May 25

Written by:
2011/05/25 10:55 AM 

 

Much has been written about blog post frequency. How many times you should post an article to your blog a day,week, or month. Does it actually affect your traffic?

Is there a definitive answer? In other words if I have a high post frequency, say 7 times a week, will that bring me significantly more traffic than if I have a low post frequency, say once a week? Will that result in less traffic to my blog?

So I tried a little experiment. Not entirely scientific, but I can at least make some valuable assumptions from the results.

The Experiment

My work load changed dramatically over the last few months. I have my fingers in too many pies. Got about four major programming projects on the go at the same time.

As a result my blog frequency has dropped. I have tried in the past to keep up a five post per week frequency. But now it has dropped down to about two posts per week.

I was afraid that this would severely impact the traffic to my blog. So I decided to monitor it. Look at the results and let you guys and gals know.

I was a bit surprised.

Alexa – First off I thought that I was losing significant traffic because my Alexa ranking was dropping on a weekly basis. It seemed that I had actually lost about 30%-35% traffic.

Google Analytics – Surprisingly Google Analytics shows a very different story. The results showed that I was roughly the same as compared to last month. Up 1.4% on visits. Down 3.8% page views.

As compared over the last four months my blog was up by 23.6% visits. But down 38% page views.

Compared to the same time last year.  My blog traffic was up by 32% on visits, but down by 38% on page views.

Also, it seems that one needs to trust Google analytics rather than Alexa. After all Alexa is driven by the amount of users that use the Alexa tool bar and visit your site. So Alexa is not a true reflection.

Conclusions

To me the numbers don’t show that I have lost any significant traffic. Why is this?

Well, further investigation shows that I get a huge amount of traffic from search engines. Around 70% from search engines. I only get about 15% from direct traffic, and about the same, 15% from referral sites.

The traffic numbers seem to confirm this. I have about 850 blog posts up on my blog. So my article stock is enough to give the search engines something to look for.

I have tried to write sensible, meaty, quality articles. With attention to good SEO. I have tried to write articles that I would like to read myself, and articles that I believe answer reader’s questions.

As a result, the search engines prove that people are finding articles that they want to read.

Does this work for every one? I don't know.

First, I am a big believer in a high post frequency. Especially in the beginning as you build up your blog post stock

Second, I believe in writing for your reader's and not the search engines. If your readers expect a higher post frequency, then I am of the belief that it is them that need to be satisfied and not Google.

I also understand that every circumstance is different. Some cannot keep a high post frequency. Does this affect traffic?

In my unscientific results it seems it does not. Especially if you have a significant article stock and if your blog receives a significant amount of traffic from search engines as apposed to other sources.

Your thoughts

So what do you think? What is your post frequency like? Has your post frequency changed at all, and if so how has that affected your traffic? Has it increased, decreased or stayed the same.

Do you agree or disagree with my findings?

What are your thoughts? Please let me and our readers know in the comments below. I’m waiting to read what you have to say!

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