This morning I glanced down at the Alexa traffic indicator for ProBlogger in my Firefox browser and noticed that in the last week I’ve had a noticeable upswing in traffic to ProBlogger.
At first I couldn’t think of why this might have been. In the last 7 days none of my posts have gone viral around the web – no big site has linked up – nothing much has changed.
I clicked through to Aweber to see if the chart there was any different. It similarly showed an upswing in traffic.
Perhaps it is just one of those Aweber ‘glitches’ that happens every now and again – so I checked my site metrics and the same upswing was reflected there. Traffic was up a bit over 30% on normal over the week.
I dug down further to see which post drew in all the traffic thinking that perhaps one went viral while I slept one night and then returned to normal – but there was nothing abnormal. All of the posts in the last week had normal kind of traffic – hmmmm.
As I continued to ponder I realised that the upswing wasn’t due to any one post – it was simply due to the fact that last week I posted 13 posts instead of my normal 7-8. The increased number of posts wasn’t a strategic move – it was just that there were more stories to cover during the week with a few breaking news stories.
I guess the take home lesson is that an increase in posting frequency can lead to an increase in traffic.
Of course it isn’t quite as simple as just doubling your posts and seeing an automatic increase in traffic. A few things to keep in mind are:
- This will be more the case for a site with existing subscribers than a new one – increased numbers of posts means your subscribers are being presented with more options for things to read – increasing their chance of finding something that fits their needs.
- Of course increasing your post frequency too much and too quickly can annoy some of your subscribers. Keep in mind that when I surveyed readers on why they unsubscribe to blogs that the #1 reason given was too many posts.
- The key is to keep your posts relevant, on topic and useful. If you do want to increase your post levels you probably should also do it a little gradually. I got away with 13 posts last week instead of 8 like the week before but if I’d posted much more than that in the week I’m sure I would have got some push back from readers. Don’t suddenly decide to be like some of the big tech blogs and push out 20 posts in a day unexpectedly!
That’s a good point. I’ve actually noticed an upswing to the output of posts you have. But like you said, it’s important that you have solid readership that will follow your posts. Either way though, it’s good for Google as well.
I don’t know why, but I swear the more I post, the worse my traffic gets. It increases the chances that one of the posts might get noticed somewhere, which happens from time to time, but it’s almost dark magic here. Four posts today instead of one and my traffic takes a nose dive.
Small site, so obviously small changes matter more, but it’s still freaky.
Hey Darren,
I agree. This happened to me as well. Not in the same numbers that you experienced, but similar position. I found that I had a significant increase. I also narrowed it down to post frequency. I normally post, like you 5-7 post a week. But for the last two weeks I uped that to14-18 posts per week.
That definitely gave me the increase.
But a word of caution I hear you saying. Writing a whole lot of rubbish will in fact lower traffic.
That’s the danger we have to kee e look out, that is that an increase in post volume does not decrease post quality.
i just like all your post and i have study a lot from here!!!
I guess in this case more is better. 2 quality blog posts per day is tough, but with guest posters very doable. Search engines love new content.
Interesting post and I concur that increasing your post rate does indeed lead to traffic increases, although in my case not to the level that you get.
I also have to agree with Robert in that just churning out low rent content will ultimately do more harm than good.
The trick is to find the right balance of content vs post count.
Great post as ever.
Simon
Hi Darren,
Nice post as usual. It’s always nice to learn something new every now and again, eh :)
Along those same lines, another method of gaining a temporary spike in traffic is to post a series of some sort – prewrite all of the posts in the series and release them periodically on a predictable schedule.
Mike
That’s pretty interesting that you managed to increase your traffic during the holiday season. I’ve started with a posting frequency of 3 times a week.
Didn’t really want to start at 5-7 times a week because I might not be able get around to that many so I start low and work my way up. When I get more readers I intend to ask them how many they want.
Another thought I’ve had is to leave the posting frequency at 3 times a week but add a special post just for my newsletter subscribers. Anyone tried that?
I’ve slowly added staff to The Casual Observer over the past several months, and have increased posts from 5 a week to 7 per week (with very occassional missed days). Unfortunately, there has not been a measurable impact on traffic.
@Paul William Tenny,
Interesting! I am just wondering how is that possible!
In my case, if I do not post any new article, the visitors keep decreasing daily.
Yes frequency of posting can greatly effect on our blog traffic. I see that if I frequently of post on my blog then my blog traffic also increase.
i dont know whether it works for all blogs whether small or big or with low subscribers base? Perhaps it doesn’t work the same way if you got a low subscriber base compared to what problogger has.
Hello Darren,
Right now I have a new blog, and I am posting 5 to 7 times a week. This is working out for me pretty good, as I have a full time job also.
I will have to do some testing in the near future to see if posting more makes a bigger difference in traffic. The main thing I need to make sure is that I am posting quality information.
Tom Shay
I’ve also noticed that the quality of your posts have been getting better, that’s why I’m back more often. It’s like the old Darren is back.
I tend to sit out the periods when people go into “pitch” mode for their products as the posts get to hyped and it skews the content. (yeah, we can see right through it)
For my marathon running blog it is different. Traffic is usually down over December, especially on days approaching Christmas. I guess most people are on holiday mode and few are interested in running.
Happy holidays to all readers of Pro-blogger.
I believe that time of year or season will makes a difference in traffic, also. For example I expect between Thanksgiving and Christmas is one time of the year where I will get an increase in traffic. Mid summer will have low traffic, unless I write about vacation and recreational activities.
I think one post a day is the best.
It does follow however that you should maintain an average of at least one post a day….
Agreed, Darren. When I take an extra long time between posts, my traffic does a nose dive! Thanks for the tips.
Interesting, until now my alexa is getting bad…..can u teach me in my email?
I’ve been blogging off and on since 2003, and I’ve found overall that more definitely equals more in my niches.
Right now I’ve got 2 blogs not yet a month old. One is news-related (almost hyperlocal) and the other is on partner abuse. This time around I’ve found the old axiom still holds. More = more.
But then I have really unusual niches where there isn’t much else going.
Six months from now I’ll know for sure if my philosophy of posting as much as possible still serves me, but right now it looks good.
Very well said Darren…
Sudden increase in # of posts can also lead to decrease in subscriber count. In fact it depends on the type of blog too and the kind of followers. If your blog readers are not that technology savvy, then it might hurt the readership too.
So gradually increasing the frequency will the right way to do without becoming too greedy about traffic.
You may try by changing the time when you publish the posts e.g. publish over the weekend, publish during the holiday time frame so that you can grab new readers.
Finally, the more regularly you publish, the more traffic you will get…that’s what I have learned so far.
Thanks
Increasing post can give you certainly good increase in traffic but those posts should be related to the current news and you should be able to add some spice to that with attractive and inviting title.
As relatively new blogger, I am finding that yes, the more posts I upload, I see an upturn on traffic. Just keeping it relevant definately helps. Thanks for your insights!
I usually posts 10 to 14 articles per week . I guess its not bad.
I think your point is very considerable, because it also happen with me. some times I posted two or three post in a week then my subscribers rate fall down
Interesting observation on post frequency- you definitely don’t want to overwhelm your potential readers and create too much noise. At the end of the day, as long as the content is compelling to read and quality, you should have little to worry about in regards to number of subscribers.
Congratulations on the bump in traffic!
Good point. I think that posting more often is a great way to grow traffic that is often overlooked!
Yup, that is surely can be happened only for high traffic blog. For new blog, too many posts may lead in contrary way.
Darren,
I used to post 7+ times a week and then reduced that to about 3-4.
But – last week, I started a daily video post called The 12 Tips of Christmas for Mom Entrepreneurs – and now I’ve noticed that readers are unsubscribing. Oh well…can’t please everyone all the time. LOL.
I’ve really enjoyed your posts over the past week or so – very helpful with solid steps to take to growing/improving your blog.
Thanks! And happy holidays!
Heather
Although you have posted more articles, the quality has been good and the topics quite interesting.
I have found that post lulls, also correspond with a dip in traffic, and I have few subscribers. I currently shoot for 5-6 posts a week, but plan on boosting that number a bit, after the new year.
Really interesting post Darren, i feel that when you want to increase your traffic especially when your a startup, i think its better if you invest a bit of money, even $300 can be of great use please let me post this link http://dumblittleblogger.blogspot.com/2009/11/promoting-your-blog-with-300.html
So a 100% increase in post frequency yields a 30% increase in traffic?
I wonder if you can achieve a 30% increase in traffic with only 50% more posts?
Where does the law of diminishing returns kick in? If I do 150% more posts, will traffic only increase 32%?
Thats nice post darren. You are really helping small bloggers like me in increasing our blog traffic and taking our blog to next level.
This is interesting.
I see two main points here:
1. Search Engines.
The more blog posts, the more posts you’ll have indexed at search engines and the more visitors you’ll get (if you have a fairly popular blog and the blog posts are of high quality).
2. Regular readers.
Usually, people who subscribe to your rss will read all your new blog posts (or at least take a brief look at them). So, the more blog posts you publish, the more traffic you’ll get from your regular readers.
In the end, it’s about quality content. The more quality content you write, the more traffic you’ll get (this is true at least to some extent, if you post too often, your loyal readers might stop reading).
– Jens
You need to have really loyal readers for this to work. If you do not have many loyal reader increasing the post frequency will have negative effect.
You have also pointed out this (result of your survey)
I too noticed an up swing…well in my blog world its nothing more than a blip…but an upswing none the less LOL :) Last week I posted three times and I can only imagine what will happen when I bump it up to five times a week in the New Year.
Another great post, thanks :)
love this post and completely agree. It has been proven indeed! I try to make at least 1 post a day for my readers
And here I thought we were going to get some secret to increase traffic and all you did was post a little extra LOL!!
Regardless, I still enjoyed reading the post.
I agree Darren as this too is the case for the blog I write for. Also youve made a poignant point that it will work if your blog as a sizable number of readers.
But here is what I think.. if a blogger can increase the frequency of posts without compromising on quality and content don’t you think that blogger is probably under utilizing his blog in the first place?
Okay, this is weird.
I usually check you site first thing in the morning, but had a conference call.
I just made a cup of latte and looked at my stats and almost cried because they are down-down-down.
In December I tried a new strategy that bombed big time and I’m happy to read this because I have a boat load of content lined up for Jan2010 and from this I will maybe try to cut the content into two posts (as long as the quality is still there).
I cannot tell you how much of a drop I’ve experienced in Dec09. I really thought I was right on the money with my new startegy, but now (at least) I know why people are coming to my site and I just to keep that in mind and keep focused.
I will start adding about 5 new posts per week and see how that influences my stats.
Thanks Darren!
Krizia
I had the same experience over the last week or so. The reason being is that there’s not too much business around the holiday, all the projects are on halt, no new orders, so I had much more time to post. It worked.
Hi Darren,
Very interesting post.
It seems to me that there’s a sweet spot when it comes to the correlation between traffic and number of posts. Too few posts, and people stop regularly visiting (not counting RSS/email subscribers, just regular website visiting folks), and too many posts, and people feel bombarded and overloaded with information.
It really comes down to your blog, the topics covered, and of course testing.
As J.D. Roth at Get Rich Slowly always says about Personal Finance “Do what works for you” – which certainly applies to this idea and many other things in life.
Thanks again,
Kevin Worthington
This is absolutely true, but at the same time I find it hard to come up with posts that reach my standards more frequently. I post a couple times a week but that way I can put a lot more effort into each post which I think brings more traffic in the long run. However if I could post everyday with the same amount of caliber I would… don’t post purely for the sake of traffic.
Good points overall, I think the best goal is to post on a consistent basis and keep it that way so your readers know what to expect. I usually post Monday thru Friday and those are my big traffic days.
when i posting too much posts then a CAPTCHA comes to verify that a man is posting posts or a robot and i hate Captcha….
I agree with a previous comment, you need to have a good number of subscribers first. Also you would need to ensure you don’t dilute the quality of the content.
I would like to say that the increase in number of posts will bring a traffic to your blog for a certain period of time. Instead of making such effort on increasing the number of posts you have to emphasize on the content(i.e., unique posts) not the quantity. Most of the traffic comes through content not the quantity of article
I had an upswing recently and it was because Kobe Bryant was on the George Lopez show, and on the show he mentioned his Black Mamba watch line. So people started typing Kobe Bryant watches and Black Mamba, and next thing you know they were at my site. Amazing!
it’s not all about number of posts of course but also what one does with those posts compared to the next guy