always get a bit stressed out.

Now whilst this graphic shows a slight downturn in traffic over the week I’ve had to prioritize with other thing, I’m not worried.

Here’s why I’m not concerned.

Targeted Traffic is King

Although I haven’t posted for just over a week, and traffic has been down, I’ve sold more copies of my ebook during the last week than I did in the fourteen previous days.

I’ve also had two more enquiries for consulting work than the previous two weeks when I posted more on this blog.

So despite the less traffic, less Retweets, less Facebook Likes I’m getting more sales and enquiries than the previous two weeks.

So What Does this Mean?

Sure, this is all a bit anecdotal but I’d just like to remind you if you’re a newbie business blogger (or podcaster) not to drown in fear that you’re going to have to publish something everyday. Once you’ve got a pretty hefty treasure trove of posts collected over the years, Google will send you traffic.

Sure, you might lose the social traffic from Twitter and Facebook if you fail to update your business blog, but Google may well (or should?) send you traffic that’s tailored to your keywords. Hence the sales and conversions.

And Here’s the Take Away

Commit to building your blog. Post regularly. But don’t stress if there are times when you have to take a few days away from your site – no matter what the blog gurus tell you.

The content you create will still connect with your readers and visitors to your site months and years after you hit “publish”.

Seventy percent of visitors to this site every day are first time visitors. It doesn’t matter if they discover the blog hasn’t been updated for a week or so. Sure, three months since your last post won’t look so good. But in business, you don’t have to stress everyday about generating blog posts – no matter what the blogging gurus might tell you.

Do You Stress About Posting to Your Blog?

Do you worry about how often you should be updating your business blog ? How’s that working for you ? Do you see a sharp decline in your business leads and sales if you stop publishing? Let me know in the comments.

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http://www.brostrom.de/ omemedia

This is more or less what I’ve noticed as well, but not as part of an experiment. The reason I’ve noticed is simply because I’ve been both too busy to post and also lacked inspiration. Neither is a good thing if you have a blog.

However, for some reason, even though the numbers have dipped, they are still higher than they were last year. Clearly Google has a hand in this, but also the fact that my blog automatically tweets random posts a few times a day.
jonbuscall

@omemedia Do you use the Tweet Old Posts WP plugin? I found that because it tweets posts from a couple of years ago you can confuse people a bit.
http://www.brostrom.de/ omemedia

@jonbuscall Yes, that’s the one I use. You’re right, it does tweet very old posts, but unless the content is hopelessly out of date I don’t think it matters much. Even old posts may contain valuable information.
suddenlyjamie

Hi, Jon!
I’m always happy when someone recommends sane blogging.
I blog a lot, but for a variety of different blogs – my own, some collaborative projects, and some client sites. If I focused all my blogging time in one place, I’d probably be able to post multiple times each week, but the reality of my world is that posting once a week is a win for me.

This used to really bum me out. I have a lot to say – I just need more time to say it. I felt guilty and frustrated. But then I realized that I have to work with what makes sense for me. If that means blogging once a week – that’s my plan of attack. No sense in working up a 3-posts-per-week strategy if I’m not going to be able to keep up the pace. That’s just a recipe for disaster.

I counsel my clients to do the same. Don’t get all wrapped up in listening to the “gurus.” You have to have a plan that woks for YOU. Start small. Let the strategy evolve with your business. Make it fun, not a chore.

Another “cheat” tip that I share – remove the dateline from your posts. Much of what I post is evergreen content, so it doesn’t really matter when someone reads it in relation to when I posted it. I don’t feel the need to advertise my publish date along with my post title.

And now – have to run … I have a blog post to write!
jonbuscall

That’s a great tip, Jamie. Really useful. I guess the other route to go down is to include regular guest posts like @markwschaefer and @ginidietrich do on their blogs.
suddenlyjamie

@markwschaefer @ginidietrich do a fabulous job with their incoming guest posts. The quality never falters and the additional voices expand the blogs’ perspective.

My only word of caution to bloggers who hope to fill their editorial calendar with guest posts is that managing that process can be almost as time-consuming as writing your own posts … at least until you have a regular string of pinch hitters who “get” your audience, your style, and understand your guidelines inside and out.

I work with guest posters for three of the blogs I write for and, though I love finding new writers with great stuff to share, there is definitely some legwork involved in the ramp up and editing process. Not shooting the strategy down – just being realistic about what it takes.

Having said that – I plan to do more guest posting later this year because I think it can be a huge win-win for the hosting blogger and the guest blogger. Plus it’s fun to play at other people’s “houses.”
jonbuscall

@suddenlyjamie @markwschaefer @ginidietrich Having done quite a bit of editing (print) and working with writers, I can imagine working with lots of guest bloggers must be a lot of work too. But it’s also fun to build something together as a community.
http://armentdietrich.com/ ginidietrich

A few years ago, traffic was a big measurement stat for us. And then I realized it was an ego-driven stat. If we weren’t converting the traffic, what difference does it make? I like that your anecdotal evidence shows you sold more ebooks during this time, even though your traffic is down. I’d say that’s way more important!
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suddenlyjamie

@jonbuscall I agree, Jon. Your community isn’t just your readers, its also your collaborators … and sometimes the two are one and the same!
jonbuscall

@ginidietrich Thanks Gini! It’s made me reassess the ROI of blog content and the energy I put into different aspects of growing my business. I guess it can be a case of over cooking the pea soup if you tweak too much, but that’s the fun of developing a business.
http://www.thejackb.com/ TheJackB

Targeted traffic is always more valuable. A thousand years ago when I sold advertising I used to make the marketing staff crazy because I would push them as hard as I could to develop targeted lists.

A solid targeted opportunity was an easy sale and averaged about 40% more than an average deal. It was a no brainer to chase those as often as possible.
jonbuscall

@TheJackB I have to remember that phrase and tell clients that: “it’s a no brainer!” Like that one. Now I just have to find the Swedish translation :=)
http://www.jasonkonopinski.com/ jasonkonopinski

I remember justinkownacki ran an experiment on his blog to demonstrate the relationship between posting frequency and traffic. He went from posting daily to posting weekly over a two month period. Expectedly, traffic fell rapidly since he was producing less content but he also observed that posting weekly did not guarantee a high-impact read. The numbers suggest that his readers were adjusting to the changing schedule, but there wasn’t a demonstrable link between posting scarcity and perceived value. Interesting.

Traffic is indeed an ego-driven stat, and it’s definitely the easiest metric to gauge “success” through blogging and other social efforts. I immediately turn to Google’s Real-Time Analytics upon publishing a post to see how people are responding to my latest headline – and it’s a quick gut check. Of course, if no one is using my contact form or subscribing to my (not yet launched) newsletter, it’s short-lived success.
JustinKownacki

@jasonkonopinski People don’t subscribe to a magazine because it comes out monthly. They subscribe because it’s something they want to read. They don’t watch a TV show because it’s on weekly; they watch it because they enjoy it. And they won’t read your blog because you post daily; they’ll read it because they find some kind of value in it — either information, entertainment or enlightenment. Quality is what matters; frequency is incidental.
http://www.thejackb.com/ TheJackB

@JustinKownacki @jasonkonopinski I disagree. Quality is always important but frequency is important to your readers.

There are 8 billion blogs out there and unless you are amazing lack of frequency can be damaging. People will replace you with other sources.

The question I always ask is where that line is. Does that mean that you can retain readers by posting once a week or could you get away with a couple of times a month.

Hard to say.
jonbuscall

@TheJackB @JustinKownacki @jasonkonopinski It’s such an issue, really. I find since I started the podcast that it’s given me more time between posts; however, I think you’ve got to work closely with the data you’re tracking. 3 posts is optimum for this site from what I’m seeing, but of course that’s always dependent on being thrown a curveball or something now and then.
JustinKownacki

You may be confusing frequency with consistency. No one stops reading a blog because it only updates weekly; they stop reading because it SOMETIMES updates weekly, and sometimes less.

Even if Clay Shirky only blogs biannually, I’m not going to replace him as one of my sources of information with someone I’ve never heard of before, simply because that other person blogs about the same subjects daily. Delivering consistent quality is more important to me (as a creator and as an audience) than delivering inconsistent quality regularly.

If there’s a hierarchy, I’d say it’s quality > consistency > frequency. Unfortunately, frequency is the easy part, which is why so many people get caught up in it.
jonbuscall

@JustinKownacki Well said! Quality wins every time; however, there’s also the whole issue of whether or not you’ll get found (Google, Twitter, etc) if you’re not updating.
JustinKownacki

@jonbuscall But Google also rewards inbound links. So if you’re producing quality, and others are citing it, you’ll still be found.I’m not saying “only update once a millennium.” I’m saying, “produce quality content as often as you can.” The “as you can” isn’t related to how fast you can produce content; it’s about how fast you can produce quality.
jonbuscall

@JustinKownacki Yup, quality rules. Trouble is, it’s in the eye of the beholder. I sometimes produce something I think it a bit thin and it gets a positive response and other times vice versa. Thanks for joining the conversation :=)