Impact of Media on Blog Visits
It’s been tough for me lately to focus on my digital marketing life. Between the holidays and everything in between, there has not been much time to dive into my interests. Knowing this, I had to cringe when I looked at the number of visitors to my blog. Over the last few weeks, the number had greatly decreased. Even worse, the number had decreased substantially over the last year, when I’ve invested less and less time into content and media surrounding my blog.
Let’s take a look at a few ways the number of visitors to my blog was impacted. I’m sure many bloggers and site owners run into the same issues, and I’m hoping these can help.
One of the main drivers I use to my blog is Twitter. By tweeting out links to articles I’ve written on my blog, I’m able to drive visitors to my content. Depending on the social engagement I receive, and the quality of traffic, my visits can be greatly impacted. Some days, I have tweets retweeted by a user with hundreds of thousands of followers, and this shows up in my traffic, with visits up to 500% higher than a typical day. Additionally, some visitors dive into additional content besides the link they clicked on.
I stopped tweeting after the holidays and through January. You can easily see the drop in weekly visitors during this time. I’ve since begun tweeting again at the beginning of February, and visits have been substantially higher.
The learning here: Twitter (and other social networks) can be used to drive traffic to your blog. To do so, you actually must be Tweeting!
Visits were greatly impacted based on Tweets
Visits have seen a dramatic change
We’ll use the above graph for the next three learnings.
Content
A year ago, I was heavily invested in content, developing new articles at least twice a week. The past few months (essentially since moving to Chicago), the content I’ve created has drastically dropped. The impact of this is substantial. You can clearly see in the graph above just how much lower the number of visits my blog received is.
The key learning: bloggers must always be creating content. Without it, users have no reason to go to your blog.
Shared Expertise
Not only was I developing more content, I was sharing it with other bloggers and commenting on other articles with my ideas and links to my blog. The result? An increased number of visitors. On a hot topic article (like JCPenney), I was able to see traffic increase at least 300% day over day when I shared my JCPenney article as a comment on another JCPenney article. I was even able to grow followers on WordPress and other sites (such as Business Insider).
The key learning: Share your content directly with users who would find it interesting. I found great success commenting on articles on sites like Business Insider. Users following the comments sections of those sites are extremely active in the space, and willing and excited to gather feedback from others. The result is a great way to share ideas and grow your blog’s exposure.
Guest Articles
Once you get a following, you can be offered guest article opportunities. I was able to get published on several sites with hot topic articles because of connecting with new people. This gives you increased professional exposure and blog visitors. I wrote most of my guest articles late 2012/early 2013, around the same time I saw a huge influx in traffic on my blog.
The key learning: Take up any opportunity you can to guest blog. You’ll be able to grow your following, meet new people, and see your site traffic grow.
-Bryan Nagy
