Does More Blog Content Work Anymore? Research Results…

I have long been someone who’s believed that the more one writes on their blog, the more traffic they’ll get, the higher their blogs will rank, and the better opportunity they’ll have to be more popular across the board. That certainly used to be true; back in the days where I was writing more than 300 posts a year on this blog it was very highly ranked. Once I slowed down, my ranking dropped, which has happened to all my long time blogging friends who have reduced how much they put out.

it´s not the style ...
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What I didn’t know was whether this was still true. I’ve certainly said it was, the last time being in July when I said that “the more you write the more traffic you’ll get and the higher you’ll rank…“. I didn’t have any information telling me that wasn’t true.

However, what I did have was a lot of evidence that maybe there were other ways of getting higher rankings and better traffic. This is post #1,673 on this blog, which shows you that I have a lot of articles here. One would think all those articles would help this blog be ranked higher than it is; certainly higher than a blog that has fewer than 100 articles.

That’s not the case anymore. I’m not going to specifically point out any blogs here, but there are a lot of them ranked higher than me with a lot less content. Even if some of them are writing extremely long posts, one would think sheer volume might mean something.

Yet, I know someone else who’s been writing for a long time, and almost every day. Jack Steiner, who write the blog The Jack B, has been writing his blog for 12 years, sometimes pretty lengthy articles, yet his Alexa ranking (don’t start with me on that one lol) is still in the 2 million range. His blog is very entertaining, so one would think his ranking and traffic would be off the roof; what gives?

I decided to do a research project to test my long standing belief, which was hanging by a thread. For 31 straight days, I had a new blog post on my 3 Bad Management Processes and it went live, on a Thursday… and that was that. For the rest of the month only one day beat that one in traffic, and that one had dropped a bunch from what I’d had going on. It was also the shortest post to that point, just over 500 words, but it was on point, about leadership, which is the main topic on that blog. It should have been an easy read after all the other articles I’ve been sharing… but it wasn’t.

After that… dud city. My Star Trek article got a lot of shares on Twitter but it didn’t generate in a lot more visits overall; that says something that in its own way supports what I’d wondered about Twitter sharing and traffic to one’s blog. I thought about attributing some of the drop-off to the holiday season and could get behind that theory except the issue started a week before Christmas; freaky.

It leaves me with an unsatisfied conclusion, that being… the research study is inconclusive. If it was working then suddenly stops, does that mean it does or doesn’t work? That traffic has started going back up, slowly though, mean anything? Inconclusive; sigh…

A recommendation… write; just write. That’s the best I’ve got at this point. I’ll add promote, which I’ve talked about as it concerns Twitter, where it seems to work better than in other social media spaces. I’ll continue researching and testing things from time to time and then writing about them it’s what I do after all. 🙂
 

37 thoughts on “Does More Blog Content Work Anymore? Research Results…”

  1. Hello Mitch, Just thought I would stop by and return your visit LOL

    I love what you are doing here with your blog and found this article interesting.. I used to blog more often and now find that publishing a new blog post every Monday just works for me..

    HUM Now thinking about this I actually missed the first Monday of the year HEHE Oh well so much for that one HUH

    I do hope to stay on course here for the rest of the year though..

    That is my game plan anyways. I will have to check back to see how your research is going with this..

    Thanks for sharing
    Chery :))

    1. Thanks Chery. I’m not quite sure where to take this particular research at this point. Doing the initial project was kind of a challenge. I gave myself 2 weeks to write all those articles in advance while keeping up with all the other writing I had to do. It’s not all that easy most of the time to do a research project, which is why I was disappointed with the conflicting results. Still… I might have to do it again… just leaving December out of it. lol

  2. Just write is good with me. I promote some when I think about it, but mostly I post and whatever happens, happens. I’ve gotten much more lax about blogging and pursuing high traffic these days. I can’t tell that much about how successful my posts are other than comments which tell me the main things I need to know. When my comments no longer keep me busy and I feel like no one is paying attention any more then maybe I’ll go back to focusing on numbers again.

    Really though, I don’t know what other factors are all that reliable. And I usually don’t know what they mean anyway. I’m just blogging less and having some fun with it.

    Lee

    1. You kill me Lee but I know you’re right on that front because you don’t even have social share buttons on your blog. I had to copy & paste the info to share that piece about Manhattan. 🙂 I’m in a position where I might not be doing a lot of things to help, but I’m still trying to become sort of a personality because it could affect my financial life positively long term. So, marketing it will be!

      1. Actually the share buttons are right down the bottom of the post near where you click to comment. I get quite a few shares of posts. Usually I get the same general commenters, but now and then one comes from a share.

        So far I haven’t used my blog so much of a marketing tool for financial reasons as just a place to write. That could change someday.

        Lee

      2. I had to go back & take a look; you’re right, they’re there just without color. No wonder I missed them! lol I have one blog that makes money, though not a lot, so I’m not averse to the concept.

  3. Here’s the one constant in the equation: People (not machines, but the living, breathing people who buy things, hire you for your services, share your stuff, etc.) have the attention of a gnat on the third day of a three-day lifecycle. That hasn’t changed in–ooooh, squirrel!!

    1. LOL! I thought that only happened when people saw shiny things. Actually, the “more traffic” thing has never been as much about recurring traffic as traffic in general. I noticed when I was writing tons that, other than a few folks who stopped by every time I wrote, there would be people who’d show up, maybe stick around for a few posts, and then never come back again, to be replaced by the next group. When I reduced the amount of posts, it was easier for folks to stick around longer, like months instead of weeks. It’s like those days when you post more than one article… often I miss one of them, probably the second one. Not sure how that happens but I know it does here and there.

  4. Interesting stuff Mitch, I was just reading Neil Patel’s post about this and the feature of Ryan Biddulph and it recommends publishing consistantly (like every Monday) and so SOME longer posts like 7000 words …I have yet to over 3000 words so I can’t imagine but have a goal to do so at some point.
    I think if one posts too often that readers don’t get the chance to come back for the posts. I’m hoping to do 2x monthly with more content in each of them vs once per week.
    I’m going for quality over quantity.
    I definately noticed dips in traffic around the holidays on social and at the blog….
    Let’s keep on writing!

    1. For sure Lisa, writing is good… nope, great! Actually, Ryan’s one of the guys who professes that writing 8,000 word posts are what he shoots for and that it’s what’s given him great success.

      I tend to believe his success has more to do with finding a way of getting people to help promote him with the concept of being able to blog from anywhere in the world and make money at it that has a lot more to do with it. That and his mastery of multiple short books that helps the marketing drive. It’s a brilliant concept, way more than writing those mega blog posts. The longest I ever wrote was around 5,800 words, but after looking at it critically I decided to break it into two posts… though I really thought about breaking it into 4.

      I believe that if it’s a research post like what Neil puts together then it’s not such a bad thing; otherwise, it’s hard not to be repeating yourself multiple times, like we used to do in high school. lol

  5. A lot of SEO today depends on your social sharing. It has far less to do with how much content you have, its all about its shared ‘reach’. That shared reach gives you SEO juice, its has a huge impact on rankings.

    This is why these bloggers with little content can make it on top. They are shared like mad all over social media. The search engine sees it as ‘popular’.

    Use Pinterest and create a pinnable(portrait style gain more traction) image to pin and for others to pin.

    Pinterest booms for blog content. Its the #1 platform in that aspect. Pinterest helped put some of my posts on page one. I had less that 50 posts on my blog and four of them landed on page one and still hang there.

    Grow your social reach as much as you can. I hoped this helped. 🙂

    1. Hi Kelly, and welcome!

      I’m not a Pinterest guy, and I don’t have that kind of creative touch to add images in that fashion. I’d have to create them because none of what I do is visual. My wife has that kind of eye, but neither of us has the technical knowledge to know how to do it even if we had the vision.

      Your idea about social sharing is an intriguing one. I see my posts being shared all over Twitter, and even though it’s my top social media referrer, the number of people who come here from there isn’t close to being commiserate with the analytics. Still, I know there’s something to be gained positively with the social sharing; at least it’s something I’m going to be working towards a bit more in 2016.

  6. Dear Mitch Mitchell,

    This is my visit to your blog. An informative blog so I ve bookmarked it strait away. Apologies for my grammars as English is not my first language.

    Anyway, I am just a beginner in blogging and wow! #1673 of articles available on your blog is amazing. I always thought the more we write, the better rank our blog will be until came this article.

    In a positive thought, the more your write, the more resourceful your blog will be. Visitors will keep coming back for new info.

    Thanks.

    1. Welcome Ariffin. You’re correct on your main point, which is why I ended the post with the recommendation to just continue writing. I know there’s a lot of information on this blog that could help people with many of the things they’re trying to do or want to learn, and if I just keep writing the site’s authority can’t be questioned. If everyone keeps writing, even better.

      1. I am really glad to stumble on your blog, i believe a lot of info will be gain here.

        Just a quick question, when you talking about quality content, does grammar play a major role here?

      2. Grammar does play a big role but not in the way most people believe it does. I know I don’t write the way that most English teachers would have taught in school. I moved around a lot as a kid and absorbed many different rules, so having one standard isn’t ever going to happen. What’s most important is being able to communicate your thoughts so that other people understand what you’re saying and trying not to go off on tangents or repeat yourself too often. It helps when your content isn’t skipping a lot of words and has misspellings every other word; no one wants to read that. I actually wrote an article on this blog some years ago addressing the quality content thing; check it out if you’re interested… http://www.imjustsharing.com/what-is-high-quality-content/

  7. Hi Mitch,
    After long time and hopefully you can recognise me..
    Really useful post for bloggers and thanks for sharing it with all.
    I strongly agree with Lisa Sicard comment.
    Always, quality is better than quantity. 2 to 4 quality posts monthly would be more enough, I believe.
    Once again thanks for this post and wish you have a great weekend.

    1. Hey Thyrone; long time no see. And you’re writing about dresses now… intriguing. lol

      Actually, I’d challenge you a bit on the quality vs quantity comment. I see a lot of horrible quality ranking really high; it’s just amazing to me. I wrote a post some time ago answering the question of what “high quality content” is supposed to be, since no one who recommends it has ever tried to tell others what it actually means. I think the term probably needs to morph into “entertaining content”, no matter what else it does. If it can capture eyes it’ll capture the masses; if it’s quality or authoritative it’ll find its audience, but those numbers will probably be smaller. Still, smaller doesn’t mean insignificant.

  8. Hello Mitch.

    Trust you are well.

    Came across this post on your blog and found it very very interesting, for sure. Mainly because my wife and I have started this blog just a couple of weeks ago – and frankly, we are all at sea.

    We are a married couple from Mumbai, India and we are very keen on growing a successful blog and one day – hopefully, get to the stage where we can make some money from it, to keep the fires at home burning.

    When we started out, we read on a blog, that the posts should be long, real long, in order to get traffic. So we wrote our first post – 8500 words, with the relevant keywords.

    The result?
    ZERO TRAFFIC.

    This was very confusing for us. What is the point in writing such a long post, if the result is ZERO? Time, as they say, is money. It is not that writing a post like this takes place like magic. It takes time. Plus, we both go all over and shoot photos and take videos for our posts.
    And after all this…ZERO TRAFFIC?

    It just does not make sense. That is why, when we came upon this post of yours, on how many posts you have written and how things might or might now not work, it left us more confused.

    Sure, you say, write write write…but how much? How many words?

    Would really appreciate if you took some time to enlighten us.

    Thanks for this wonderful share.

    Regards.
    Vee N Ric

    1. Welcome to the blog… well, I’m not sure which of you I’m talking to so I’ll leave it at that.

      It sounds like you need to learn more about promoting your content because just writing it and putting it on a blog isn’t going to get it done. For starters check out this post of mine, http://www.imjustsharing.com/promoting-ourselves-our-content-our-videos-everything/, and then follow it up with this one http://www.imjustsharing.com/driving-more-visitors-to-your-blog-are-you-ready-for-the-work/.

      The talk about longer blog posts makes it sound like it’ll be an overnight sensation. The reality is that, unless you promote and figure out a way to drive people to your blog, the search engines will find you but it’ll take time for them to figure out where you belong in the throng of all those other people writing on the same subject. So, don’t necessarily go for the long unless an article specifically needs to be long. Instead go for the value for your website or blog in making sure what you write is not only something you want others to see, but is a consistent message for the site.

      Of course if you need more there are around 460 articles here about blogging and a lot more on other topics which you can find by checking out that Categories tab over there on the right just above the Blogroll. Good luck with it all.

  9. That’s a lot of articles, Mitch! Congrats on your prolific output and longevity.

    I think to constantly worry about numbers takes away from one’s creativity. While I do give a perfunctory nod to SEO and stats, it’s more about engagement and community, in my opinion. That said, I’m not trying to make a living with blogging, just recoup some expenses and that’s been mostly unsuccessful, so far. 😛 For me, blogging is a creative and social outlet. From my experience, the best way to get your articles shared on social media is to liberally share the work of others. Some will return the favour and so your following grows and you build relationships, yes? At least, that’s the theory. There’s always a contingent who takes and takes but never gives back. It’s all a bit frustrating sometimes, isn’t it? As for the quality vs quantity issue, quality should be the ideal. If you publish too often, there’s not enough time for personal interaction between posts. Just my two cents. 🙂

    1. Hi again Debbie. Actually, one of the other reasons I did that experiment on my business blog was to prove that, indeed, someone could put together a heck of a lot of content and make almost every single article high level quality… at least that’s how I viewed it. lol There are people who say it can’t be done; well, I disproved that theory, and I’m not the only one who does. If you write at all you know it’s possible to do, so that was part of a different experiment, to see if I could still do it.

      Every once in a while I’ve been known to try a research project here. It’s been a while since I did one, but they used to be quite common for me. Last year’s project was seeing how well promotions could go in trying to increase my online presence. I’ve kind of written about that but I’m going to go a bit deeper into an explanation at some point.

      I haven’t really concentrated on making money via blogging, but I need to start thinking about that if I’m going to continue writing 5 blogs. This could be an interesting year for more than one reason. 🙂

      1. If one has a talent for writing, then quality wouldn’t be an issue, regardless of quantity, but just the strain of having to write that many articles in quick succession would be difficult for me on a consistent basis (slow and pedantic LOL). That’s a terrific accomplishment, Mitch! 🙂 Arlee’s A to Z April Blogging Challenge is the only time I do that and yes, there is a definite spike in traffic, for the duration.

        With 5 blogs, there must be good money to be made. Wishing you much success!

      2. Actually Debbie, I’ve never fully figured out the monetization thing for blogs other than showing expertise & hoping people hire me for different things. I mean, look at this blog; I’m promoting my own things, which are mainly leadership, on a blog that doesn’t talk about it. How well do you think that’s working? lol You know how it is; writer’s gotta write!

  10. Thanks for sharing…!

    Honestly, blogging often and regular is the most of blogger planned but sometime they can…

    I’m the same to other bloggers, I plan to publish at 2 article a month. However, I cannot meet my plan.

    You know, during this few month I didn’t blog because I was busy with my offline business…

    I started writing this week, but I’m not sure that I can publish my post this week..

    Thanks for sharing…

    1. Kimsea, here’s the thing about writing. Most people think they have to sit down and write out an entire piece in one sitting. Sure, that’s how I do it for the most part, but sometimes what I do is pull out the smartphone, open up Evernote, then dictate into it either full on articles or portions of articles that I can complete later. We’re all creative in our own way, but I always tell people that if writing is an effort for them that blogging might not be for them.

  11. Good research Mitch Sir, but I don’t think so, writing more contents can increase traffic, because I am writing more than 4-6 posts per week but no luck. Still I am getting only 10-30 visits per day. I am trying hard to cover all that things which you told in previous communication.
    By the way, thank you for this post, by this article I learned something new to implement.

  12. Mitch, I’ve heard lately that old SEO is dead as far as Google is concerned. Apparently it’s more about Social media than the older SEO techniques. I’m not quite sure what that means and it pisses me off because I’m not big on social media. Apart from YouTube which apparently is perceived to be a better way to get Google’s attention???

    When starting a new blog I always start off with heaps of articles to make sure Google notices that it’s alive. I then slow down.

    As far as traffic is concerned, for me it’s commenting on other blogs that always brought in the most traffic.

    As for ranking, I still thing the more links you have to a site the higher your ranking. If your mates articles are so good perhaps more people are linking to him which is why he has a high ranking even though he has a lot less posts.

    I have a long way to catch up Mitch as Wassup only has just under 900 posts.

    1. Peter, it’s not social media as much as what they now call social sharing. In essence, getting people to share your content supposedly gets them visiting your content and then sharing with even more people. On Twitter I see some people sharing a lot of content for specific people a lot; it’s how I’m learning who some of the big time players are.

      Of course, it’s also about links, and one thing I expect to do more of this year is try to share more links of other people’s blogs and let them know about it… at least if it’s positive. lol Course I’m making my own push… that’s the post for Monday morning. 😉

  13. Cool, I’ll make sure I’ll look out for that post. As for sharing, I’ve noticed that people usually only share stuff if its funny or something. Usually serious stuff just gets ignored.

    1. Actually, I’ve been getting lots of shares lately. Hashtags are a major deal on Twitter, and many of my articles are finding an audience because of that. For some of your posts for your other blog, you should be adding (only on Twitter, not in your blog titles) #sportsbetting

    2. I find the very opposite, sure funny is shared but serious is shared just as much, if not more.

      You are not using some social media like Pinterest. More serious and valuable content is shared there over funny all day. The business/brands/people I follow post and share serious articles for sure.

      Like I said above it booms for bloggers And retailers. I wouldn’t post here twice if it didnt work so well and could be such a valuable tool. 🙂

      I go by the 80-20 rule I share 80% of others and 20% my own.

      Pinterest is where I learned how to gain 30,000+ visits a month. I found articles there that helped me. It brings 10,000+ hits a month just off two articles alone on my blog. Both are ‘serious’ articles.

      1. Oh and by the way SEO is not dead at all its just different today. 🙂 Yes social reach is a big part of it now.

        Its harder to ‘game the system’ which is a good thing.

  14. I keep forgetting to say that I always see a jump in traffic from two things :

    Commenting on blogs and increasing the output of content.

    It’s not particularly hard for me to do either, provided I decide to allocate space for it.

    But the question is what the end goal is and that is how I figure out whether it’s of interest to me to put the extra time in or not.

    1. Actually Jack, that’s the one thing I really didn’t do much of. Most of the time when I leave blog comments I highlight this blog, which is probably why it ranks better. I need to remember to mix it up sometimes.

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