Well, it’s officially summer. Know what means? Tanking blog traffic! I’m serious – starting on Memorial Day Weekend, my blog traffic has been very low on weekends. In the past, my traffic has always dipped a little in the summer, but this is the first time that it has been to this degree. So while I’m disappointed in my blog traffic this month – I’m not going to lie to you – at least I know why. Maybe it will last the entire summer, maybe it won’t. We’ll just have to see!
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Traffic Report
Current Statistics
Unique Pageviews: 10150 (-20% from May, +55% from last year)
Bounce Rate: 16.40% (+16.6% from May, -70% from last year)
Sessions: 4487 (-18% from May, +20.1% from last year)
Users: 3770 (-20% from May, +45.7% from last year)
Bloglovin: 1839 (+0.4% from May, +5% from last year)
Email Subscribers: 471 (+4.67% from May, +77% from last year)
How I keep my bounce rate so low
Social Media
Facebook: 1027 (+1.1% from May, +9% from last year)
Twitter: 3310 (+0.9% from May, +13.4% from last year)
Instagram: 2678 (+0.45% from May, +1.48% from last year)
Google+: 247 (+0.4% from May, +14.88% from last year)
Pinterest: 6153 (+1.7% from May, +23.95% from last year)
Tumblr: 3866 (-0.01% from May, +2.08% from last year)
How I use Pinterest to get blog traffic with my busy life
Top Posts
2. Loving Someone with Chronic Pain
3. Accepting Your Body with Chronic Illness
4. Answering Questions about Being Chronically Ill
5. What To Do in Boston This Summer
6. A Guide to Chronic Illness for Those Who Don’t Have One
7. Hacks for Living with Chronic Conditions
9. 10 Things I Wish I Knew When I Received My Rheumatoid Arthritis Diagnosis
10. How Do Adults Celebrate Their Birthday?
Top Sources of Traffic
- Pinterest (57.38%): There are two reasons why Pinterest brings me so much traffic. 1) I use it a lot. I have my posts scheduled through Tailwind so I don’t have to be on it so much, and then it basically grows itself. And 2) I use SEO principles with Pinterest. I name my images on my computer with the SEO keyword for that post. I use search keywords on the descriptions. And more! Once I started using SEO for Pinterest, my traffic from Pinterest shot up. It was around 12% in December and now it’s over 50 every single month. | How to use Pinterest for blog traffic | Try Tailwind for free for a month
- Search engines (10.99%): I’ve been trying to ramp up the SEO in general this year, and clearly it’s paying off a bit (see the Pinterest point above). I’m not at the point where my posts how up on the first page of search engines all the time, but I’m getting there. | How to use SEO for blog traffic
- Facebook (6.14%): I’m not surprised by this because I’m a member of multiple Facebook groups for bloggers. But I do wish this number was a big higher!
- Twitter (1.66%): This is another one where I wish the number was higher, especially given how much time I spend on Twitter.
This does not include direct traffic, as that is not a form of traffic
Traffic Analysis
What I Did:
- How I promote my blog posts
- Big thing: personal blog posts – Currently [Vol. 19], My Skin Care Regimen, Answering Questions about Being Chronically Ill, Where I Got My Book Ideas + How You Can Find Yours, Currently [Vol. 20]
- Took to Instagram to help choose my blog post topics
- Tried to add individual posts to follow threads on Facebook groups instead of my entire profile – I’m in multiple Facebook groups for bloggers. Some of these have daily social media follow threads, but since I’ve been a member of some of these for a while, many other members are already following me. To still capitalize on these threads and hopefully boost engagement, I’m started putting individual posts in the threads instead of my entire profile.
- Changed the mailing list freebie in the blog side bar
- Summer started! And page views on the weekend dropped massively, as I mentioned above.
- Stopped using Linktree and instead have a blog page with those links.
- Added my mailing list to my email signature
- 2 giveaways: reader survey and The Wife Between Us
- Featured in a weekly InfluenceHer email
- Started writing fewer posts due to working 4 days a week – I went from 3 posts a week (Monday, Wednesday, and Friday) to 2 (Tuesday and Friday). I’m not working full-time, but I’m working the closest to full-time that I have since 2014. Then in my free time, I’m usually too tired to work alll the time, especially considering I have so many medical appointments (and I haven’t even started physical therapy yet for my most recent surgery). I want to write high-quality content for you guys, and I also don’t want to hate blogging. This means that I’m doing 2 posts a week until the end of August at least. I might adjust to my new schedule and be able to crank out 3 posts a week, or I might find that I don’t have the time to do that. Regardless of what I decide in the future, having 1 less post a week has definitely affected my traffic. I still promote a post every day (see the link above about how I promote my blog posts), but it’s not the same as having a brand new post in people’s feeds.
I Haven’t Seen Results From:
- Giveaways
- Personal posts
What I Can Learn This Month:
- Giveaways don’t always impact blog traffic.
- Personal blog posts can help, but only if they’re the type of personal posts that people want to read. Even though some of my followers voted on my blog post topics, many didn’t, and those posts weren’t as successful as I hoped. Did more people not want to read those personal posts than those who did? Or did I just give my followers not-great post ideas to choose between? Should I have written posts that were even more personal?
- Blog traffic can drop in the summer. Mine has always dipped a little, but this is the first year that there was a massive drop. I went from hundreds of views on the weekends to barely 200 Saturday and Sunday combined. I guess people are off living their lives! (Make me feel better and buy Aureole to read on your beach weekend if you’re not going to read the blog on the weekend 😉)
June Goals:
- 8-11 posts – Success!
- 15,000 pageviews – LOL no.
- 4,500 users – So close! Just barely missed it.
July Goals:
- 8-10 posts
- Grow pageviews
- Grow social media
Setting achievable goals for myself so I can focus on making good quality content and adjusting to my new life!
Does writing personal blog posts influence your blog traffic?
Like this post? Share it can check out these:
All blog traffic reports, 5 Ways To Master Instagram Hashtags + Free Hashtag Tracker, How To Use SEO To Stand Out + Free SEO Checklist, 12 Blog Traffic Boosting Tools To Try in 2018, Why Social Media Matters for Bloggers (And How To Grow Yours!)
Kate Mitchell is a blogger, chronic illness patient, and advocate who helps people understand chronic illness and helps chronic illness patients live their best lives.
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