Strike While the Iron's Hot

I’ve been in the business of publishing content on the internet for a few years.   In that time, I’ve been lucky enough to receive some big peaks of traffic, usually from larger sites linking to mine.   Depending on the source of this traffic, be it digg or a larger blog, you will usually see a slight up turn in subscriber numbers.   To give an example, this blog has now been featured a number of times in the Problogger 31 Days to a Better Blog project.   Each time I get featured, traffic spikes by about 10%.   Curiously, subscribers have gone up by around 20% (welcome!).   I’ve covered reducing bounce rates previously, but what about the subscribers?   Typically these traffic spikes result in subscribers that leave shortly after subscribing.   This is certainly the case with digg visitors.

The best way to counter this drop off is to strike while the iron’s hot.   To do this, you need to have a great post ready and waiting to be published shortly after the surge in traffic.   Typically, the following day will work best.   This simple act reaffirms the subscribers choice to subscribe, and will typically earn you a stay of execution while you get your content together.   The secret to this is having the content ready to go.   Personally, at any one time I have at least five draft posts partially written.   Some may take a few minutes work to publish, some a few hours.   The important thing is, they exist.   An important point to note is, don’t struggle to come up with something just for the sake of it.   A bad post at this stage is likely to seal the deal for those on the fence.   So make sure you’ve got some good content raring to go!

If you enjoyed this post, which not check out How to Scientifically Identify Content that’s Perfect for your Blog, 5 Resources to make YOU a Better Blogger and 5 ways I TRIPLED my Adsense Income.