How I Tripled My Traffic By Posting Less

More posts, more traffic, more subscribers, right? In my case, wrong. I started blogging over 8 months ago and consistency was my initial goal. While consistency is important it doesn’t necessarily mean lots of posts –  a big mistake I was making. I would post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday consistently for months. I was drained. Although my stats and follow count were growing, my plate was full and my brain was empty. I was drained. I had more writer’s block than interest in my blog. What good were all my readers when I was churning out sub-par content? They would get bored and leave anyway.

Triple Your Traffic By Posting Less Often

As well as poor content, by posting three times a week my posts had a shelf life of just one day. One day to promote my blog meant joining every group thread that was applicable. While it is fine to join them all, it is easy to forget that you must also complete them. Fulfilling group requirements, managing your own social media platforms, building community AND preparing new content every day was exhausting. This is all in addition to my normal day to day life. Talk about burn out.

It became somewhat manageable. And by manageable I mean I was stressed, irritable and ignoring my own needs physically and mentally. When it really became too much is when we had travel plans or social engagements and I would be forced to take a break. Note I said ‘forced’ because that’s how the self-inflicted pressure made me feel. I would return home to masses of threads to complete, comments to answer and social media to engage with. I needed to manage the blog entirely differently. It was literally taking the reigns of my entire life.

I decided to give myself the gift of time

I dropped Friday’s post. Every week I started to schedule just two posts. I would publish my ‘lighter’ and shorter posts on the Monday and save the weightier post for Wednesday. This meant that I had Thursday through Sunday to get maximum exposure. I started to see my traffic rise and my posts shared to social media twice as much as before.

Then I hit the dreaded writer’s block. After weeks of scheduling, the well had run dry and with family events and vacations planned I was under pressure again. Knowing I would be away from my laptop for a couple of weeks terrified me. I would have minimal time to post and I would have virtually no time to promote. So I bit the bullet and posted just on Monday for a few weeks. The result? Shocking. I had three times the views on my posts at the end of every week. They were shared twice as much and a few of them went semi-viral on Pinterest giving me thousands of repins and thus, thousands of unique visitors and views.

Publishing a post every Monday has changed my blog and my life. I have time again. Time to plan, time to write, time to properly engage with my readers, time to be more creative, time for myself and all with the added bonus of a growing blog!

It’s really scary to try to do less in order to gain more but for your own sanity and ability to have an authentic voice I highly recommend it. That being said if blogging seven days a week is what YOU want to do then by all means do it! You have to find your balance. Ironically I have been posting twice a week again lately, not every single week but more often than I had been. With being pregnant and the holiday season now in full swing, I simply have a lot more to say. Lucky you, or poor you depending on how you see it 🙂

 

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  • I only post 1x a week and honestly, that’s the perfect amount for me. I take a lot of time and put a lot of energy into writing my posts and creating/editing videos to go along with them, so I want each post to get as much time in the spot light as possible! If I posted more often, all my posts would be tucked away quickly and might not be seen by as many people as I would like!

  • I am on a twice a week schedule. I definitely could not do more. And so far I have had enough to say that I don’t need to do less. I did take a short break after my daughter was born.

  • I totally get this! I started posting just 1x a week then upped it to 2x a week and I think that’s the max my schedule will allow. Even now I am exhausted. My spouse had to remind me why I started my blog in the first place – so even though I still look at the numbers, I decided I would have fun again! Hopefully I’ll find the right balance like you 🙂

    • Sometimes, like if you’re feeling inspired or have lots of things to share. You’re golden! But when you find yourself tearing your hair out for content…not so fun! It’s so hard to take that step back though.

  • I love this Amy! My page views have been higher than ever and I only do twice a week. At one point I wanted to do 5 times a week and did 3 for a while. But it does seem like they have gone up since doing less. Which does save you a lot of time.

  • Interesting! I’m only posting twice a week, but even that is making me stressed! Between all the social media and all the promotion and reading other blogs, blah, blah, blah – there’s so much work to be done! I think I may have to follow your lead and drop a day. I love to be able to write quality content and still create real connection with my audience and other bloggers!

  • I’m in the process of down-sizing from 3 a week to 2 posts a week. I have SO many ideas that I could totally do 3 a week if I wanted to work full time. But I’m a full time mom. So that has to come first. It’s good to hear from you that your traffic not only didn’t decline, but it increased! Yay for you (and hopefully for me in the future). 🙂

  • I recently tried doing a 31 posts in 31 days challenge and I ended up exhausted! One thing I am realizing is that quality partnered with consistency is way more important than quantity. This is great advice and I’m going to follow it!

  • Hi Amy,

    I fell into the same trap when I first started blogging. Like you I slowed down and as the quality of my posts improved so did reader engagement. It’s a lesson all beginner bloggers need to learn and the sooner the better.

    David Borrowdale

  • I know the feeling! I cut down from five posts a week to three. It’s definitely been an adjustment, but a positive one nonetheless. I’m happier and my family spends more time with me. It also helps that on Wednesdays I feature an interview with someone, so it’s less writing on my end 🙂

    Cheers to more time for creativity!

  • I so completely agree! I went from posting daily to only posting 1-2 times per week and spending more time actually marketing my posts and its changed everything around!

  • Thanks so much for sharing this! I think we’re taught to blog consistently and we then interpret that to mean blog every day when that’s not always the case! It’s best to figure out how to make our blogs work for us (as opposed to the other way around)–glad you were able to figure this out for yourself!

  • YES!! (I read this and laughed because I have been blogging for 8 months, am pregnant, and only post 1-2 x week. Nice to meet you!) I firmly believe that it’s 75% promotion, 25% content creation. And it’s totally working for me too. I had 229k pageviews in Oct, and no one sent me hate mail because I post far less often than other bloggers. You need to have a life too!

  • This is a timely post for me to read. I am new and have been pushing myself to post three times a week and it is starting to be a lot! Yes, I have a life out of blogging and I need to attend to this. Thank you for the advice and the input from your readers was very helpful! I am glad to know that I am not the only one struggling with this. I am going to modify my approach and post twice a week so I can better promote my quality content and have additional time to promote and network and enjoy my family! Thank you for a great post!
    xo Debbie | http://www.tothineownstylebetrue.com

  • Great post and great advice! I went through total burn out trying to do 5 posts a week to up my numbers but now I’m at 2-3 post and it’s working out much better.

  • I would burn myself out trying to post more than once a week!

    Between guest posts, paid writing assignments, and other gigs I have, I don’t have that much time to sink into my blogs. And I want writing to stay enjoyable.

    So here’s to you and the rest of us that refuse to post 10 times a day. 😉