September 2, 2010 90 Comments

One Big Traffic Secret

Vintage ads collage sheet 1881 free to use

I’ll tell you one thing I know: the more you post, the more traffic you get.

It’s helpful if the stuff you post is worth something. I try hard to make that always the case. Others don’t try as hard, and yet, their traffic climbs when they post more stuff.

You can reply in the comments and tell me that you’d rather put out great stuff once a month, or once a week, or whenever the great stuff mood strikes you. That means you didn’t really read the first sentence of this post.

I’m not saying what you should do. I’m not saying what’s better or worse. I’m not telling you how often to write on your blog.

I’m telling you that there’s a reason why the top blogs on the Internet all post more than five times a day. All of them. It’s surely not because there’s always more than five amazing things to tell you every day.

But it’s 100% related to traffic and what we’ve observed by posting more.

Even now, while I’m writing these posts about six days ahead of when they go live, I’ve got two a day ready to go. Maybe when I get better at it, I’ll give you three or four amazing things to think about. Not likely. In a new project, I’ll have more than one writer, which will help.

My story still stands: the more you post (provided it’s reasonably useful), the more traffic you get.

Related posts:

  1. How to Grow Traffic to Your Blog
  2. Turn Twitter’s Follow Friday in Blog Traffic
  3. Traffic Tree
  4. Abe Lincoln’s Productivity Secret
  5. The Secret Fight Club

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  • http://www.socialcubix.com/services/facebook-connect Facebook Connect Integration

    Exactly. If you have a large following of readers, then I must suggest you should write daily! Writing quality content will always drive traffic at your blog but on the other hand, quantity is also a big factor, as I mentioned if you have a large fan following. I guess its really an intriguing function for bloggers to manage their audience and keep them happy! :)

    Loved the vintage picture, Chris :)

    Cheers,
    -Desmond!

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  • Andrew Richards098

    One other thing I would add would be consistency.If you have a core group of readers who expect a post once a day or several times a day then periods of no new content that last for several days may have them looking elsewhere.

  • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

    I could :)

    Unless you’re a very gifted writer, it’s hard to write compelling, unique content that brings in REPEAT traffic. Why Repeat? Because repeat visitors are more likely to buy your products that those who come once and never return, which may be the case if you write lots of short articles that don’t generate the ‘tribe’ element necessary to make your site stand out.

    It’s been said that long posts tend to have less comments, whereas shorter ones have more interaction.

    One way to interpret this that the effort to read long articles requires us to digest the material for a while… but by then we have moved on to other sites.

    But with shorter ones, it’s easier to respond with an immediate reply, though many comments echo each other and simply repeat what’s already been said.

    From a SEO or traffic perspective, it does seem that short posts work best.

    But… it’s like getting visitors from DIGG or SU. They come and they leave, whereas I feel with longer posts they are more likely to stick around and eventually buy your products.

    Glenn over on ViperChill discussed this at length a while back and analyzed the word count of CopyBlogger, ProBlogger and a few others. Worth reading if you want an alternative view.

  • Editor

    My story still stands: the more you post (provided it’s reasonably useful), the more traffic you get. – Agreed

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    Are you posting for comments?

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    You can promote whichever you want. Doing it differently each time helps with your fear of bugging your regulars.

  • http://chrisbrogan.com Chris Brogan

    That’s the part that I screw up. Heck, I don’t know what you’re doing with them. : )

  • http://www.webhostinglogic.com/web-marketing/web-marketing-home.html Seo Guru

    It is common knowledge that the more articles you have on your blog, the more your blog get indexed by search engines. The more your blog get indexed, the more search keywords your blog have, the more traffic you may get from those search keywords. That is as simple as that.

  • http://www.slymarketing.com Jens P. Berget

    Hmm, you’ve got a point (as usual). The main reason I’m posting is not comments, it’s just great to get feedback. I guess I should think about why I’m writing.

    Thanks.

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  • http://twitter.com/joewaters Joe Waters

    You ever hear this story about Columbus, Chris?

    He’s in the court of Spain and takes out a hard boiled egg and challenges the King to stand it up on its end, so it’s standing vertically.

    The king tries and tries but he can’t do it.

    Columbus takes the eggs smashes the bottom into the table and, presto, the egg stands straight up.

    Not impressed, the king says, “Well, that’s obvious.”

    “It is obvious,” replies Columbus, “but only when I show it to you.”

    Common sense sounds very simple, but is very hard for most people. :)

  • http://www.ppcsoft.com/blog Atle Iversen

    “My story still stands: the more you post (provided it’s reasonably useful), the more traffic you get.”

    This is key:
    “(provided it’s reasonably useful)”

    The more posts you have that are *not* reasonably useful, the bigger the chance for unsubscribing and losing users…

    And of course, there is a limit where you reach information overload….for example, I usually skim through the comments to see if anyone has posted the same as I wanted to say, but as of this writing there are 57 comments here, and that’s too many to bother to read (sorry !)

    Nice article :-) !

  • http://www.ppcsoft.com/blog Atle Iversen

    “My story still stands: the more you post (provided it’s reasonably useful), the more traffic you get.”

    This is key:
    “(provided it’s reasonably useful)”

    The more posts you have that are *not* reasonably useful, the bigger the chance for unsubscribing and losing users…

    And of course, there is a limit where you reach information overload….for example, I usually skim through the comments to see if anyone has posted the same as I wanted to say, but as of this writing there are 57 comments here, and that’s too many to bother to read (sorry !)

    Nice article :-) !

  • http://twitter.com/tikitravel Kimberly Juchnowski

    Outsource the articles.

  • http://twitter.com/tikitravel Kimberly Juchnowski

    You are saying you can argue what was said in the article, but you are talking about the length of posts. The above is talking about quality and frequency, there is nothing mentioned about length. So really you’re starting a new discussion, not arguing what was already said.

  • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

    Not really just adding to what CB said on the 2nd. You read this right?

    “Keep your posts brief (unless you want tons and tons of bookmarks). People don’t have all day to read. If you can keep your posts between 250-500 words, that’s in alignment with most people’s attention spans.”

    • http://twitter.com/tikitravel Kimberly Juchnowski

      Sorry I am confused. I though you originally replied to my comment saying “I could:) [argue this one]“. But I guess what you were really saying was “I could:) [add to this one]“

      • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

        I think we’re stick in some Matrix ): I guess I was saying it’s ‘horses for courses’. Glenn over on Viper Chill gives a great breakdown of short v long articles and which generate the best returns. Not saying he’s right it’s worth a read. Enjoy your travels, site looks good!

      • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

        I think we’re stick in some Matrix ): I guess I was saying it’s ‘horses for courses’. Glenn over on Viper Chill gives a great breakdown of short v long articles and which generate the best returns. Not saying he’s right it’s worth a read. Enjoy your travels, site looks good!

        • http://twitter.com/tikitravel Kimberly Juchnowski

          Hey thanks Ivan:) I’m diggin’ ViperChill, seems to be a lot of great info that I can learn from. And thanks, I can’t wait to get away soon!

          • http://www.ivanwalsh.com Ivan Walsh

            and once you finish with VC, you MUST read Quick Sprout with Neil Patel! happy trails:)

  • http://yoursalesplaybook.com paulcastain

    Yep. Great point Chris!
    Much appreciated!

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  • http://flavors.me/40deuce 40deuce

    I wouldn’t do that.
    All my blogs I just do for fun. I make no money from any of them, I just like to write. I just need a way to get myself writing more.

  • http://www.copyblogger.com Brian Clark

    You’re doing just fine Mr. Brogan. And we both know we have each other on speed dial when we have questions. ;-)

  • Anonymous

    Chris,
    kinda coming around to your way of thinking. For all the effort I put into lengthy opinion pieces, the short, useful articles that I share (like a solution to an obscure technical problem) bring in about as much traffic. In fact its the second kind of post that brings in more traffic really.

    I am small scale, but I do like writing.

  • Anonymous

    Chris,
    kinda coming around to your way of thinking. For all the effort I put into lengthy opinion pieces, the short, useful articles that I share (like a solution to an obscure technical problem) bring in about as much traffic. In fact its the second kind of post that brings in more traffic really.

    I am small scale, but I do like writing.

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  • http://www.facebook.com/maryeulrich Mary E. Ulrich

    Okay, you win–off to post.

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  • http://www.blackfridayplanet.com/ William Hushburn

    It’s really helpful to post something in your blog as real as possible.

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  • scholarships for women

    More than one people may have the same thinking at a time, about a topic or idea, so better check before posting if a similar post or two have been contributed by few other people already, or not.

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