Most years I find that the number of blog posts that other bloggers put out goes down during the Christmas holiday. I figure that’s because many of them are traveling or have guests showing up, and thus they have other things to do. However, I’ve also wondered if people have a belief that there will be less traffic to their blogs during the holiday because they themselves aren’t online as much.
Or are they? I decided to do a little research project because, as you know, I get curious sometimes. I wondered if the traffic on my blog dropped during Christmas or not. So I went into Google Analytics to take a look back at things.
I ran into an immediate problem. I noticed that indeed my traffic drastically dropped, but the last two years Christmas has been on a Friday and Saturday, when blog traffic traditionally drops. So, was it Christmas or the weekend that caused the drop?
Luckily, I started this blog in December 2007 (oh yeah, its 4 year anniversary was on the 12th; missed it!), which means I had December 2008, when Christmas was on a Thursday, to look at. And it seems that even though I wasn’t a world breaker with traffic back then, I had more traffic on Christmas Day that week than any other day; interesting I must say.
But I didn’t let it go with just this blog. I have my business blog, which I started in 2005, that I could go back to. I could only go back so far since the original host had crashed and I had to locate and re-post lots of articles, but I could still go back to Christmas 2006, 2007 and 2008. Throwing out 2006 because I wasn’t writing much back then, I thought I could see traffic numbers for 2007 and 2008.
Turns out I hadn’t added Analytics in 2007, so I had to start with 2008. And my traffic was abysmal across the board back then, so the numbers are dismally consistent. The same goes for 2009, but 2010, strangely enough, shows that even though Christmas was on a Saturday, and my traffic wasn’t as high then as it is now, it showed up upswing from the previous couple of days.
My main point is that the drop in blog traffic might not have to do with the holiday at all. It might have to do with a lack of new content, or it might have to do with lousy content. As I look back on this blog in 2008 and 2009 I didn’t have a post on Christmas Day, and last year my post was only videos of the Muppets Christmas special with John Denver from many years ago. So, was it my fault that I didn’t have much traffic on Christmas Day?
Why not take a shot? This year I’m going to have a regular post showing up on Christmas Day. Remember folks, you can always write your posts ahead of time and schedule it to show up whenever you want it to. Why not see if it’s the post instead of the holiday. That is, if you care. I have to experiment; it wouldn’t be me not to do it, right? I’ll follow up in a week or so after the holiday to see how it all went. Wish me luck!
Your article made me look at google analytics to verify christmas traffic on my blogs. I have a blog on gaming. It’s going on its third anniversary this year. I noticed that traffic did not drop that much during holidays, compared to my other blogs. I guess it’s because of its niche market.
That could be Kevin, but I’m glad it’s working well for you.
This is a good question, Mitch and I think the right answer will be it depends on the niche. In the past when the whole economy was fine, I was doing SEO for many industrial and manufacturing companies and blog, one particular example, I was working on group of 6 websites and 1 blog, for company manufacturing bolts – I have seen traffic going from something 2k to literally 0 during Christmas time. Exactly the opposite situation for travel industry where traffic triples around that time.
Actually Carl, if it didn’t drop for this blog then it has nothing to do with niche at all since this blog doesn’t really have a niche. lol Now, maybe for very big traffic it does, but I wouldn’t know about that; sniff!
I see a huge difference compared to previous years. Actually this year I have few percent increase for most of the website which I think is a bit odd, but of course I am happy about that, actually one more thing, for one of the websites traffic is 50/50 web vs mobile, thats unbelievable.
Carl, it might be interesting to see what happens on Christmas day as well.
I am online more around the holidays. I find myself shopping and looking for recipes and crafts- and of course checking out my favorite blogs in the inbetween.
You’re part of the group that’s looking for something new I figure Misty. Actually, for me a holiday is pretty much like every other day.
It’s good that you covered this topic. I also experienced sudden drop in my website traffic during Christmas holidays. Although, I have increased posting frequency to my blog but traffic dropped.
Having a piece of a niche market is, at least to some degree, a guarantee that there are people who will seek you out on the internet. Becoming visible to your seekers becomes paramount!