Nine Website Traffic Trends and Their Meanings

Why This Post?

Anticipating scrutiny, I do not profess that I am an expert in web site traffic analysis but I noticed my tweaks and initiatives worked each time I do it. I was just curious about the outcomes of my effort as well as I just wanted to do things right at the start. I know that the primary source of traffic increase is in writing more articles but I believe it pays to examine how traffic behaves at each initiative. This leads to better understanding and provides focus on which things really have to be given more attention.

My intention in this post is primarily to share with other writers what I’ve found. Also, I wrote this as baseline information as I go along doing my tweaks. I’m doing this for free so if you read this, you have nothing to lose except a few minutes of your time and minuscule worth of electricity to your computer. Besides, I searched about trend analysis evaluation using graphs and found out that nobody bothered to write about it. The items I encountered are usually about SEO companies and their promise to increase traffic for a fee.

Image by vrypan via Flickr

How to Gauge Writing Performance

Just how do we find out if we are doing well in our writing? Although we know that the number of published articles matter a lot in improving on the amount of traffic, it pays to glance once in a while to our dashboard to see how we are doing.

While looking closely at my traffic trends in Triond, my website, Google Analytics as well as those of other writers, I could see some general patterns that say something about how our articles and how are initiatives (using Adwords Google, joining a social networking site, creating a website, signing in to traffic.outbrain, sending e-mails to friends, submitting website URL, creating your blogs, among others) are doing. I summarize all those trends here for comparison and gave them names, some taken from articles I have read.

1. The Normal Trend.

When I say normal, this trend is that of a typical, consistent writer. Regular articles are posted and there are no sudden page view increases. Traffic goes up and down, slightly deviating from an average daily trend.

I experienced this trend at those times none of my articles become a hot item. I noticed that the more articles I have, the higher the amount of traffic and is maintained at that level. This means that if you are a consistent writer, in the long run, you will be able to beat someone who had spurts of traffic but have only low daily page views during ’normal’ times.

2. The Startup Trend.

This is how my visit trends behaved during those first few articles I posted. So very few views and sometimes no view at all. But there’s a feeling of exhilaration for every 3-5 views each time, comfortable with the fact that at least a few souls bothered to read my articles. Well, I’m not difficult to please.

3. No Post Trend.

I didn’t write for a month and I got this trend. There are very few views with abrupt, but still minimal views. This was the time I felt discouraged posting because of so very few views sustained. I got impatient and wanted to give up online writing. It appears that all I hear about the income derived from blogging or writing online are just media hypes that serve the ends of publishing sites.

Also, I was so busy then after those initial batches of articles I published during summer vacation. Classes resumed and I was laden with responsibilities to attend to. I have a regular job and I thought that publishing articles is only a hobby and I didn’t really take publishing online seriously. I got less than a dollar in a month for this trend.

4. The Erratic Writer’s Trend.

This reflects a very inconsistent traffic reminiscent of an irregular writer like me. At some points articles are posted, traffic increases, goes down in no article days, then goes up again when new articles are posted. I experienced this when I stopped writing for several months in Triond. Once reminded by their team, I write again though inconsistently.

5. Midway and Website Launching Trend.

I focused more on putting in more content to my website as I got ideas in mind that I would like seen online. My website not only served as my hobby but it helped me put across some ideas to my students. My website served as reference because I included instructional materials therein plus my articles relevant to their specialization.

I fully launched my website on the third week of October thinking that it will work better having a shorter URL. It once had a very long URL: http://palawaniana.webnode.com. Now, I could access it by just typing Palawaniana.net.  This could be the reason for that sudden increase in views in October 25. I also e-mailed colleagues about my website.

6. The Handlebar Trend.

I have posted more articles than usual; trying to publish at least one or two articles in a week.

It paid off as I experienced a sudden increase in trend and thought it would stay. But it didn’t. It’s a stroke of luck which I attribute to some readers e-mailing their colleagues about some valuable article find (I convince myself that’s the reason). The added exposure in the Hot Content List would have also contributed a lot to this trend. Notably, this trend was achieved by just a single article.

7. The Mountain Trend.

Traffic peaks up at a sharp angle at a certain point in this trend then also goes down gradually in almost the same manner as when it picked up. This followed the Handlebar Trend I just described. After this remarkable increase, I had more regular views than usual which I attribute to using the Adwords Google tool.

8. The Golf Club Trend.

I encountered this trend in one SEO website. I tried to look for it again to use it as reference. Unfortunately, I could not locate it anymore. I recreated it here to show how it looks.

This is a trend most touted by Search Engine Optimization (SEO) companies. They flout that they can bring traffic to this trend in no time. It starts with an gradual increase in trend then goes up in a logarithmic manner in later periods. The general appearance is that of a golf club.

9. The Pointed Knife Trend.

A classic example of this trend is that one presented by Dr. Brignall. There was a sudden increase in traffic in a day then abruptly returned back to ‘normal’ the next day.

Insights on the Trends

I realized lately that marketing your articles through blogs or social networking sites matter a lot. I created four blogs in Blogger inspired by fellow Triond writer Phoenix Rox and got referrals right the next day. Booksie, as suggested by mnofdichotomy, also appear in my referrers. As I usually do, I submitted my articles in Stumble Upon. Traffic outbrain is still a major contributor to my traffic. Subscribing to these sites assures writers of steady stream of traffic to their articles. I have now a consistent flow of traffic significantly higher than my previous views several weeks ago.

Among these trends, I believe the ideal trend to achieve is a normal trend with consistently high daily page views. And this is achievable with diligence, patience and consistence in publishing articles as well as employing simple marketing strategies. After doing these things, following a simple formula will boost writing performance: more consistently published articles, more consistent page views, thus more consistent income. But it would be great to experience the exceptional, high page view trends once in a while.

Which one is your trend?