Maintaining Good Hits?

[bwakeling]

Hi all,

My blog has been online since 31st Jan and has had 2,600 hits so far - no idea if that's the norm or better, but I seem to spend hours every night just getting my name out there so I can get a few more views.

I don't mind working hard, and realise this is a requirement, but am looking for a good way to get a secure daily hit rate without having to send out Tweets every two mins.

Any ideas?

[ChickenFreak]

My first thought is to increase the frequency of your posting. You're posting roughly once a week, and I'd guess that your established visitors know that, so they're not going to show up more than once a week. (Or when their RSS feed shows a new post.) To get them to show up more often, you probably need to give them more new posts.

Now, I realize that your posts are substantial, so it may not be possible to post something of that length and that quality more often. Can you come up with a shorter, bite-sized-post series to increase your frequency, one that still fits the blog? "Pregnancy Lesson Of The Day", or something? (That's not a great title, but you get the idea.)

More frequent posts might also help your Google hits - I find that I seem to get a Google "bounce" shortly after a post, one that fades within hours.

Then, there's the "comment on other blogs" theory. I'd recommend commenting on pregnancy blogs, mommy blogs, writers' blogs, and so on. Oh, and daddy blogs - I just Googled to see if there's such a thing, and apparently the answer is yes.

Have you tried link exchanges? I don't know if the mommy/daddy blogs would be interested in including your blog in their blogroll, or if you'd be willing to reciprocate by including theirs in yours, but it's something to think about.

[Melody]

Originally Posted by bwakeling

Hi all,

My blog has been online since 31st Jan and has had 2,600 hits so far - no idea if that's the norm or better, but I seem to spend hours every night just getting my name out there so I can get a few more views.

I don't mind working hard, and realise this is a requirement, but am looking for a good way to get a secure daily hit rate without having to send out Tweets every two mins.

Any ideas?

Well I'm not sure if by hits you mean visitors, absolute unique visitors, or page views. I'm going to guess it's visitors.

The one thing I notice right off the bat is that you've got a lot of great conversation going on your blog. You have blog posts with double digit comments.

It doesn't take a lot of traffic to create good conversation, it just takes some quality people who like to come back often.

One thing about blog comment conversation is that if it is obvious with a quick glance that there is some interesting comment conversation going on, you may get people come to your blog just for that.

But your blog doesn't highlight the good visual clues of comments. You don't have any most recent comment widget, rather on the side of your blog you just click on "comments" - This may sound like a little thing but I bet you'd do well to find a way to highlight your comments without requiring readers to click through - then you'll get people coming back for each other during the times that you're not posting content.

My blog, like yours, is all about content, no ads, and has a lot comment conversation: Check out how I display the comments on the right side column of the blog.

That's just one strategy you might want to take.

My blog traffic tends to die off after about 2 days, sometimes 3, of no new content. You're only updating your blog once per week as Chicken_Freak already commented. Not sure if there is anyway for that to be more frequent, but that's an idea too.

Hope that helps!

[Salaam - Mac815]

Hey everyone, I update my blog around 2 or 3 times a week, is this a good amount to get regular visitors?

thanks

salaam

[knubbl]

The best strategy that works for me is commenting. I have a certain number of blogs I visit every day to check if they have posted something new. If I find the article interesting I will comment on it. Again the key here is to leave valuable comments. Not just comments for the sake of commenting but comments that add value to the conversation.

I can also recommend using Twitter. It's a great way to get to know new people and to promote your blog. I would recommend that you follow a number of people that are in your niche and are interested in your topic.

Btw. blogging takes time. It's hard to create a popular blog fast.

[bwakeling]

Thanks guys, great advice as always. I've added the comments widget!

[freedombreather]

I have seen that it really matters where you post other comments on other people's blogs. Try going to very popular blogs that coincide with your specific niche and focus your "commenting" there because you will get much more visibility.

Also, I noticed an interesting approach one guy took. I think his name was Jon. He had his friend (who happened to own a very popular decorating blog) feature Jon's new blog on one of his posts. Lucky Jon got a ton of new loyal followers almost immediately. I am sure you could do this in exchange with some other blog owner by offering them money or a free product/service. Good luck!

[Inspirational Blogger]

If you haven't yet, simply submitting some articles to places like ezine can help you get traffic. You have really long posts already so they are probably almost articles already.

[Captured Ink]

Originally Posted by Inspirational Blogger

If you haven't yet, simply submitting some articles to places like ezine can help you get traffic. You have really long posts already so they are probably almost articles already.

Hi there,

I agree with this and also submit your blog to blog directories. Also have you submitted a sitemap to the big three search engines?