How To Get A High-Traffic Blog, Even If Youre Blogging Solo

How To Get A High-Traffic Blog, Even If Youre Blogging Solo Ive been solo blogging for over 12 years. I have seen the enemy. It is us. Yeah, I have come face-to-face with a few challenges in that time. And yes, you  are absolutely going to recognize these three core problems: Random and irregular publishing.  What to publish? When? Why? Whee. Publishing something worth reading. Havent published in a few weeks.  This crappy post will have to do. Letting other people know I just published something. Only my mother has commented on my post. No one is reading! You could say the same for team blogs, too, except with a team blog you have others to help publish, edit, designblame. When its just you, you have to make it all happen on your own. How Solo Bloggers Can Publish More Regularly Random and sporadic publishing results in much less traffic than you could have if you published more reliably (and more often). Have a look at this bar graph from seven days of traffic on my own blog. Which day do you think I published a blog post? Its not a huge difference, but it is a noticeable one. When you blog, more people come and read. You have to publish to get visitors.All the drafts, ideas, or SEO magic in the world wont help you if you do not publish blog posts.  Blogger Kevin Duncan recently (and humorously) shared his findings  on what happened when he blogged every day. What did he discover? No surprises here. He found that by publishing on his blog daily, he had: An 84% increase in the social shares of his blog posts. A 119% increase in comments on his content. A steady bounce rate (meaning he didnt trade low traffic for more visitors that left quickly) A 46% increase in traffic in general. Heck, publishing every day must be the solution! Maybe twice a day! Noooo. A team blog might be able to publish every day, but thats asking a lot of a solo blogger, particularly if youre really into long-form content. Maybe youre a real whiz kid, and you can pull it off, but most of us cant keep that kind of publishing schedule up on a regular basis, particularly if you have a full-time job or freelance clients to attend to. So no. This isnt an admonition to blog every day.  Please, lets not mistake the problem of  haphazard publishing with one demanding daily publishing. At the end of Duncans experiment, despite the increase in traffic and shares, he realized that kind of schedule was too demanding on him, and that it left him little time to promote or build social proof.  It is possible to publish regularlyonce a week. Or twice a week. In fact, regular publishing has no numerical definition. It just has two qualities that need to be met: 1. You publish on a regular schedule so people know what to expect. Do I know who my audience is? (distracted and want something new every few days vs. reading once a week is fine) Do I know what is expected or typical of my niche? (breaking news every hour vs. nothing changes in a decade) Have I created categories that I can regularly write on? (giving each category equal attention) 2. You publish on a regular schedule so you dont find yourself forgetting to publish. How much time do I have to create new content? (get a calendar, look at the clock, and do the math) How many words can I handle per post? (sit down, write a few posts without fussing, and see what your typical word count seems to be) Do I have a list of headlines ready to go? Have I brainstormed ideas before hand? (planning ahead is hard if you dont have anything to work with to put on your calendar) Regular publishing is for your audience and for you. The first is for building trust, and the latter is for building a habit. Planning to get things done is not the same as planning HOW  to get things done. How can help: is an editorial calendar, and editorial calendars are a fantastic way to set up this kind of regular blogging. You have to make the decision on how often youll blog and what about, but you can use an editorial calendar to help you make it happen. has features that seem geared towards teams, but I use them as a solo blogger with great effect when planning. For this stage, where Im laying out the plan to help me publish regularly, I use s tasks. They serve as reminders of things I need to do for each posts. I get email reminders and can track them in my account. Whichever tools you decide to use, an editorial calendar will help. Weve created a free comprehensive guide on how to use an editorial calendarwith printable starter sheetsand it works great for solo bloggers! How Solo Bloggers Can Publish  Something Worth Reading Pursuing great content is like pursuing the golden fleece. It is fraught with disagreement and terror. 1. Define what is worth reading. You're going to be frustrated if you don't know what you consider great content. Great content isn't what everyone else is doing, and frankly, great content isn't necessarily what gets shared the most on social media (headlines have a huge part in that). If you aren't into data or don't care for scientific research, don't go chasing after posts with headlines like "How To Choose The Best Diaper, Backed By Science." Determining this is similar to writing a mission statement for your blog. For my blog, I set up a rubric that goes something like this: Does it help or hurt people? Does it encourage or discourage people? (Sometimes helpful content, depending on how it is relayed, can be discouraging.) Will people feel something after having read it? (laugh, thoughtful, sad, etc.) Have I written the best I am able to at this moment? (I might be embarrassed a year from now, but I shouldn't be embarrassed now.) Is it original to the best of my ability? (i.e. not purposefully aping other bloggers) Is it somehow a part of my larger story? (for a personal blog, this is fairly easy) Am I being overly sensational or making linkbait? (after awhile, you'll get backlash) Come up with your own rubric. Define what you think is good writing for you and your niche. 2. Do good writing. The mechanics of your writing should be top notch. Your research (if it applies to your style of post) should be impeccable and from good sources. You should take the time to proof and edit your posts as best you can, even though you don't have a proofreader. You should be familiar with writing techniques, like storytelling or journalism, as best you can. 3. Don't forget the extras. Once the writing is in place, you have the extras, like graphics and photos. Because you don't have a team designer, you need to find a way to create images for your posts on your own. Use apps geared for non-designers and create graphics for your posts. Rethink how you use stock imagery and consider coming up with viable alternatives. How can help:  The comments section of each post works great with teams, but it's also fantastic for solo bloggers. I use it to store research, links, images, and ideas for posts. Often, post ideas come to me in a rush and while I don't have the time to write a full draft, I can at least write down the gist of the idea. I put it in the comments section, and whenever I decide to write the post, I have a strong foundation to build on. How Solo Bloggers Can Get An Audience You can publish regularly, and you can publish Pulitzer quality material, but you're not out of the woods yet. Merely publishing is only 1/3 of the solo blogging story. Search engines and the whims of fate and the kindness of your mom might bring some readers to your site, but it's not bringing in as many as you could be. The truth is that regular publishing brings more traffic, but that's often because we publicize our new blog posts on social media and that brings in traffic. This is why you don't have to blog every day, but you must promote every day.