Getting traffic to your blog?

Spent most of spring training wondering this exact question as we ran the marathon with a daily blog from camp. Learned a lot over the past month and a half about promoting a blog, building a blog and responding to readers' wishes with the blog. We kept track of individual visits, too, and that helped all of us learn what kind of content was driving server-crashing, record-setting traffic.

What I learned at spring training:

-- Regularity is key. The blog I do has been going for several seasons, but really catch as catch can with only a mailbag as its recurring feature and daily playoff coverage as its highlight. With a morning lineup posting, readers knew to check in there. With an afternoon blog -- about 25-30, 40 inches of notes and nuggets and stuff -- that followed and spiked the traffic for a second time each day.

-- Break news in the blog. Can be a leap of faith for a newspaper soul, but it's important. And it doesn't have to be big news, just news. Let the readers know they can come there for more than just notebook dumps. When the club announced its rotation on a Sunday we put it up in the blog first -- racing other news outlets -- and drew zany traffic numbers ... on a weekend.

-- Cover live events as they occur and then tease to in depth coverage at the paper. Had some big stars returning from injury this spring and their return was covered in the blog and published almost the moment they stepped off the field. Went back in with quotes and then the coverage in the next day's paper pushed the story forward. It allowed us to keep pace with TV and radio ... even set the pace ...

-- Complement the paper coverage, don't consume it. Has to be different content or you deny traffic to one for the benefit of the other. Maybe another to put this is amplify the paper's coverage, don't repeat it.

-- Getting promotion from your paper is essential. One thing the paper did to spur traffic was provide links on the main page and even treat the blog, at times, like a main story. It wasn't just a box on the far right side of the page that certain people clicked. The paper, to borrow a phrase from an old Wired article, pushed people toward the blog, offering several main routes to it.

-- I wish I wrote better headlines for the blog. But some names really drive the traffic. When you identify the issues or the names that attract readers, play to it when possible.

-- You'd be surprised at what draws the most traffic. I was when a blog item on a tattoo caused the system to jam a bit. You never know what will click with readers. But as we all keep track what works at our papers, what works at Deadspin, etc., we'll have a better idea. Could be tattoos. Could be trades. Probably a lot of both, right?

-- Develop something for the blog that is unique to the blog. This spring that became a minor league section that ran down the performances of the players on the back fields. There isn't room for that in the paper but there is an audience for it. The only place to get that info was the blog.

-- Reply to readers. As mentioned above, comments are a good measure of traffic at all, but if you reply to comments that brings readers back for what can become a conversation.

-- And the question I do not have a good answer for is how personal to make the blog. Does the blog benefit from a peek at the person behind it? Or are readers turned off by that, dismissing it as a vanity project? Newspaper-first, I treated the blog as notebook/article/column without length boundaries and with a looser style. It's hard not to put a little of yourself in it ... but how much? That's a topic I'd like to discuss.

Just got off a plane, killing time when I should be working on another assignment, and I saw this thread. Friends have suggested I visit here before, but I have never posted. Figured this is as good a time as any for the first go. This topic was so much of my life over the past 40 or so days that I couldn't pass up. The blog sensation is fascinating and it has become a terrific tool for our baseball coverage and our Web Site (I'm told). The above things are all lessons I learned while writing and while talking to other writers doing blogs.

Some could be specific to the audience, so take that into consideration.

I know this much is certain: Our blog could be better. That's how I seized upon this thread, looking for suggestions. It looks like a lot of newspaper are seeking ways to do that.

Thanks for letting me chime in. Anyone have some more suggestions?

dg
-30-

 

My only suggestion:

Become friendly with other bloggers you like.

I started a soccer blog a couple months ago with a couple other people, and it's amazing how fast the word has spread.
We've already gotten hits from around the world, and a lot of that has to do with other blogs linking to us for the sole reason that we are mutual fans of each other's blogs.

 

I know people loathe him, but a Bill Simmons mention will do wonders for hits.
He casually mentioned TBL in a chat during the Whitlock-leaves-ESPN fiasco, and in one hour, we received about 8,000 hits. Overall effect for the rest of the day resulted in the biggest day on the site.

There's also a 'Deadspin bounce' - if you get a link on deadspin (or gawker, or defamer, or anyone from the Denton clan), you're good for a bunch of hits.

Breaking news definitely works, too.

 

Hoops is right.

Post all the freakin' time, too. Useful stuff. If you only have one anecdote/news nugget to share on your blog a day, then do another post with a link that you think people who read your blog will like. Or a funny observation. Or, as we do often, live blogging from major events.

I can usually blog about three times a day, and it works out really well.

 

No need for the Mr. I'm still a few years shy of that, I hope.

-- Right-o on the make friends with other bloggers. The blog I do started off on sloppy footing by using a name of a popular fan blog. Should have done my homework. Switched the name and had to make peace with the blogosphere that rallied to defend its own. (The best part of that whole thing was learning the landscape of the fan blogs and recognizing some quality sites to visit.)

-- We've had hit-or-miss luck with shotgun blogging. World Series went well; others have not.

-- One thing I wonder: What is good traffic? I spent the spring asking other beat reporters ...

dg
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We increased our hits during a NASCAR race by 24 percent with our blog.

Goold is right. Regularity is key. I went to one of the race events and was stopped by a few radio guys who had been reading the blogs and updating listeners on what we were doing every day. Corporate promoted the heck out of us, too, asking us to send them everything we did and posting it on other Web sites from corporate. It was actually an awesome experience and has helped us decide to add more blogs to our site for events like Relay for Life.

I also post on a pet adoption blog about different pet situations we have in the area. I try to post once per day, but haven't seen any of our numbers for that blog yet.

 

Boring answer: It's relative. I relay the numbers to the bloggers in my shop, and it's hard to put it into a sort of context aside from growth from the previous month, especially when some aren't established. And it's equally hard to give hard-and-fast ideas of what works, aside from regularity, of course.

Blogs are a labor of love. While readers give plenty of reasons to underestimate them, an audience is usually pretty perceptive to whether the writers are embracing the blog, or whether they're doing the bare minimum that's forced upon them.

One new thing I'll offer -- One way to encourage comments is to print worthy ones in the newspaper. It's a mutual benefit -- good comments from readers help increase page views, and readers like seeing their name in the paper. If the comment is of equal quality to a letter to the editor, there's really no reason not to try it provided you have the space.

 

One key: don't repeat what is already in the paper. Expand on it. If your baseball writer does a story on the guys battling for the last roster spot, have him do a quick blog entry on he thinks the team will actually take north with them to start the season. Beat writers usually have a ton of insights/educated guesses that never see the paper because they are just that. Those are perfect for a blog.

 

We always say that we're using the blogs to enhance our stories. PDB is totally right.

 

Lure "rknil" over to your blog, sit back, and watch the hilarity ensue.

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