You Never Know What’ll Be Popular
By: Keith
I‘ve written a lot of articles this year (over 300). Most of them don’t get very much traffic. A few of them though surprise me and get tons of traffic. I’ve tried to figure out the pattern, but I don’t think there is one. The explanation for why some posts do well and other don’t boils down to a couple of things which are only mildly under my control. The first is that I’m google page rank 4, and that means I can only rank of certain terms. If I were a PR 5 or 6 I’d be ranking on more popular terms and people would see more articles. That will come in time. The second reason for my patchy success is that it’s just hard to predict what people want. It does almost no good to write a post for purely SEO reasons because contrived posts don’t come out naturally, and I’d probably be wrong anyway. It’s best to stick to writing what comes to mind, adjusting on the fly and wait for PR to go up and hope for the best.
A Weird Mix:
When a post like “Baby Products that Don’t Suck” gets 23,000 views it’s time to write a follow up. Baby products are clearly something that people are looking for and writing a follow up article is smart. But then there are posts like “Ex Child Actor Brian Bonsall Looks Like Hell”. How was I supposed to predict 6,400 views on that article? The best I could do there was to write an update about his most recent arrest. I’m not going to write another article about Brian Bonsall. People don’t really want to know; the article became a hit because he had another arrest recently and I showed up in google news. That’s just dumb luck.
Pro Tip #1:
If you really want to get traffic to your dad blog desperately enough you could always load your articles with suggestive terms that draw in internet riff-raff. I wrote an article about a contest I had a few months ago where I gave Pirate’s Booty (the snack food) in exchange for help with my new logo. I didn’t do it on purpose, but you can probably tell what sorts of search terms propelled that post to 11,000 views. Yes, folks, people type “booty” into google a lot more than they do “pirate”. There was one post I wrote that I had so much unwanted traffic that I re-titled and rewrote it so I wouldn’t get so many creeps visiting. It was my article about peeing outside when nature calls. There’s no sense going into details, but I’m glad it’s not in my top 15 anymore. It got almost 6,000 views based solely on people typing in stuff like “kids peeing outside”. That’s when traffic is actually a bad thing.
Seasonal Success:
Can you believe that my 20 easy Halloween costumes article had gotten over 30,000 views? I wrote 5 Halloween articles and that’s the only one that gets views. I didn’t do it just to get hits, and I didn’t think I’d even rank on any relevant terms (I was only PR 2 at the time). But, somehow I snuck in there and the article took off. My Thanksgiving article? Nope. Christmas? Nope. But Halloween, yes.
The Point of This Ramble:
Writing with SEO in mind is unavoidable. We always want our articles to be popular because putting in so much effort for no reward is no fun. But, the reality is that the best blogging plan is to write what comes to mind and is natural and then to review the stats after a while. When something starts to work you can make adjustment and sprinkle in some SEO while continuing to crank out good work.
Related posts:
Think low and cheap for the most amount of traffic.
Mom: Low and cheap. yup. like Dennis said, Vulgar mean “common”. I suppose that’s what happens
I too have given up trying to figure out why some get a lot of hits while other articles don’t. I’ve found that stories involving Mexican hookers seem to do well, but I’m kind of screwed there because I only have two stories involving them and I’ve already blown my wad by publishing both stories. Oh well…
.-= J.R. Reed´s last blog ..Breaking up: “How To” & “How Not To” =-.
Well, JR: I suppose I’m not surprised that your Mexican hooker article generated so much traffic. You could always go back every few months and rewrite portions of the story until you’ve got an ultra steamy penthouse forum thing going!
One of my most popular posts was about gnome names. Weird, huh?
I’ve given up trying to figure out why I have high pageviews but don’t get very many comments. My theory is that because I’m not as free and open with my family’s personal life as some other dad blogs, readers tend not to get attached to me or my posts. I think if I paid too much attention to this stuff it would drive me crazy.
.-= Idaho Dad´s last blog ..The Electric Mayhem =-.
Idaho: I don’t get all that many comments either. I’m a little bit of a recluse so I think that comes out in my writing which can be a little cold sometimes. Like you, I don’t write a lot that reveals personal things. I just haven’t spent enough time on outreach. Something I really hope to get better at as time goes on.
Like you, I’m surprised at what’s popular and what isn’t. So I write what strikes me on any given morning (or in the wee hours, as I am often awake then). But your PR is something to feel great about, Keith! I do realize it is one measure among many that add up to assist with being read (and writers want to be read, after all) – but you’ve done great!
(Hmm. I have my share of experience with boys peeing outside, but I must say, it’s not something I ever thought to write about. Go figure… )
.-= BigLittleWolf´s last blog ..What drives you crazy? =-.
Wolf: Thanks! My PR has been improving slowly, and it’s only a matter of time before I get to 5. I’m just to impatient. Thanks for the compliment!
I am always surprised by what posts generate the most views. My most popular post is one that I wrote about a Somali immigrant who lives in Canada. Although I really liked the post, I think it generated traffic because Somali Pirates were in the news. Here is the link to the post http://www.mochadad.com/2009/10/taxicab-confessions
I suppose I should care more about traffic, but I don’t advertise so not worried about hits. I just want cool dads to come visit and say hey.
SeattleD: Yeah, no advertising sorta makes the whole traffic issue moot, doesn’t it
You’ve got a pretty good community built up so you seem to be accomplishing your goal.
The word “vulgar” is Latin for public or common. That may tell you something about what posts are popular. Sometimes there’s a trade-off being widely popular versus writing true to yourself and being high quality. I like just what you’re doing!