Introduction
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I already wrote an article on what to do when your articles are not getting any traffic. What do you do when your articles have been slumping for a while and are not picking back up again? It can be very hard to see when your articles had traffic and you think that if you keep blogging that it will only continue to move up.
That is the dream, that is why we do this. We hope that once we gain traction, things can only go up from here. Unfortunately, expectation and reality do not always fall in line with each other. We expect a lot of traffic but actually get very little.
So even though I have a similar article on this subject already, I want to talk about it some more because there is a difference between never having traffic and having traffic and watching it drop like a rock.
Do Not Panic and Remain Calm
Even if we do not blog with the attention of receiving traffic, it is still a hard sight to see. Blogging can still be fun even without the intent of gaining a lot of traffic, but still. I feel that traffic provides that validation that makes you feel like you are doing something right. If you have been blogging for several months and getting nothing in return, that may or may not bother you.
If it does not bother you, then you might not care and probably never will about traffic. If you do care though, you might start to worry and wonder what is going on. You start to regret your niche and wonder if the competition is really that stiff. How can we handle our disappointment when we care about traffic?
Realize That Traffic Slumps Are Normal
A common theme is to accept that traffic fluctuations are common. Generally, we want to see an upward trend of traffic for the long-term like in several months or a year. Worst case scenario, we can also accept traffic plateauing and maintaining. These two cases are acceptable because at least you are not losing traffic if you are at least maintaining.
What about when you are losing the traffic that you once had? Scared? Perhaps it is time to rethink your approach. If what you are currently doing is not working, then it is time to change trajectory before it is too late. Not to say that anything is ever too late. Think of all of the time and effort you are wasting if you keep writing articles that will make your traffic dip even more.
Let us fix that.
Learn How to Re-adjust Your Strategy
Knowing when to change course is important. Now would be a good time to look back at what were your best performing articles when they were bringing in the traffic. Use Google Search Console and see what was getting you impressions and clicks. Return to that article and see if you can spruce it up with more detail.
If you can give new life to previously performing articles, then it might give new life to your blog. If you have written many articles in the past, you surely must have had some winners in there. Go through each one and see what ones are the easiest ones to update.
This might mean that you will have to slow down your publishing schedule and hold back on writing new articles. This would make sense since new articles are doing nothing for you. So why would you want to keep writing if you are not getting traffic?
Change your schedule and spend more time updating your best articles that worked for you before and publish less. You do not have to stop writing new articles completely. You should just reduce the number of articles published per week and use that time to update your winners.
Most Importantly, Do Not Give Up
Now that you know what to do when the traffic slump has extended over a period of time, stay calm and focused. I know that it is not easy. If everything were easy in life, then everyone would do it. So we really just need to know when to stop and understand what is happening. We cannot just slog through writing new articles every week if nothing good is coming out of them.
A lot of people just say, “write more articles”. You have to think about all of the activities that go on to keep a blog alive and ticking. You have to update your current articles, get backlinks, promote on social media and eventually when you get a following send out newsletters.
I have not even mentioned monetizing with advertising and affiliate marketing in this article yet because this article is about regaining traffic that you once had.
Take Some Time to Think and Reflect, Then Come Back
Running a blog, especially when you are just one person doing everything, is overwhelming. The good part is that flying solo means that you can call the shots. You can take breaks from your blog when you need them. You do not have to answer to anyone or coordinate anything.
You can just step away for a moment and let your blog sit there until you return. Nothing wrong with that. When people say blogging is long-term, that means not burning out so soon. When we first started blogging, we had that initial adrenaline rush. We get so excited that we are embarking on a new adventure.
We just get so excited that we are going to succeed that this is all that we think of at the start. We do not think about all of the issues and problems that will come up along the way. Stay positive right? We do not want to start any endeavor with negative thoughts because it will cloud our efforts.
We want to start strong and end that way. Remember how I mentioned expectations versus reality. We have very high expectations of success at the beginning. Not all blogs make it and this is where reality hits and we have to humble ourselves if we plan to continue blogging or not.
Stop Writing and Think About What is Going On
This is why taking breaks is okay. We need to figure out what happened and where to go from there. If you choose to keep writing articles, then let me give me my thoughts on how to approach it.
Writing Articles Is Important, But It Has to Be Worth It
If you still want to write articles during a traffic drop, then make sure that you start writing more for your audience than yourself. I am sure that you have your queue of articles to write about. Make some adjustments and prioritize writing articles that your audience wants to read over what you want to write.
The reason why you need to do this is because you need to get your traffic back. So if you focus on writing for your audience, then you are giving them something that they want to read. I know that we like to write for ourselves, but we need to refocus on our audience so that they actually come to the blog and read articles.
Do Not Just Write for the Sake of Writing
Sometimes we just like to pump our articles because we find writing to be therapeutic. We enjoy writing even if it is about something that might not get traffic. The thing about writing for the sake of writing, is that we just keep writing every week and not even worry about the traffic.
If you need to keep writing to keep up your therapy, then focus on updating your articles and bolster what you currently have.
Slow Down Your Publish Schedule and Save Your Topics
Slowing down your article publishing schedule is not only good to give you time for other activities, but it also saves your list of topics that you will write about. Coming up with a good set of topics to write about that will last you a long time is hard to maintain. This is why I encourage and challenge you to write as much as you can in every single one of your articles.
Always feel that your articles are never complete and hold off the rush to publish because of your competition. Have you ever written something and then think about more to write later? There is a difference between waiting an extra or two to publish versus just publishing now and updating later.
You yourself know when your article is complete, if you feel pressured to publish an incomplete article just because you are trying to stick to a schedule then hold off a bit. Schedules are hard to stick to and are just one of the many reasons why people quit blogging so soon before they see results. Having a routine is great because it keeps you in line and on track. However, you need room to breathe too if you plan on blogging long-term.
Another reason why you should slow down and save your topics for later is to avoid writer’s block. As we go through our topic list, it becomes harder to figure out new stuff to write about. When you have a lot of articles on your blog, you will have less and less topics to choose from. Hopefully, you do not repeat yourself but sometimes you do. Especially when your niche is so specific and you are concerned about venturing out of your circle.
Having writer’s block and just running out of stuff to write about is another reason why people stop blogging. I understand, there are a lot of things that can happen on your blogging journey. This is real life, things do not always work out the way that we want to.
Share Your Posts Online
You should consider posting your articles online as an alternative to organic traffic from search engines. I know that search engine traffic is coveted because people spend so much more time on Google than any other website.
Find Ways to Combine Posts and Group Them Together
One thing that you can do to make your social media posts interesting is to combine them together to increase their value as a group instead of individually. This makes sense if you have similar articles or articles that can provide a more comprehensive solution when grouped.
When you post online, you are able to directly tell people what articles you want them to read and why. So you are providing the same meta title and description that you find on Google. This is the enticing and alluring copy that brings people in and gets clicks.
Post Articles That Have Been Updated
If you have updated any articles recently with new content, then go ahead and post them online. Your social media post can focus on your newly added content and how it can benefit your users. This gives your older articles new life and you can repost them over and over again as long as they have been updated. This is a great idea for those who are hitting a dip in traffic and do not currently have anything new to write about.
Summary
Traffic dips are hard because just when you thought everything was going your way, a slump can really hit you hard. I just feel like there has to be light at the end of the tunnel. We all know that tunnels are long and dark. The blogging journey is long and you can barely see anything because your traffic is going haywire.
Some things that you can do when you encounter a traffic slump is first stay calm and do not panel. Traffic slumps are normal. Do not give up and spend some time updating your best performing articles and give them new life. You can then post them on social media and see if that brings people in.
Stop, take a break and think about your articles. Write more articles based on what people want to read instead of what you want to write. Sometimes you have to put your readers first even if you are really excited to write what you want.
You want to flesh out your articles as much as possible because you want to save your list of topics for a rainy day when you just have nothing else to write about or do. Hitting writer’s block can be hard as you write more and more. You start running out of topics and have to get creating on what to write next.