Here’s my story so far:

http://www.carlknibbs.net/blog/2008/12/18/growing-blog-traffic.html

Carl

Each is one more doorway into your blog, which is narrower over time, but the more of them you have, the more steady your traffic is.

Some people mentioned needing to analyse more blogs: I think that different styles of blogs have different levers so it wouldn’t necessarily give better results (unless you categorise the blogs first). But certainly a larger amount of data does give a more accurate picture so analysing a larger blog would be better. Darren, hand over your stats :-)

Did you do other tests as well? I would like to test whether there is a relationship between page views / visits and posting frequency for subscribed readers. This is especially interesting given that there is so much debate about whether RSS subscribers are worth having or not.

As for the day number and page view graph, there was a line there but by eyeballing it, it actually looks like it might be exponential. Of course, we don’t know that until we have more data.

I don’t know about the rest…

By the way, I could add to my previous comment the fact that I submitted two articles that I submitted to my blog stopcuttingtoday.blogspot also to my blog freepsychothreapy.wordpress but the results were not the same.

The readers of blog 1 loved my simple articles about self-confidence, while the readers of blog 2 are used with such topics. Freepsychotherapy is about light daily psychotherapy, while stopcuttingtoday is about depression and neurosis cure.

By changing the level of the information I was giving, I suddenly received too many visitors – and this was organic traffic.

This is why I told you that around the possible variations you can make, it’s a very good idea to change completely your subjects and talk about something else, of course somehow related to your main topic, but basically different.

You could say that the article’s title attracted so many visitors to blog 1, independently of its name and style. However, the same title didn’t do anything special to blog 2.

So, the combination was very important: simple articles about self-confidence were very successful in a blog were the main subject is depression while they were simply “good” in a blog were the main subject is happiness.

I know content IS king, and persistence and patience DO rule, Other things, I mean methods, should not be downplayed to achieve the end result desired, however, which is to build a steadt readership. There are still other ways of increasing readership than named above. One is a good layout that is legible and attractive. A blog that is hard to read will easily be passed up. Another blog may be frequented because of it’s widgets, such as a frequent commentator’s section (readers like to see their name in print!) and perhaps a poll to participate in. Another interesting thing that may draw in readers could be videos from the blogger speaking, instead of writing. Another draw could be a very interactive blog. This could draw in a lot of readers. And a blogger who interacts by answering comments, or even emails readers, and is very loyal to his readers, will soon grow readership. There are many ways to grow readership!

While I do know that congent IS king, there are lots of ways to grow loyal readership, especially by being there for your readers and being loyal to them. Be loyal to them, and they will be loyal to you! Reward them with contests, comments, tutorials, help, emails and interactive fun — giving of yourself — and they will reward you with their readership and more!

Krissy :)

Thanks for posting your stats analysis.

Potato Chef,

Dumb luck is more likely to kick in when you persistently promote and post your blog.

At 5 – 10 posts (and articles at EzineArticles), I struggled to get even 1 visitor a day. For no discernible reason, my unique visitors jumped to 20 – 30 a day when I hit ~20 posts.

Using StatCounter, I found that most of my traffic comes from 3 or 4 articles. I’ve used Google Analytics, but found that it seriously slowed down my site.

Glad to hear the part about consistent posting and quality posts. I genuinely believe my readers are looking for regular but interesting, not constant and self-serving . . .

No big spikes for me, yet. All in good time.

Thanks Eric.

Be sure to stick with it!