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How to Make the Most of the Start of Year Quiet Patch on your Blog

Posted By Darren Rowse 24th of December 2005 Miscellaneous Blog Tips 0 Comments

The increased traffic and earnings that many Bloggers have had over the past few weeks in the lead up to Christmas yesterday and today has begun to slow for many bloggers. I’ve had a few emails and Instant Messaging conversations with concerned publishers asking if the slow down is ‘normal’.

While I won’t answer for every industry I know it’s normal for most sites to experience lulls in traffic at this time of the year and also in most cases to see decreases in both CTR and click values in contextual advertising programs.

I know of a number of AdWords advertisers who put their ad campaigns on hold between Christmas and mid January and suspect that the decreased demand for ads translates to lower click values. While I don’t know this for a fact I suspect that this might be the case for Chitika advertisers also.

Some industries will see things pick up sooner than others. Traditionally online (and offline) sales start in the new year (and sometimes even earlier in some countries) and this can see things pick up for bloggers in those niches. But for many the dead patch lasts through to the end of January. There is no hard and fast rule.

Similarly there is no real right or wrong in terms of what to do as a blogger over this period but most experienced bloggers change gears in some way or another. Heres a few ways that bloggers see this quiet patch as an opportunity rather than something to get down about:

  1. Some take advantage of the quiet news patch and low traffic and go on vacation
  2. Others use the next few weeks to do redesigns
  3. Experience bloggers often use the end of the year to do reviews, look at stats and set direction and goals for the year ahead
  4. Quite a few bloggers use the time to launch new blogs
  5. Some bloggers use this time to start up other projects like writing books, recording podcasts etc
  6. Others use the time to write posts and series that they’ll use later in the year
  7. A few bloggers I know spend January going through their current blogs with a fine tooth comb to do SEO, delete dead links and basically get everything in ship shape order

I personally am going to rest and forget about blogging for a week or so and then come back to do some review, planning and to work on a couple of projects that I’ve had on hold for a while before getting back into the swing of my ‘normal’ routine.

Whatever you choose to do over the next few weeks it’s worth reminding yourself that if traffic and earnings do slump for you that it’s not the end of the world and it’s not worth getting too down in the dumps about. Things generally pick up I no more than a month. Rather than get down about it – see it as an opportunity to do some or all of the above on your blog.

What are you going to be focussing upon the next few weeks?

About Darren Rowse
Darren Rowse is the founder and editor of ProBlogger Blog Tips and Digital Photography School. Learn more about him here and connect with him on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Comments
  1. “What are you going to be focussing upon the next few weeks?”

    Hmm .. relaxing with friends and family with a beer in my hand and a bbq alive in the background – the true Aussie way! Enjoy your time off Darren, god knows you deserve it. :)

  2. I will start new blogs;) 2 new blogs.

  3. 1, 4, 7 for me.. and of course take a rest.

    Merry Christmas!

  4. I’ll be gearing up to diversify my blog and probably start up a couple more.

    HAppy new year everybody

  5. I get to spend some much needed time with my family……and do a little writing.

    Merry Christmas!

    Vic

  6. I don’t expect a significant drop in traffic, as my blogs aren’t product/shopping focused. I also don’t expect a significant drop in ad revenue either, for the same reason. I do get drops, generally only on the holidays themselves, and sometimes the day before and the day after. But I expect by Monday, traffic will be fairly close to normal.

  7. I will be working on my blog design and layout. Tweaking the placement of ads and also work on a few articles that will be posted later next month.

    Also I will be spending Christmas with my family and taking a couple of days off away from the computer.

  8. Slow times and infrastructure

    Darren over at ProBlogger provokes some quiet time thoughts with his post on How to Make the Most of the Start of Year Quiet Patch on your Blog: Some take advantage of the quiet news patch and low traffic and…

  9. Generally wasting time. Sit around and eat fruitcake. Dunno. The blog I write on is probably actually going to have traffic start to pick up right around now and through January due to the subject. Today’s a holiday and a weekend which normally means very minimal traffic, but I’m getting the equivilent of a weekday.

  10. I will be walking away from the PC for a few days and chilling out. Take some time to reflect on the last 12 months and plan what the next 12 are going to bring.

    Traffic increases around Xmas for me, so in theory I should be making the most of it, but I’ve done some prep work over the last week to ensure everything will run smoothly without me.

    Have a good holiday everybody….

  11. Hope you’re right IO – unfortunately even on my non product related blogs things slow down over Jan because so many people are away on holidays in the southern hemisphere for summer etc.

  12. I haven’t seen a particular drop in revenue yet – the last two days were higher than normal – maybe bored holiday people wondering what to spend their gift money on? January may be slow, then again there may be people searchng for accessories for their new gizmos. It’ll be interesting to see how January pans out.

  13. Little late to be commenting but I’ll post anyway. I’ve been launching my blog and redesigning a little bit of the site (I can’t design). I’ve also been planning what I’m going to write about in the next few weeks.

  14. I am pretty new to all this and have definitely seen my visitors and revenue decrease slowly for the last week. It was almost like how low can you go, but then two ago my traffic started rising again for some reason.

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