I think everyone who has a blog goes through stages in his or her blogging. Inevitably a blogger hits a wall. The inspiration to write disappears and you feel like you don’t really have anything valuable to offer the blogosphere. I hit that wall this past year big time, but over the past couple weeks I’ve been blogging more regularly. Over the past few weeks I’ve learned a few lessons about how blog traffic fluctuates right along with how frequently you write. Here they are.
More posts = More traffic
Take a look at the above graphic. It’s a chart from Google Analytics of the visits to my blog over the past 30 days. See the peak right in the middle? That’s the day I decided to get back into regular blogging and posted three new posts that day. I linked to the posts from my twitter and facebook accounts and traffic jumped. It jumped quite a bit, in fact.
New traffic doesn’t come automatically
You can also see over the week or so that followed there was a drop off again. It lines up perfectly with a fall off of blogging again. For some reason I had thought that my bump in traffic would keep up. It didn’t If you want more readers you have to write more.
Writing about popular topics will generate new traffic
One of the posts I did this past month was about Ed Young, pastor at Fellowship Church, and the news story that the local ABC affiliate ran about his salary. That post generated a comment from a person I’m pretty sure I don’t personally know. Also, my blog is the number seven Google search result for Ed Young salary and number eight for mega churches in Dallas. Those stats won’t really general much long term traffic, I think, but it does show that hot topics, either nationally or locally, will bump your traffic.
Those are just a few things I’ve learned over the past month in blogging. What are some tips you have about generating traffic to your blog? Share in the comments.
You can also find a lot tips in Darren Rowse and Chris Garret‘s great book on blogging ProBlogger. I’ve read it and highly recommend picking one up if you’re interested in becoming a better blogger.
Dirk was one of the only bright spots for Dallas this postseason. He stepped up his game from the regular season, high ankle sprain and all. Unlike last year when Golden State made him a non-factor he imposed his will against the Hornets. He averaged a double-double, scoring 26.8 ppg (up 3.2 compared to the regular season) and grabbing 12 rebounds per game (up 3.4). He also average 42.2 minutes played per game (up 6.2 minutes over the regular season). He won’t be in the discussion of MVP candidates this year, but his performance this series should silence those who are critical of him not being clutch.
Bass played extremely well against his former team. He played 26.6 mins per game (up 6.9 compared to the regular season), shot 96% from the free throw line (only missing one shot), grabbed 6.8 rebounds per game (up 2.4 from the season), and scored 11.6 points per game (up 3.3). He never looked like he gave up on the series, always playing with passion. It looks like the Mavericks might have decent 2nd-tier player in the making.
While Bass and Nowitzki were the lone bright spots throughout the series Jason Terry had his moments. His three point shooting was impressive at times and he was one of the main reasons the Mavs even won one game. He basically gave the Mavs the same performance that he gave them all year, but he didn’t do it the whole series.
Mark Cuban & Co. pulled off the trade for Kidd for a number of reasons, including his experience in big games, playoffs, and his self-described ability as a closer. Those traits did not come out this year. His assists dropped by 2.7 per game (which may have been partly because of the lackluster performance around him). The biggest flaw in the series was his free throw shooting—he shot 62.5% from the line (down 19%) which led to a drop in scoring to only 8.6 ppg (down 1.3 pts). I’m not sure, however, how much of a difference Devin Harris would have made in this series.
The only thing good you can say about Stack’s performance against New Orleans is that he didn’t miss a free throw (5-5). Everything else about his game was terrible. His overall shooting was bad (31.6%) surpassed by atrocious three-point shooting (16.7%) and scoring that most any D-league player could put up (6.2 ppg). Former coach Avery must have had a man-crush on him since he played 20.4 ppg. He had recently been inactive from a groin injury, which may have contributed to his bad performance, but if a player is hurt in a way that it negatively affects his performance he should not be on the floor.
Erick Dampier might has well have taken the series off. He was a liability on defense being unable to contain either West or Chandler. He averaged 4.2 rebounds per game. I cannot adequately express how terrible this stat alone is. Chris Paul, who is a foot shorter than Dampier and plays point guard, averaged 5.6 per game. That’s embarrassing, but it doesn’t stop there. He shot 41.2%, which may not look bad at first but it is 23.1% worse than he shot during the regular season. It’s also bad when you consider that his shots are typically 5-7 feet from the basket. To top it off, Dampier shot 40% from the free throw line. That’s very Shaq-like. This makes me wonder if Mark Cuban ever regrets not offering Steve Nash the money that he ended up offering Dampier???
This postseason went up in smoke for Howard. His career is starting to look half-baked. Ok, now that’s out of the way, Howard was terrible on and off the court in the playoffs. First, he voluntarily admitted that he smokes pot during the offseason on ESPN Radio about five hours before game three. He passed out flyers about his birthday party to his teammates after game four and reportedly the partly lasted into the wee hours of the night after Sunday’s loss. On the court he wasn’t good either. He shot 29.2% from the floor, 10% from behind the three point line (I might be able to make one of ten shots from there), and his scoring dropped by 7.3 ppg compared to the regular season. All of this leads to one inevitable fact: Howard should be traded. It’s unlikely that the Mavs will get comprabile talent back for him, but it’s looking like he has become a poison to the team.