When I first began blogging, I quickly learned the value of jotting down things as they hit me. So many times I’d think I’d be able to remember what I was going to blog or what links and resources I’d read that sparked an idea only to find that when I had the time to sit down all those things had long since been part of a brain flush. So I began to write a new post with a title at the minimum and hopefully a few trigger thoughts and/or links that had inspired the idea in the body so when I came back later I’d get the necessary memory triggers to finish it. This has worked really well for me. I share this with you because this post’s topic has been in my dashboard for articles for a year now. It is by far the oldest and sits alone as an article topic that has been floating around in my head for a great deal of time. My point is that I’ve put a dang lot of thought into it.

I came into the blogging world at the continued request of my husband who was already a blogger. Timing is a critical element to this topic of blog traffic for me because at the time my husband’s blog was experiencing amazing growth. It was also a time when he was at his peak in experimenting with new ways to drive traffic to his blog. Having waited for a year to finish this article I have what I consider even MORE meaningful information about the impact of all this discussion on traffic.

Let’s start with a quick review of my husband’s blog to introduce the ideas I want to share. First, he began his blog for the purpose of promoting his new book - his first fictional novel. The goal was to network and create a platform that would enable him to get his book published. He has a techy background so he experimented a lot with a lot of different things. But here’s what’s the most interesting to me.

He started his blog in September and by January his daily traffic began its first major upswing:

I don’t know about you, but I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around that type of traffic. Let alone the next spike which came about 4 months later:

This was about the pinnacle or peak of his blog. As a blogger who gets excited about my daily views getting up into the hundreds, getting 330,000 page views a day and a million hits would be like an out of body experience for me. By any standard, I think it’s fair to say that my husband experienced amazing success driving traffic to his site within only an 8-9 month period. (If you’d like to read more about how did what he did and his experiments just do a search on his blog for traffic. These are some of the ones I think are the best: Overview, Bad Traffic to Promote Good Book.)

What I find most interesting is this information compared with today. Shortly after I began blogging he started spending more time on his gadgets and less on blogging. Today he still puts up an occasional article but his blog traffic is back down to something like 50-100 page views a day. And very little has changed. That’s right, it ended up being traffic for the sake of traffic.

So here’s Lesson #1: A lot of traffic to your blog or site doesn’t by itself equate to added value or meaning. My husband’s experience proves it. He didn’t experience an influx or increase of ad revenue even at the peak of his traffic run. In fact, all that wonderful traffic and those awesome statistics weren’t readership oriented. So the key here is MEANINGFUL traffic, not just traffic. Which takes us to the next lesson.

Lesson #2: Focused content with relevant traffic - albeit slower, more painful and gradual - equates to both higher revenue from ads as well as increased readership. When my husband segmented out his sites, he found that both his Globe Trackr, and Instant Gadgets sites have increased in ad revenue as well as meaningful traffic. It has been slower but steady and it is still on the increase. Why? Because the people who visit those sites are there for that very reason. And guess what? These visitors click on relevant ads! And your ads are much more likely to be relevant if your content is consistent and focused.

Lesson #3: Consistency counts. You can try multiple techniques and tools to generate traffic, but at the end of the day what will convert to meaningful results is your level of consistency. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t include integrity in this equation it’s because consistency requires genuine interest and involvement to remain consistent.

So what I’m finding is that the reason you blog remains at the top of the list for finding success with it. Staying on top of the networking loop regarding your writings is part of a process that needs to remain as consistent as your writing if you want return/reciprocal readers and commentary. And this article has some great tips on how to do that. This falls into the old marketing truth that word of mouth advertising is by far the most effective even if it is harder to come by, slower and smaller by comparison to other marketing techniques.

I continue to keep my fingers out there on a few social networking sites, e-mail groups and collaborative writing projects to constantly seek out new opportunities to connect with others. But I don’t believe there’s a magic portal that will equate to instant blog success - even if it results in increased traffic, ratings and the like. Unfortunately, that ticket was taken by the first bloggers to hit the scene because they got here first and have been doing it longer. And if you’ve been blogging for very long at all you know it’s very difficult to compete with longevity regardless of how awesome your blog or articles are. Besides that, if you’re like me you’re already shuffling several daily tasks and jobs around blogging so it’s not like I can keep adding more and more to my already full plate. Therefore, it doesn’t make sense for me to try to compete with people who do nothing but blog or promote their sites full time - my superwoman cape is already threadbare. *wink* And if you haven’t noticed, the systems are constantly changing and evolving as the blogging world and Internet grow and develop. Technorati had a ranking system yesterday, an authority ranking today and who knows what they’ll have tomorrow. So investing a lot of time in those systems probably isn’t the best use of my time.

The real question you have to ask yourself is what do you need to do or see to feel that your blog is fulfilling and satisfying? That means you:

• First, define why you’re blogging. It’s easy to blog for the sake of blogging, quite another thing to remain focused and blog for a singular focus.
• Consistently and regularly share articles on your focused topic. Even if your topic covers multiple areas it needs to fit under one umbrella and you need to make that clear and easy to identify.
• Remember why you blog. As you roam the blogosphere it’s very easy to get distracted from the diversity. The point is to add your uniqueness not try to duplicate what’s already out there.
• Keep it in perspective. This is only one aspect of things that you do every day! Keep it that way and you’ll save your sanity and happiness.
• Keep it simple, keep it fun. The moment what you’re working on stops becoming enjoyable you’ve lost a critical element of success. Don’t try to divide yourself a thousand ways, keep things as focused and simple as possible and the fun will find its way to you because you’re making room for it.

Traffic is fun, but it’s meaningless unless it’s relevant and readership based. If you spend a lot of time or energy focusing on it you will likely end up a little disappointed. I suggest using that energy on the things you have control over and that help you feel happy and successful. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder…well maybe there’s a cross over there for blogging.

My next article will be a continuation of these thoughts. More specifically it’s going to be how I’ve decided to implement these findings and lessons in my own blog. And as you may have already guessed, it’s something I’ve been thinking about for a long time and I’m pretty excited about. Now I just hope to find those necessary minutes to get it written. *giggle*

I’m sure that many of you have some great insights and lessons learned in your experience with blogging and increasing traffic. So please, share those thoughts with the rest of us!

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