No change in traffic (NONE) #2

[JeVeldi]

As I'm writing this (mid-day!) fireworks already go up the air and carbide shooting is all around, a quick follow up on our latest post [webmasterworld.com ] ...

We have kept on writing blog posts since our last post and eventually stopped by mid June. We have been seeing interesting spikes in impressions from February, which stopped somewhere in July. Fortunately enough traffic has been up since april (slight), little drop in May (mid-May), slight recovery from there onwards to June and a more serieus increase from July onwards. From October we see it's peak from which it goes downwards a bit but stays above the traffic line of June and July. This is specifically related to the types of pages we have put work in. Compared with the first half of the year, clicks and impressions go up by 100%. I am rather pleased actually it wasn't as black as I figured it to be. I conclude that I might have thrown the towel too early... but

.. it doesn't matter as the second half of the year - especially October-December, is our busy season really. No time for SEO then.

Please note, for those who have gone through the aforementioned post as mentioned as a link - I might b a bit hard headed. I have thrown most of the recommendations in the wind. Don't think however it was rubbish advice but as @Tangor pointed out ...

Deal with what you CAN control.

... and indeed ...

TIME is the healer of all wounds, even internet wounds!

... which is what we'll do exactly again for the first half of 2024. Regain focusing on content creation and optimisation.

My plan now is to repeat the effort. How? Write some 50-100 new blogposts over the course of the 6-9 months OR put in 8 hrs each week on writing and editing content (without being obliged to the number of blog posts to be written). So we'll actually be doing the same thing this year, with one difference. The difference is that the impact might have been bigger than last time if we would have written more effectively. So IŽll subscribe to the Standard plan of Ahrefs and use the content explorer to gain insights fast regarding content spots on our own website as well as our direct competition. I reckon this should do it boost traffic for the second half again with some 40k clicks.

Any suggestions and / or feedback on the plan is more than welcome. Although hard-headed, not deaf. Will definitely read it... :)

[aristotle]

Is your total traffic scattered over a large number of posts, or are just a few posts getting nearly all of the total? In other words, how is the traffic being distributed among the posts?

[JeVeldi]

I would say that 20% of the pages (blog pages only) takes about 90% of the clicks, and takes about 83% of the impressions. If I turn it around and look at impressons sorted high-low it shows that top 20% takes 91% of the impressions and 86% of the clicks. Good to know furthermore that although the entire site only grew 15% in clicks (impressions dropped 7%; yet positions improved overall by 24%), the core we were focusing on grew 111% in clicks and 42% in impressions. Positions improved by 49%.

Please do take us along in your train of thoughts...

[aristotle]

Study the characteristics of the posts that get the most impressions and clicks. Do they tend to be longer or shorter, more focused or more general, etc?

[tangor]

Always keep in mind FRESH content! Avoid taking a "popular" destination and DILUTING it with ever more granular asides (new pages)---this will diminish the value of the site over time. There's only so many ways one can describe the color "red", for example.

Locate, within the site niche, other "popular" or potentially popular topics. Expand those with good content WITH REAL VALUE to end users to further generate one's authority of topic/product.

NOTE: this is not easy to accomplish! At some point one will have covered all there is to know---and adding more is only noise that leads to a marked decline from that point on.

SOMETIMES enough is enough and it is time to move on to Something Else...

[JeVeldi]

Thanks all for your feedback!
@Tangor - great feedback. Exactly what I have in mind. Am not nearly there though and there is enough to be written without diluting. That's why I've included the OR which leaves room for improving on existing content based on current data and not solely focusing on writing NEW.

@Aristotle - I'll send you a private mail.

[JeVeldi]

Little addition - I would say that Ahrefs will help us on improving current content, find content gaps, study competitor's performing pages and try to overtake them. So we'll move from the FREE to the LITE account, at least for a couple of months just to check it out and find the first gems. I reckon 8 hrs isn't nearly enough but hopefully will get us in the next 6 months a step forward again.

[javelin]

If you are blogging then you will one day discover the best content is the accidental find in topic and keyword. Authentic writing is far more important than tracking down keywords.

Imo, how I use keywords searches in things like Ahrefs is to see what other people are doing, get topic ideas, and look for the direction I may want to go reading in between the lines. Its okay to use some of the suggestions in keywords or topics you find, sure. I wouldnt bet the bank on it though. You need to always be the one deciding direction and content more than any keyword tool.

The most traffic I get comes from long tails that I never planned on, found, or researched. It simply came from planning topics, writing on different avenues within those topics providing good information.

Edit in here. If you find content that is not doing well consider heavy editing before deleting it unless it provides no real value. That is as effective as new content minus the time spent on finding a topic.

[JeVeldi]

thanks for your feedback and added value. Much appreciated.
OT: totally agree, same experiences here.