Over the last few days I've read a few comments here on Problogger
from bloggers who are feeling low because they've noticed a plateau or
even a decrease in the traffic coming to their blog.
While we all want to see our traffic rise the reality is that every
blog has days, weeks and even months where traffic levels out or even
decreases. This can be quite distressing for bloggers who have big
hopes and dreams for their blogs.
Today I'd like to look at some of the reasons a blog's traffic might
decrease and suggest some ways forward for each of them.
1. Seasonal Traffic
If you're still in the first year of your blog you are yet to see what
a full calendar year looks like in terms of traffic for your niche.
Most niches have natural rises and falls in traffic.
For example (see below for a chart of visitor numbers) on my
photography tips blog we see spikes in traffic in December and
January. December's traffic boost is generally to do with people
researching new cameras to buy and January is generally associated
with people working out how to use cameras that they got for
Christmas. On the flip side we often see dips in traffic over August
to October.
What to Do: The first time you see a seasonal rise or fall in traffic
it can be quite confusing - however the key with it is to not panic
when you see a dip but to identify opportunities to maximize the rises
and to minimize the falls.
For example it might be that you need to tailor your content for
certain times of year and what people are doing in relation to your
niche.
For me on my photography blog this meant writing content in
November-December on how to buy a digital camera (to capitalize on the
Christmas buying trend), writing beginner photography tips in January
(to capitalize on the trend of people looking for tips on how to use
their new cameras) and during low seasons (like July when it's summer
in the US) writing topical tips like Beach Photography Tips or How to
use a camera in the Bright Sun.
Another Tip - one great free tool for looking at seasonal traffic is
to use Google Trends to analyze what people are searching the web for.
For example if I type in 'digital cameras' I get this chart:
There's lots of interesting stuff in this (the downward trend for
starters) but it clearly shows what I've observed above - more people
are searching the web for that term from November-December each year.
This information could confirm a suspicion you have or help you
identify a trend to capitalize on in your niche.
Further Reading: Seasonal Traffic and How to Capture it for your Blog.
2. Topical Interest
At other times of year traffic events can be triggered by other
current events. For example I know one music blogger who has had a lot
of traffic this past few weeks simply because they'd previously had a
lot of content that ranked well in Google on Michael Jackson. Of
course in coming months as the news of Jackson's death subsides it's
likely that they'll see some declines in traffic.
What to Do: The key with topical rises and falls in traffic is to try
to capture as much of the rush of traffic as you can so that when the
decline comes you've got new subscribers/readers to your blog (see
further reading below on 'sticky blogs).
It's also important to be aware of upcoming events in your niche and
writing content in anticipation of that. This can be hard in
predicting the death of a mega pop star like Jackson but in different
niches it's possible to predict events.
For example - before the Athens Olympics I was involved in running a
blog where we wrote a post in advance of the Olympics for every single
event in the games. The posts included athletes names and any
information we could get on the events. We updated the posts with
results once they events had been run. As a result we were
consistently ranking very highly for 'Event name Results' when people
were searching for winners of events in Search Engines.
Further Reading: How to Create a Sticky Blog
3. Posting Frequency
One common reason for lulls in traffic is that a blog has had a lull
in new content being published. I saw one blogger writing a post
recently about how their blog was failing to gain traction and in the
comments of the post a reader pointed out that the blogger had hardly
been posting. The reality was that the blogger had produced very
little to be read and so people were not visiting.
What to Do: Posting more doesn't guarantee extra traffic but it can be
a factor to consider. Chart your last few months of posts and see if
there's any correlation to rises and falls in your traffic - you might
identify a trend!
Worth noting is that some bloggers report that when they post LESS
that they actually get more traction with readers. I know of one
blogger who was posting 10-20 times a day and when he dropped things
back to 2-3 posts a day he noticed not only increases in comment
numbers per post but that his posts were being shared more on social
media sites. At 10-20 posts a day posts were coming off the front page
of his blog so much that readers hardly had a chance to read and share
them.
Further Reading: What is the Ideal Post Frequency for a Blog?
4. Shifts in Search Rankings
Many blogs see the way that they are ranked by Google (and other
search engines) rise and fall over the years.
A Personal Example - Back in 2004 (just before Christmas) I woke up
one day to find that my main blog at that time had all but disappeared
from Google. I'd not done anything to the blog that wasn't allowed by
Google and hadn't made any major changes to the site - I just
disappeared. My heart sank (actually I felt quite sick) because that
blog was the main source of income from my blogging and 75% of my
traffic had vanished.
The lull in traffic lasted about 6 weeks before it magically
reappeared. In that time I got myself another job and diversified my
blogging and learned a lot.
What to Do: Sometimes search engines change their algorithms and
occasionally they seem to lose sites from their rankings for no
apparent reason. The key with this type of loss of traffic is to not
panic, make sure you're abiding by Google's guidelines (not selling
text links or doing anything else considered to be black hat) and then
apply for re-inclusion using Google's webmaster tools.This has
happened to me a couple of times over the years and each time the
traffic came back - it wasn't quite as good as when it disappeared but
things seemed to right themselves.
Further Reading: Search Engine Optimization for Bloggers
5. Poor Quality Posts
Of course another factor to consider when looking at the traffic to
your blog is whether you're actually building a valuable site for
readers and producing high quality, engaging and useful content.
This one can be a little confronting to think through and might take
you getting an outsiders critique or feedback (sometimes it's hard to
be objective about something you've put so much work into). As I look
back on my own blogging I know there have been definite times where
traffic has suffered when I've struggled for inspiration as a blogger
and where this has impacted the quality of what I was able to write.
On the flip side there have been times where I've been inspired to
write series of posts that have connected with readers and helped them
in practical ways which has driven a lot of traffic to my sites.
What to Do: Ask yourself (and others around you):
Are You Being Relevant and Useful to Readers?
Is your blog helping your readers by providing them with value,
solving their problems, entertaining them or giving them a sense of
community?
If the answer is no then it is likely to impact the number of people reading it.
Further Reading: How to Write Great Blog Content
6. Promotional Activities
As I look at some of the rises and falls in traffic to my blogs I know
that some of them can be directly tied to my own marketing and
promotion of my blogs (or the lack of promotion that I've done).
Writing great content doesn't guarantee a blog's success. You can't
just build it and expect that 'they will come'. Sometimes you need to
get out there and promote yourself.
Perhaps the lull in traffic on your own blog is partly to do with
taking your foot off the accelerator in your own marketing.
What to Do: This means different things for different blogs but could
include investing into social media sites like Twitter, promoting your
posts to other bloggers, networking with other bloggers, running a
competition on your blog, leaving comments on other blogs and forums,
guest posting on other sites, doing promotions in main stream media,
doing some giveaways….. etc
Further Reading: How to Find Readers for Your Blog.
Keep Moving Forward - Don't Give Up
There are many other potential factors that could be at play (I invite
you to share others below) but the key is to not be paralyzed by the
declines and plateaus in traffic that you experience but to spend a
little time trying to identify the reasons and then keep on motoring
on with your blog.
You can see from the first chart above that my photography blog has
had quite a few months where traffic has plateaued and dipped - but
I've kept to the vision that I have for the site and continued to keep
working. A decrease in traffic from one month to the next is not
pleasant but it's not the end of your blog. If I'd allowed the dips to
determine whether I'd keep blogging or not I'd probably have lasted
2-3 months on that blog and failed to see it grow to the point that it
has.
Post from: Blog Tips at ProBlogger.
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