Those of you who read my blog already know that I try to post at least once a day (sometimes more), but beyond that I don’t really have a “set” schedule. When I have something to say I say it, simple as that. I find that sticking to a routine schedule just stresses me out and nobody likes to be stressed our right? Aside from that though, I have noticed a few patterns and trends that I can share with you:
Blog traffic is usually much higher on the weekdays then on the weekends, however this doesn’t always have to be the case. Many bloggers take the weekends off from writing, if you are able to get some high quality content up, your traffic may increase. This has happened to me a few times but overall I would say weekday traffic is much higher.
I try to get my posts up first thing the next day, now while I wouldn’t call this a schedule, it is something that I try to aim for if I have something ready to go. When I say first thing the next day I mean 12:01 AM I try to click the “publish” button. I do this for a few reasons, first of all it gives my readers more time to read what I have written and second, it’s usually a good incentive for me to write something else during the course of the day.
Writing one massive post isn’t really a good thing. Brian Solis is the master of the “thesis post”. I try to respect the time of my readers and this usually means putting together manageable size posts that can be read in a few minutes. Ideally I would like to be able to put up one longer post and one shorter post, just to mix things up.
I’ve also noticed that just because I don’t get comments or traffic to my blog, doesn’t mean that people aren’t reading or discussing what I have written. Take for example my post on “Google Chrome,” I had decent traffic on my blog but this post made it to the front page of “social media today” and garnered around 1,600 views in just a few days. The same goes for a lot of other posts or platforms. Remember that there are multiple ways people can interact with your content, it doesn’t just have to be through your blog. There are also RSS feeds, twitter comments, syndication channels, facebook responses, etc.
The more often you write the more visitors you will get, this doesn’t mean write 20 posts a day but at least one a day is a good solid number to stick to. Also, the more time you spend researching and crafting your posts to make them “higher quality” the more readers you will get. Take for example my post on “20 tips to become a better twitter user” post.
Interacting with your community and responding to your comments is crucial. I respond to every comment, email, twitter message I get and people know that. That way when people read my blog and have opinion on something they can share it with me and they know they will get a response. I’m also no stranger in asking my readers to help grow my blog traffic by recommending my blog to friends/family/coworkers/etc. Heck, I’ll ask you now, if you like what I have to say then please share this blog with others, word of mouth is one of the most powerful ways to help grow blog traffic.
Try to use images. In virtually every blog post I try to start off with a cool looking image that I find on flickr, google images, or other image library. Images are easy on the eyes and can help set the tone for your post. Pick an image that sticks out and you are much more likely to capture the attention of your readers.
I could probably go on and on with more things that I have noticed but I will stop here and see what you have to say. What trends or patterns have you noticed on your/other blogs? What works for you and what doesn’t?
thanks for reading
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