Here are a few things I’ve learned watching my numbers.
Why Posting Frequency Doesn’t Matter
It’s more important to have weekly posts with keywords, than daily posts without. I accidentally discovered some rare keyword combos, and the traffic flows to these old posts, no matter how much new stuff I put up. I posted nearly every day in April, not focusing on keywords, and my hits were low.
A surprising number of hits are coming from search engines. I try to use keyword-rich titles, and Wordpress builds the title into the URL. Killer SEO combo: title + URL.
I’ve had two posts with keyword rich headlines and nearly no content (just pictures) that get daily visits from search engines. Having a great title, even with no content, will people get in the door.
Of course, fancy headlines and crappy content may get people in, but I wouldn’t expect them to come back.
Why Posting Frequency Matters
Unlike my “lesson-oriented” posts, “news” posts would need greater frequency, or else no one will subscribe. Who shops at a store with 10 items? With the exception of In-And-Out Hamburger, not the way to go. However that points to the value of quality; In-And-Out makes one insanely great burger. Is it lunch time yet?
Accumulate good content. Each page has it’s own draw. All these draws add up to greater daily totals.
Increasing frequency could produce more posts with more accidental keywords. See previous section.
Niches
People naturally pigeon hole. At first this seems like a negative, but it is actually a strong positive (assuming you’re in the intended hole). You want people to think of you when they have “that sort” of issue.
I would argue that non-niche blogs can’t become popular. They are too “diluted”. Gotta find a working niche and put quality into it.
In my case the niche is web development. I’m blogging and podcasting on it to stay motivated to keep learning. Constant learning is essential on the web, as “the only constant is change,” and “the best way to learn is to teach.”
My web developer niche may be too general, so I want to focus even more. I’m looking at the Javascript and PHP niches of web development. It’s like focussing on “religion” instead of a single kind of religion. (That religion/development comparison is not far off. Getting a PHP guy and a .Net guy in the same room produces the same tense feelings as a monk and an atheist together.) In fact, not niching in this category could offend both groups, and I’d end up with only professors of religion, and not the more common believer.
When to Post
I haven’t noticed that one time of day or day of week is better for posting than another. Around the world, there is always someone Googling.
As for the podcast, I have a theory that people listen to music podcasts* at work, and talk podcasts during their daily work commutes. What happens on the weekend? That’s when they find podcasts, as they’re connected to their personal computers’ for iPod library syncing. So the weekend might be a good time for podcast marketing. My best download day was a Friday, but I think that happened because I hit a nerve with a certain group, and they were working less and downloading more on Friday.
(*The largest podcast category on Podcast Alley is music.)
Incoming Links, Linking to Myself, Making Friends
While my organic search results are good, I need to get more people linking to me. Until then, I’ll link to myself. Get multiple domains (yours and others’), all with links to the same place.
People hang out everywhere, so I’ll post everywhere. Sometimes I post the same thing in different places. It’s advertising. I use the blog, the podcast, iTunes, Podcast Alley, Digg, StumbleUpon, Twitter, Facebook, Flickr, DeviantArt, Del.icio.us, and whatever else makes sense.
Recently I’ve been using summize.com to find Twitterer’s with similar interests and following them. I see their tweets in the Summize results, I click their profile, I check out there website. They’re told when I’m following, and sometimes they follow back. There you go.
Blogging is awesome for generating organic visits and performs better in that respect than paid ads. My audience may be the type who block ads anyway.
Promotion takes a little time, but I’ve seen it increase my traffic. Watching numbers go up is a thrill, especially if I can help make it happen!
Ultimately I want repeat visitors, subscribers, fans, followers, all that. My special online peeps, er, social network. So come on down! 