Last week I asked ProBlogger readers this question:
How Many Unique Visitors Does Your Biggest Blog Get Per Day?
Considering that a previous poll found that over 50% of my readers have been blogging for less than a year the following results don’t surprise me (as it generally takes 2-3 years to build a blog to it’s potential).
2144 readers responded and 35% of respondents get less than 100 visitors a day.
Here’s the percentage breakdown for each category:
0 – 100 – 35%
101 – 250 – 16%
251 – 500 – 12%
501 – 1000 – 10%
1001 – 2500 – 10%
2501 – 5000 – 6%
5001 – 10000 – 3%
10001 – 20000 – 2%
20001+ – 5%
While these statistics may be a little depressing – I think they are very worthwhile knowing for a number of reasons:
1. If you’re a PreBlogger (or a new one) – it’s worth knowing that building a blog with thousands of readers is not something that is as simple as signing up for a free blog tool, writing a few posts and expecting people to show up. Blogging takes work – time on a daily basis and time in terms of months/years of consistent blogging.
2. If you’re a blogger who is feeling discouraged by blogging and having a lack of readership – you’re not alone. Many (if not most) bloggers struggle to grow a blog’s readership.
3. There is hope – 5% of you have blogs with over 20,001 daily visitors. While this is a relatively small group when compared with other categories – it can be done.
One Last Thought
As I look over the above chart it strikes me that together as a community we have an enormous reach. I just quickly calculated an estimate of our combined readership by multiplying the number of recipients voting in each category by the mid point of that category (and by multiplying the 117 form the top category by the minimum value).
Using this calculation we have a combined Daily Visitor reach of 4,846,375. Considering that this blog is read by considerably more than the 2144 people who actually voted in this poll (we have about 15 times that many RSS subscribers) the numbers of who we reach each day is quite staggering.
I’m not sure what to do with that knowledge – but it does make me think that we should be working together more to support and build up one another in our readership. Food for thought.
I’m at about 400-500 visitors a day with no real advertising, just word of mouth. My blog has been online since Sept 1st.
Amazingly enough, that means ProBlogger readers (those who took the poll) have their blogs read more than 150 million times per month!
What’s funny is that when I took the poll I was getting between 101 and 250 but since then I wrote a post about the iPhone that is getting all sorts of traffic, now I would be in the 501-1000 spot.
It would be interesting to see if we/you can find a way to leverage the ProBlogger readership to help each other out.
You might actually have too much of a readership to really leverage it in this matter, though. Who knows, you’re a smart guy.
wow, congrats to those with the high stats!
Here’s a thought:
Suppose each of us wrote a post about the combined power of Probloggers readers, and in each post, we linked to two other readers. We could handle which two very easily: Darren’s comments – you link to the two people above and below you in the comments for the Problogger post that kicks this off. First poster of course links to Darren’s post.Darren sets a cut off date and time, stops comments, the last person links to Darren’s post and the blog of the comment above.
Kind of a chain letter.. might be fun?
It also shows that Problogger is a hit equally among new and established bloggers and it says a lot about its reach, and of course, relevance.
Hi Darren,
what about combining your two recent polls, about how old the blogs are, and the daily readership ?
It would be interesting to know what it the present readership of a blog divided by its age, let’s say in or months… don’t you think so ?
Content is king. SEO is -uhm – queen…?
With about 200 posts so far I have about 800 visitors daily.
But my blog is in German, I think in English it would attract at least twice as much visitors. Maybe…
I fall in 251 to 500 category, but it’s just been two months. The way things are improving, I hope to make it at least a thousand visitors per day in six months from now.
@Anthony: When have chain letters ever been fun?
My music blog, earsucker, got about 62k pageviews last month, which made me ecstatic :) My personal blog, however, only gets about less than 100 per day…. I wish I could bridge the gap…
“A three braided chord is not easily broken.”
Stand together!
I launched my first and only website and blog in Sept. 2007 and am up to 40-50 unique visitors per day. I have not used any paid advertising and have no plans to in the future, just posts like here (Thanks Darren) and other websites and blogs.
I don’t feel so bad now after reading the poll results as I thought I was doing terrible. My plan is to keep everything going for one year then see where I stand at that time.
My only hope for success (visitor, not financial) is word of mouth and my own promotion. I have personal reasons for why I started my website and blog and the above statistics have given me more motivation to not give up.
Hey, Anthony Lawrence, love your idea.
Thanks to Darren and everybody else that leaves comments,
Thanks for the encouragement. Looking at the other people who have commented here I noticed Chris Jacobson has over 400 visitors per day and the blog has only been online since Sept. 1st. This is very encouraging and at the same time kind of discouraging. I have been working at this for a few months, but I have not been able to get my readership to more than about 25 visits a day. I must be doing something wrong. If anybody has advice about my site and blogs specifically please let me know. I truly would like to do this for a living, but it doesn’t seem like it will happen anytime soon. What is your secret Chris?
the more statistics you have the better you can gear your posts to I think polls are really a big part of a problogger blog
Phil asks in reference to my previous comment: “When have chain letters ever been fun?”
Oh, I dunno.. I’m sure there have been fun ones.
Think about it: this promotes Problogger, but also promotes each of us – you’d get two gratuitous links at least, you could follow the chain and know that every blog you visited was someone you share something in common with.. I think it could be fun.. wonder if Darren is reading these comments or not?
If the chain was very large, we’d probably get publicity just for that, too..
I typically get around 500 per day. I saw the same as Michael above, When I wrote posts about the iPhone and iPod Touch I got 2,500 – 3,500 visitors.
So much for keyword optimization.
David, I checked out your blog and the first thing I noticed is the lack of content. Just write good solid posts.. write and the write some more. Don’t try and get a secret for traffic from other blogs, you’re trying to compare yourself with a blog that posts every day to yours which is lacking current posts.
Just my two cents my friend :)
— Also Darren, as for our global readership and what we should do about it. hmm a new site like problogger but completely driven by the pro users that fit the criteria? Some sort of a help tool for bloggers whereas ProBlogger would stay as the bible for bloggers ;)
Just an idea..
Insane Seb
http://www.insanemoneymarket.com/blog
I like the idea from Plasticpilot.
“what about combining your two recent polls, about how old the blogs are, and the daily readership ” is no doubt that age is a prime factor to reach success in blogging, but some people seem to do it real quick.
David I just visited your site and Honestly I could not find anything useful there, just a post saying that you are thinking about exchange links with other blogs. If you were serious about blogging you should think twice before doing something like that because you can get yourself banned on search engines. another thing who do you think is gonna link to you if you don;t have useful content. sorry man. but that’s my piece of review to you. hope it helps.
Just another data point: I’m among the 3%, over 5,000 uniques per day.. but the reason is not thousands of devoted readers – I have a few hundred of those (400-500 rss subs) but I have tons of visits from searches because I have over 12,000 posts (been writing on-line since 1991). So while no particular page gets tremendous numbers (well, some do get a thou or two a month), it’s the visits spread over the 12,000+ posts that create the numbers (and the ad income).
That shows that you don’t have to be popular to be popular :-)
I’m somewhere in the 100-250 range right now. I started blogging back in mid-August. Hopefully, if I keep giving good content (and reading problogger for some tips and tricks) I can get it up to 1000. that’s what I’d like to see.
One of these days I’ll figure out why my visitor counts are so generally low or why they fluctuate so drastically. On any given day, I fluctuate between 150 – 4000 hits. It’s ridiculous and makes it very difficult to measure what I’m doing. Considering this blog has been up for about 3.5 years, it’s both discouraging and confusing. Of course, its interesting to see in that poll result that there is such a huge spike of those numbers for the people who have low visitor ranges, but on the other hand (as mentioned) most people on here have had their blogs under a year… so… that still doesn’t excuse mine, but ah well.
Some days I get 12 hits and other days over 400, most of which come from StumbleUpon. I feel that blogs focusing on topics beyond blogging and technology face a greater struggle to build readers.
One of the biggest problems I have is finding blogs to comment on. My blog is about writing (creative, freelance, grammar, etc.) and while I find many writing blogs, most of them are not current and many are run through free blog providers, which don’t allow for easy commenting (you have to be a member).
I would love to build relationships with other bloggers who blog about writing but my outreach has also revealed that traditional writers are not tech savvy enough to realize the blogging etiquette of link exchange. Even a positive and thorough review of another writer’s site results in a “wow thanks,” but no link reciprocation — even if I specifically request it in a subtle manner.
All I can do is sigh and keep plugging away. Any advice on this would be appreciated and welcome!
I like your idea of supporting and helping to promote more traffic on the blogs that read this one. If you have suggestions please let us know or if there is a way for us to help you to promote this idea let me know. Thanks Brian
I started WorkNaked Oct 2007. It is about telecommuting , houseboating, and working naked. I get about 20 visits a day. I know I will have to increase the content and quality of my posts to get more traffic. I’m also oing to put a link on my site to Pro-blogger so I read it every day.( I really don’t like RSS readers)
I’m starting to see my blog’s readership grow. My problem, however, is a lot of my traffic comes from search engines and it’s not as “sticky” as it should be.
So now I’m working on getting people to explore deeper into my blog by placing links at the bottom of my posts.
But Darren’s right, it takes a lot of work to build a readership and LOTS of patience.
Great post!
I think the stats show just what I have suspected about blogging for some time. 60% or so of the people who are bloggers (at least according to these stats are struggling to build a strong consistent readership. Perhaps a good question to ask is: What attracts people to the top rating blogs in the final 11%? Excellent point about staying in the game… advice that I don’t want to hear!
Interesting stats. I`m tying innovative ways to increase my readership now. It`s working to, i now have a few hundred subscribers.
New blog – but over 100 visitors daily.
Surprisingly, alot of traffic from Google and MSN.
We don’t update very much, but each post is meant to be classic that will continue to be referenced and enjoyed
For me, a review on stumble upon and one particular comment that I left on a popular blog (not a very spectacular comment either I might add!) have been the biggest drivers of traffic to my blog and resulted in a jump in RSS subscribers.
400 views in a day has been my best day so far (3 month old blog) and I am aiming for the 1000 mark as my big goal.
Liz Strauss wrote a great post on thanking those that digg or stumble upon you which is something I am going to incroporate from now on.
I have also found submitting posts to blog carnivals as helpful as well. I write in the travel niche, so I am not sure if blog carnivals are as popular in other niches.
Let’s keep on truckin’…
This was an eye opening post. I think up until recently I was averaging only under 100 visitors a day. A few weeks ago, I started to get stumble traffic and had my best day just under 4800 visitors. Of course most stayed for 0 seconds. lol. sigh.
All traffic is good.
Cheers and thanks for publishing the results.
Thanks for putting this all up. I am blogging for about seven months now, and I am aware that having about 100-150 visitors per day with published post is not bad at all. At least, I get some feed back and nice contacts out of my blogging. But it is one thing to feel that everything is fine and completely another to be faced with the stats and numbers. Sometimes we all need a bit of encouragement to keep us going.
How can i increase my blog traffic
Darren,
I very mch support the idea that we work together to promote each other. People coming together for the benefit of each other is powerful. That is so needed in the world in general.
How can we all become a positive force to make a difference for each other and the world. The collective intelligence of we bloggers must be off the scale, as is out intuitive wisdom and the guidance of our hearts.
I want to be part of this co-supportive movement. Maybe we could come up with catagories of blog topic areas and then we could promote each other to our readers. My two main catagories would be personal development and social activism and most likely I would fit into others too.
Maybe your next extravaganza can be a promotion tour of some sort.
I do so much appreciate the forum you have created.
Joseph
ExploreLifeBlog.com
First, Darren I love your blog. Keep up the great work you do.
Second, I have been blogging about 5 month and my readership is up to about 300 to 700 a day depending what day of the week, if someone stumbed me, etc. (However, I have a huge discrepency b/t slimstats and google as to what is reality. Anyone else have this problem?)
I agree with Melissa. If you do not write about blogging and how to make money on your site, the rest of us pick up the crumbs. Every day I wonder if it is worth it because I spend so much time writing each post. I write about green building products and organic gardening through my own personal experiences. I was hoping that readers would pick up on the personal experience part but the sites that seem to do the best are the ones that talk about products, which are new or prototype bascially reinterating what is on the product website.
I wonder if spending too much time making sure what you write is accurate and not green washing is even worth it. I am going to put a poll on my site to see what people want. Do any of you feel the same? Plus, I find my area very saturated too. Any thoughts?
I agree content is everything as well as title to your posts. anna http://www.green-talk.com
I’m glad to know that I am not alone. I try to visit other blogs each day and have subscribed/linked to a few. It’s hard to know what attracts readers. I want to promote my boutique, but at the same time I have other things on my mind. No sure if people care to read about personal stuff.
Darren, great blog! I’m new to bloggosphere and I just found it, but I can’t stop reading.
My blog is still young, I’ve started 3 weeks ago, and now I have about 80 visitors a day.
I’ve got a bunch of different blogs and my current project is set to go over 250,000 all time visits this week. Most of the visitors come from the search engines and I am set up to ping everybody in the world* each time I write a post. I’m on myspace and mybloglog and facebook and squidoo and mashable to connect with other active internet users.
*perhaps that’s a slight exageration ;^D
Darren, your blog is great. Wish you go a long way.I was reading the comments made by our friends here.I believe in PATIENCE,Consistency and Smart work.If you are a new blogger,never give up,post regularly,keep fresh n original content,participate actively n constructively in forums,read other’s blog,take ideas, comment and give a human touch whatever you do…..Daily work at least for 2 hours…I believe, you will sure notice your improvement :) bcoz I have seen the difference by loads of experiments.
Nice number crunching Darren!
However, working on a so-called ‘I-scratch-your-back-you-scratch-mine’ model does not work very well with the blogosphere (remember the Technorati favouriting experiment??). I’d rather work towards using the reach to promote the readers’ blogs (perhaps once a week?). But I guess if they have great content + strategy they will get the links, traffic & money that they desire.
Thanks for sharing the results.
Cheers!
wow i learned so much from here. keep posting pls. =)
Well, I think its a nifty way of promoting a new blog.New blogs are always tough to promote.This does the valuable job of putting the blog content in front of eyes.I vote for it
Blogging is always a work in progress. I enjoy looking at my analytics and seeing my visitor count rising ever so much every month and holding onto those numbers while reducing bounce rates. Even though I don’t have the numbers in the 4,5, or 6 digits, the numbers I do have keep me going, because at least I know that people are actually reading and not had stumbled in by accident.
I am receiving ~800 uniques daily but no revenue :-)
I write in the travel niche, so I am not sure if blog carnivals are as popular in other niches.
I’m at about 1400-1500 visitors a day with no real advertising, just word of mouth. My blog has been online since June 15st.
I think the poll shows that pro-blogger’s audience is smaller bloggers. Perhaps once blogs reach a certain size, their bloggers are less likely to check back in here. I used to read this site more frequently when my traffic was slower (even then it was @ 2,000 daily). It’s a double edged sword, you get us going to be more successful but once we are, we don’t have as much time as we once had to frequent the site.
man, i wish i can get the amount of traffic that you all got. :D
I am amazed at how many hits some of the newcomers to blogging are getting. I have been at it for 7 months now and am just cracking the 1000 mark, but in the first 3 months I had less than 1000 visits in total. Thats an average of around 20 a day.
It’s very exciting that the hits are higher for many than they were for me. I was very discouraging for me to see such a tiny trickle.