How Post Frequency affects your traffic and ranks?
Ajith | Jul 2009 | Blogging Tips
Today I had a look at my traffic statistics with special focus on the past 9 months window – my usual practice is to track it month on month. A quick glance at the graph revealed that the blog traffic had peaked from October last year through February this year. Further, I took a look at my archives and found that exactly during that peak period I used to post more articles at predictable intervals. The verdict: Increased post frequency = more traffic (at least for established, indexed blogs)!
How is this phenomenon explained?
There are a few reasons why improved post frequency can increase traffic. First of all, more posts mean more pages indexed by the search engines. Moreover, the pace at which the indexing happens is defined by how often a site is updated. More indexed pages usually mean more search traffic.
Secondly, your regular readers (not search or social media visitors) will be more excited and highly likely to visit a blog that is updated at a predictable post frequency than those blogs that get updated sporadically. This holds true for those who are using feed readers to read the content as well.
Traffic rank impact
More frequent posts would mean that more pages to read on each visit. This improves the reach (or number of pages accessed per visit) which in turn increase the traffic rank – essentially Alexa. The other pattern is multiple visits per day from a single reader if there is more than one post per day. In either case, it is good to increase traffic ranks.
Page rank
One of the things that I have noticed during every Page rank update is that blogs that are more frequently updated go up in PR much faster than those infrequently updated ones. In other words, usually the homepage PR drops for those blogs that were not updated for a number of days during the PR update exercise. Of course, there are other parameters like paid links or paid reviews that could affect the rank inversely.
Linear or exponential traffic growth?
In my case when I increased the post frequency from 2 posts to 3 posts a week or so, the traffic actually went up by almost 50%. However, what I get to see on some of the other blogs is that when they switched to a daily-one-post (or even 2-3 posts a day) mode, the traffic went up by several times. This explains how increased post frequency can tremendously improve your traffic
Your opinion?
Do you buy into the above explained theory? Have you seen your traffic sky-rocketing simply because you started posting on daily basis or even 2-3 posts per day?
Happy Blogging!
I have had a similar experience. A month ago I was a lot regular – One post in 48 hours. Though I did the same no. of posts the following month (15 posts), I was irregular.
The Result:
Lesser Comments,
Slower Indexing,
Rate of Growth of RSS Readers was slow,
More no. of email readers un-subscribed an quite a few of them said the reason as “Too many updates”.
Trying to get back to the old schedule now
Arun Basil Lal´s last blog post… How to display images properly on Feed Readers
Is it really matter on how frequent we put up a post within short time. What really matter are the contents.
Sorry, my blog always have short of comments and rss but what matters to me – great contents.
p/s: How long do you plan to blog and what ya’ nature of doing it?
Google loves content …feed it generously
…great post tweeted
ZK@Web Marketing Blog´s last blog post… How to Keep Your Readers on the Edge of their Seats
I think the same behaviour is not necessarily true for blogs that get a large % of traffic from google as google traffic for the post remains unchanged. In such a case the impact is seen with a lag effect.
However for a blog like $shower that must have large number of loyal users, the slower posting rate can have significant impact.
binaryday´s last blog post… My roadmap to blogging success
I agree with even I experienced the same effect.Once I started posting regularly I get consistant traffic.
I agree with you. but, i have defer for Page Rank.
Recently i was saddened because my Page Rank moved from 3 to 2
What could be the reasons? i have not reduced the frequency of posts at all. it is same.. infact increased a bit
Nihar´s last blog post… Download Air Crash Investigations Season 1, 2, 3, 4 Torrents
I tend to agree with you nihar… Though high posting frequency might mean high traffic, but it surely doesn’t ensure high PR. for me, PR is still a mystery
Content is king
Anish K.S´s last blog post… Big FM completes phase II with Shimla station
Nuff said. Useful Content is the king.
Rockstar Sid´s last blog post… How to Show Music Lyrics in YouTube Videos
This is very true. I did not post for a month or so due to various personal engagements and traffic did stop. Now that I’m back to posting on a regular basis the traffic too is up. Nearly tripled in fact…
moserw´s last blog post… Shopping At SPAR, A Unique Experience…
I have observed the same. There would be more traffic on the day i posted.
rahul´s last blog post… New Hero Honda Karizma spied
Ok, Ajith Is this good to post 5-6 posts per day on starts? any one can tell me!
teratips´s last blog post… How to Uninstall/Remove AVG Antivirus Completely from Your PC
Content is still the king.
Absolutely, post frequency definitely affects the traffic. Nevertheless, the quality of the post must be high and make sure this is what your readers want to read. I’ve experienced it before, my traffic probably went down when I just updated my blog once a week. Anyway, I’ve updated my blog 3 times a week now, the traffic has actually gone up.
Regards,
Lee
Make Money Online´s last blog post… The Winner Of Wanted Blog Contest Is…
Absolutely, i also monitor this kind of thing. Frequent update will improve our traffic. Plus with the unique content.
chuckiesd´s last blog post… Buying Info For Canon Photo Printer
I am posting regularly in my blog, once in every two day. My current PR is 2 and I hope Google will not penalize me.
IndianCashMaker´s last blog post… Mistakes New Blogger Commit
Google will penalize you if you haven’t done any illegal action such as selling text link or writing paid post. Once every two days should be ideal. Keep your blog healthy and keep writing great post, your blog PR will not go down but climb up!
Regards,
Lee
Make Money Online´s last blog post… Boost Your Blog Earning With UDB Money Theme
Post frequency matters a lot Ajith..I experience same variation in my traffic.
Last month i didn’t find time to update daily and updated once in 2 or 3 days…But i seen a drastic down in my traffic stats…then decided to update daily and doing that
TechZoomIn´s last blog post… Importance of content for Better SEO..!
I myself due to constraints haven’t posted in about two weeks however traffic to the site is still consistent via backlinks and SE.
Though Yes I have found once I do post traffic for the following 3 days go up by 30-60%.
Donace´s last blog post… Update – Links – Love – 5
It matters a lot. Regular posting also affect the speed at which a page get index. Some months ago i used to post about one post in 48 hours and gradually when i started to post more and more per day like 3 to 4 posts per day i noticed that google indexed the page quicker too. Say about 30 minutes after i post it it is already indexed while on blogs where it is updated less often the amount of time to index new post also is longer.
On a blog like mine which is mostly gossips and news (islandcrisis.net) the speed of getting index matter a lot as something which is in demand right now can be totally off in some hours or the next day.
Kurt Avish´s last blog post… 3 Powerful Tips To Increase Your Blog Comment Ratio
Yes, Posting frequency does affect traffic. There is a direct relationship between posting and traffic.
But, posting frequency does not mean just writing about something to fill up your blog… If you give quality with quantity, it’s the best thing you can do for your blog.
Cheers
Sandeep
Curious Little Person´s last blog post… +2000 Visits, +300 Comments and Miles to go Before I Sleep!
Well, everyone say frequent posting fetch great traffic. I don’t completely agree with this fact. It all depends on type of content and competition too. If you are speaking about regular readers, yes, their traffic might increase as they might want to comment, but not so is the case always – when search engine traffic is considered, only few posts can make it a hit. As my traffic mainly comes from SEs, I don’t feel much a difference in traffic if I post a new article, but sometimes I get peak traffic if the keyword targeted goes hot and I attain better serps.
Also, we should not forget the fact that many mini sites do exist with constant traffic without being updated for a long long time. Competition and hotness of topic matters.
Pavan Kumar´s last blog post… Sunday Pastime #39: SDLC – Software Development Life Cycle Model
high frequency of posting ensures better indexing frequency. for me, google indexes the minute i publish my blog post. i am sure its the case of other established sites as well. other than that even I dont see any difference wrt traffic
Raju´s last blog post… PC Tools AntiVirus 6 Free Edition – Direct Download Link
Trying my best to keep blog updated but lazyness is a bad factor :p
Mayank´s last blog post… Which category do you fit in?
While traffic often goes up as posting frequency goes up I’m not convinced posting frequency directly affects PageRank.
I have a site that has bounced between PR4 & PR5. Inbound link quantity & quality have had a much bigger impact than my posting frequency. It’s not uncommon for me to post as infrequent as once a month on that site and still maintain decent PR.
Chris Cree´s last blog post… What is Social Media?
I agree that increasing posting frequency will increase traffic. But the difficulty lies in whether the blogger can keep up to it, and preventing the drop in quality of the posts.
It’s acceptable to give up a little quality for quantity, but give up too much of it and it backfires on you, because interest in your articles will drop and so does traffic levels.
Charles – Big Idea Blogger´s last blog post… The Fastest Way to Achieve Results for Your Blog
I did my own study, and you’re correct, the more posts I make, the more my traffic stays up.
Last autumn, I’d gotten into a pattern when I was trying to hit 300 posts in my first year where I was writing two posts a day sometimes, and even though some regular visitors complained that it was a bit much, man, my traffic was humming.
Mitch´s last blog post… Friend Or Follow
Post frequency will some way or the other increases your blog authority… a consistent frequency is always good.rather than having 10-20 posts at a stretch.. after a long gap.. Getting indexed quickly by SE’s is very important to get good traffic from them.. and when you have great content you will definitely get the zoom… But say I have 10k posts and a single visit to each posts is better than having 10 posts and 50 visitors for each post… High post frequency will definitely show you the results in couple of months..
Samrat P´s last blog post… Enjoy the MAC OS X Looks in Linux With Mac4Lin
I’ve also noticed that traffic is related to the frequency of my posts, but you still have to make sure you maintain the quality of your content if you want repeat visitors, otherwise you bounce rate is going to go through the roof.
Sire´s last blog post… 7 Beautiful CSS Galleries To Help You Find Inspiration
Definately post frequency change traffic rank.
Rahul´s last blog post… Tips How to Make Successful Blog
Hi Ajith,
Your explanation makes a lot of sense and is probably true. However, I don’t care that much for post frequencies on my blog as I prefer to post when I feel to. Sometimes I post incessantly, sometimes very little. If I were to post frequently in an effort to appease the traffic and search engine gods, it would work against my nature and squeeze some of the passion and creativity out of my posts. That’s just me, though.
Hello friends,
I do not intend to reply to you all 1 to 1 but would like to highlight the summary of discussions here.
Thanks for your wonderful participation
- Most readers agreed to the fact that more posts meant more traffic due to various reasons
- Many of us still feel that content is ’still’ the king and it’s all about good content
- Some readers do not worry about post frequency because they believe in writing whenever they feel like – original goal of a blog
- There’s a school of thought that if you already have majority of your visits coming from serach engines, there’s no need to worry about post frequency
In short, I thought majority was agreeing to the idea of having frequent posts on predictable intervals!
Thanks once again…
Fresh content updates will always drive more traffic to your blog or site. do right content with your keywords. it will helps you lot.
Thanks Joe for your views. Yes, the state of the blog needs to be constantly updated to drive more traffic.
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It is important that visitors get something new whenever they visit your blog. It’s better to target Saturday and Monday night for new postings. Sometimes, we are not able to post something new at our blog due to our job schedules. I recommend that, even then try to just post a picture in the form of post, just to give it a new look.
Mairsh
Post timing is something that I am going to write next about… I am yet to arrive at the perfect time to post though
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But how does a bot know if a site is updated if they don’t crawl it first? It sounds a bit strange to hear, sounds reverse somehow.
@babor, if you keep updating regularly the BOTs will crawl on a regular basis.
Its important to keep your site fresh and external links fresh, so posting regularly is key to keeping your site known by the big search engines.