My Traffic Has Fallen and It Won’t Get Up
Generating traffic to your blog is one of the most important goals for most bloggers. If there is no traffic, then your possibility of making money is dismal, to say the least.
Oftentimes when traffic falls and never gets up, disappointment and frustration sets in, sometimes resulting in the blogger closing the blog. If you are a serious blogger and are passionate about your niche, then when the tough times come, you’ll find a way to make things happen.
Last year, I can’t tell you the month, my Alexa Ranking had dropped to 78K. You know I was a happy camper, but something happened. I could say that I don’t know what happened, but the truth is that my traffic plummeted and it’s been an uphill climb ever since.
When you are passionate about the information you share, the downtimes come to make you a stronger and better blogger. It is never the time to give up, because when you are at your lowest, that’s when awesome ideas are born.
Getting Up
Consistent Posting
When your posting schedule is sporadic and has no order, people get confused and stop following you. Make a posting schedule and stick with it as best you can. Your regular readers will appreciate this.
Helpful and Beneficial Content
Focus on publishing information for which people have questions. How do you know what’s helpful and beneficial? Do keyword research, a poll and other things to find out what questions people have, as it relates to your niche.
Comment on other Blogs
Visit blogs in your niche and get involved in the community by commenting and sharing. Don’t just stick with commenting on blogs that are in your niche. You never know who you’ll meet or what opportunities could come your way.
Submit Guest Posts
Finding the time for writing guest posts is an issue for some. How do you find the time? Set aside time each day for writing, not only for your blog, but write posts that you would submit to other sites for guest post consideration.
Network
Networking is a challenge, but something that is a must if you want people to find you. What do you do? Join social media and be active. I’ve realized that it is best to focus on 2 or 3 social media sites, because you never want to spread yourself too thin. There’s only so much of you to go around. Join forums and groups in your niche and take part in the conversation.
Stay Focused
No matter what’s going on, you keep doing what you’re doing. Things will come along to distract you, but you must not let those things get you off your path.
Staying Up
Once you get up, you want to stay up, right? I know I do. Traffic doesn’t stay up by itself. You must keep your routine and rhythm going, no matter what. If you slack, your traffic will fall.
Always remember, sticking with getting up will help you stay up.
Conclusion
Anything worth having is surely worth putting in the time, dedication and hard work. If your traffic has fallen and is getting off to a slow start, change what you’re doing for the better.
Don’t be afraid to make changes and try new things, because you never know what great things lie ahead. Try it and see what happens.
Question: Has your traffic fallen and you’re a little down about it? Don’t stay down for too long, what will you do about it?
Image: David Castillo Dominici / FreeDigitalPhotos.net
Category: Blogging
Twitter: dragonblogger
says:
Staying positive is important, remain optimistic and don’t get discouraged. Honestly, when I fell 60% for 2 months going from 1000 visits per day to 200 per day from June/Aug 2010 I almost thought about quitting. I did some research and found it was relating to testing a new SEO plugin at the time and once I put the AIO SEO Pack back all my traffic came back.
Trends and patterns also cause traffic shifts, my writer wrote Pottermore articles in July/August 2011 that brought over 100,000 visits to my site in the same month, then the traffic faded as the trends became less potent and I slid back to 60k visits per month, this is a 40% drop in traffic but the traffic spikes were to specific articles.
Traffic ebbs and flows, know what patterns produce and try to keep bringing readers interest, finding new things to write about and creating posts with long term traffic building are important. Writing about recent trends that won’t have lasting information 6 months or 12 months from now are guaranteed to bring traffic loss, try to write for near permanency, write articles that solve problems or provide insights that people searching for it will find beneficial 1 year from now, not just at this very moment. I take this approach to as many posts as possible now, while still trying to capture short term trends.
Justin Germino recently posted..Computer Tips: Automatically Shutdown Computer When Temperature Rises
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hey Justin!
Glad to see you!
Thanks for sharing what happened to you. I would have never thought that you considered quitting. Aren’t you glad you stuck with it?
Your tips are very helpful. I don’t think I’ve ever thought about writing lasting information, now that will be something, I will always keep in mind when I write future posts.
Take care,
Evelyn
Twitter: Blognetworking
says:
Hey Evelyn,
Great Tips here!
Yes, you are right. It is important to be consistent with blog posting and at the same time diversify our traffic sources through guest blogging, networking and commenting. I have been spending a lot of time on guest posting these days. And I am seeing the benefits – getting good traffic even though it is just a new blog. I think the most important thing to do is to pace ourselves and distribute our efforts over time (over many sources) so that we will get the most out of our blog posts.
Anyways, thanks for the tips,
Jeevan Jacob John
Jeevanjacobjohn recently posted..How To Promote Your Product Like Google Did – Google Plus?
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hi Jeevan,
That’s great that you’ve been seeing the benefits of guest posting.
You’re so right about pacing ourselves. We can easily get burned out, so pacing ourselves is a must.
Thanks for stopping by!
Evelyn
Twitter: pvariel
says:
Hi Evelyn,
Its really good to hear from you again.
Yes, one need to do a lot of things after publishing the posts. The points mentioned here are worth doing.
I think, posting positive and worth comments in other
blogs attracts traffic to the blogs, promoting tru social web sites are a vital part of it. No doubt it brings good traffic in the course of time. of course you need to have a good circle in these sites.
Thanks for sharing
Best regards
Phil
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hi Phil!
Glad you stopped by!
You’re so right about having a good circle on the social sites. It helps tremendously!
Take care and thanks for chiming in!
EP
Twitter: tekgazet
says:
Traffic keeps fluctuating. But, with good content which is updated regularly, the traffic will pick up again.
Ashok recently posted..How many websites and web pages are there in world?
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hi Ashok,
Yeah, so true!
Content and regular updates are key.
Thanks for stopping by and sharing!
Take care,
Evelyn
Evelyn, you inspire me!
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Awwww….thank you Elle, that means a lot!
Twitter: healthhabits
says:
Stay strong Evelyn…and forget about Alexa. Their numbers for Health Habits are much different than my Google Analytics numbers.
We all get frustrated with the numbers every now and then.
Try to remember when you started the blog…I bet you didn’t worry about numbers then
Doug recently posted..Best Body Workout – 2011 – Week 51 – Day 3
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hey Doug!
I will and thanks for the words of encouragement.
Yep, we do!
You’re right, I rarely checked anything and I was just fine. Guess I need to return to the way I was back when I started this blog.
Thanks so much for stopping by!
Evelyn
Twitter: thompsonland
says:
Evelyn, you do well to keep a good attitude. I hear you on falling in Alexa, but mine was entirely my fault. I essentially fell off the face of the earth. I took a job being busier than I’ve ever been in my life, and my online presence just plummeted. It’s been a battle building it back where it was.
But consistent posting will help. Just make sure you are 100% passionate about your topic and then just keep giving the best content you absolutely have. My wife Kristin had an English teacher last year that REFUSED to give 100% grades on papers. His rule is, “There ARE NO perfect papers.” I think blogging is the same way. We always have more to learn.
And the fact that you’re growing as a blogger will CAUSE your traffic to get better.
In the meantime, feel free to guest post with me! Anytime!
Thanks!
Bryan Thompson recently posted..3 Benefits to Journaling You May Not Be Aware Of
Twitter: thompsonland
says:
By the way, just because I mentioned my wife’s teacher’s policy doesn’t mean I necessarily AGREE with his policy. I edited one of her papers and thought I did a DANG good job! No 100% papers! What a crock!
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
I hear you! At least you know that her papers are A grade no matter if its a 99 or 90.
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hey Bryan!
Having an online presence and being busy will have an affect on our traffic. I’m guilty too.
I think my Alexa ranking falling was my fault too, because I wasn’t posting consistently, not visiting other people’s site and commenting like I was. Plus I get a lot of search engine traffic and I do believe that most of those who land on this site do not have the Alexa toolbar installed, so they’re not being counted. I’m learning now to just ignore that number and keep up with pageviews and visits. There are some sites that have crazy traffic, but their Alexa ranking may not even be a 100K, so in the grand scheme of things, Alexa doesn’t tell the whole story.
Content is really the key..and passion will shine through when we give 100%. Thanks for those words, Bryan..very encouraging!
Yes, I agree…there is always something to learn.
Great, I’d love to guest post on your site. I was trying to line up a few sites to submit guest posts for and now I have one. You are welcome to guest post here too. I’ll send you an invite.
Thank you so much and have a great weekend!
P.S. Is the share button to the left a bother for you, please let me know? I’m testing it out and don’t want readers to be turned off by the buttons floating down the side. The good thing is that you can close it and not see the buttons at all. Anyway, just curious because a fellow blogger wrote a post about it and doesn’t like it, but he didn’t call any names, so I assumed he was referring to me.
Twitter: brownvegan
says:
Excellent post! My favorite part is about keeping your blog updated. Sometimes that can be hard, but sitting down and writing a few posts and scheduling them for a later date helps a lot for me.
Have you ever thought about offering social media/blog help sessions or consulting on the side? I think you would do well and it would be a great service for a “newbie
like me.
Twitter: evelyn_parham
says:
Hi Monique,
Thank you!
It’s great to stay a few posts ahead because it keeps us on top of things. Having the posts already scheduled really helps, because it allows time for networking and the sharing of posts, which helps drive traffic to your blog.
I do offer that, but I haven’t promoted it very much. Time to get busy.
I had a few people interested in me setting up their blogs/sites, but it fell through…oh well. But offering help sessions is something I’ll definitely consider.
You’re doing pretty good over at your blog, keep up the good work. I see your post, I just don’t always have a chance to stop by to leave comments. But do know I see you!
Take care and keep pushing…you never know where it will take you.
Evelyn