An Uncomplicated Life Blog: How Back To School Time Effects Blog Traffic and What To Do About It

Wednesday, September 9, 2015

How Back To School Time Effects Blog Traffic and What To Do About It

Over the past three or so weeks, everyone has returned to school, be it sending your children off to grade school, you yourself have returned to college or you're simply entering the busy months at work. When there's a big change in the schedule, the internet gets magically more quiet. I get that. But over these weeks, my blog numbers have TANKED. Back to school time has had big effects on my blog traffic!

Low blog or website traffic and what to do about it!

Anyone else with me on this seemingly lonely island?

This summer was an explosion of growth for this blog. Both in terms of social media followers, daily/monthly page views and a massive jump start in income generation from this blog. I started to feel like I had "made it" as a blogger! I was thriving off the positive energy, building business relationships, signing up for my first big-time official blog conference, kicking ass, taking names and making moves.

And then the "back to school effect" hit. On Monday, Aug 24 I opened my laptop (coming off a record setting Friday page view day) to the lowest numbers I had seen in months. I desperately texted my closest blogging friends. "Hey, are y'alls numbers down too?!" "Yes!" They reassured me. "It's because the people are going back to school and everyone is getting adjusted to their new lives."

Cool, I thought. It will bounce back next week then!

It did... a little. But then the next wave of back-to-schoolers hit. The following Monday I opened my laptop again to the saddest, lowest traffic numbers I had seen - worse than Aug. 24! Labor Day was coming up and I knew numbers would stay low. Following that, the final wave of colleges would return to school. I decided to hunker down and ride out this back to school time traffic effect and implement some strategies to save my Type A brain from going crazy!

It's really easy to get upset. You wonder if it's your content, you wonder if it's your photos, you wonder if you've run out of relatable posts to share. After many discussions with other, more "seasoned" bloggers I can assure you (as they assured me) that it's not! It's just the negative effects of back to school time! These same bloggers talked me off the ledge coached me that we'd be back to normal by the end of September, when people have adjusted to their new schedules.

Low blog or website traffic periods and what to do about it!

So what do we do during this relatively depressing time as bloggers, website owners and entrepreneurs?! Here's how I've decided to spend the few weeks until a sense of normalcy is replaced, so that I don't obsess too much about my traffic:

ONE - FOCUS ON THE POSITIVE. Did you get a comment that really made your day? Did you see growth in a particular social media channel? Did you find a new blogging group to belong to? Good things ARE happening, so focus on those when people are too busy to send traffic to your blog. Even if they're "little wins" it's worth noting and appreciating. Even if it's just one thing, take note of something positive that happened every single day.

TWO - USE THIS AS AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH. Many, many bloggers I usually read aren't even posting consistently right now, since they too have back to school effects on their OWN blogs to worry about! So I've taken a lot of time to do some outside reading. Specifically, I wanted to learn about creating a newsletter and about optimizing Google AdSense. When traffic is slow, use your time to investigate new methods of improving your site! Because web-based businesses and blogs are technology-based, there are always improvements you could make to keep up with or be an early adapter of.

THREE - SET SMART GOALS AND TAKE CHARGE. I did this last Friday, but it was all inspired by my terrible traffic numbers and wanting to do something to feel productive and like I was growing as a blogger and entrepreneur. Sharing them with your readers also holds you accountable to them! I wrote them on a post-it and put them where I can see them every day. I've already made great progress towards them and am excited to set new goals in October - even after my blog traffic (hopefully) returns.

Back to school time really does do a number on your blog or website traffic, and not in a good way! It's challenging to stay motivated and keep producing great content on your regular posting schedule. But consistency in blogging is essential, and these tips for what to do during the back to school low traffic times can help you through it!


19 comments:

  1. LOVE. Things have been so slow around here... I'm totally hoping they will perk up!

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  2. I am sooooo glad to hear I'm not the only one! My traffic dropped quite a bit when school started. I had a feeling that it was just a season and would pass, but it still sucks to see my traffic be several hundred hits less than my typical days before. Your ideas for getting through it are so good! I'm going to start working on growing and improving during this slow time.

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  3. I saw this post and HAD to read. It helps to hear what other bloggers are going through. I, too, recently added Google AdSense to my site and updated my newsletter, along with last week being my very first week to 1) sell and ad, 2) gain a sponsor 3) set up a sponsored post so it IS focusing on the positive and not always the number. It can be so hard no to get caught up in the hamster wheel of chasing numbers though! Thank you for the post! :)

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  4. Glad to hear you were able to look on the positive side!! I honestly didn't think about it until I realized that my own schedule had changed so of course others were dealing with the same things that you mentioned above! xo, Biana -BlovedBoston

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  5. Great post, so helpful. To be honest, I didn't even notice. My traffic is small to begin with. I probably should start paying more attention to it.

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  6. great post and tips girl!
    like you said - it's so easy to get upset about page numbers, so honestly i try not to check anymore! i get a bit obsessive and then stress, and that's not what i want to be about lol so i just try to ignore it all.
    hopefully it gets back to normal for you soon!

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  7. I hadn't thought about this but makes total sense. Everyone's adjusting to the changes that late Aug/Sept bring. I love your tips girl. Can't stress too much about things that are out of our control. :)

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  8. Yes! This is why I took my blogging break a couple of weeks ago. Honestly, I didn't love the drop in numbers, but I figured if it's going to happen anyway, I might as well use some of that downtime for myself. Love that you used it as an opportunity to do some research. Things like that can so easily get pushed to the backburner so it's great that you took advantage.

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  9. Girl, this just made my day! Monday {Labor Day} was my lowest day in months, and after the Summer I had {very similar to yours it seems} I was so down on myself! Thank you for writing this post and making it easier to deal with!!

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  10. July was hopping, August, almost half of that...

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  11. Okay, I literally cried the other day because my traffic is lower than it was months ago. It has been so discouraging. I'm glad to know it is not just me. Thank you for these wonderful tips and encouragement!

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  12. Such a great post after all our conversations! Makes me feel so much better lol. Definitely taking advantage of the down time to explore other resources SEO everything right? ;-)

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  13. I saw my big lag during the summer! July and August were painful for my blog, but the last two weeks things have really started to bounce back strong!

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  14. This is EXACTLY what I needed to read today!

    So so glad that I'm not the only one this is effecting. I was so worried it was because I don't have enough 'evergreen' content which makes me feel like I'm failing as a blogger. Thanks so much for this :)

    Dani
    http://www.DaniDearest.com

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  15. I've been so discouraged about my drop in numbers lately! I've been trying to brainstorm ideas for more evergreen content so hopefully next year I don't get hit as hard. We'll see how it goes! Thank you so much for posting this because it has made me feel a whole lot better!

    Kayla | kaylablogs.com

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  16. YES! Thank you. Sometimes I am so stumped by blog traffic and not sure if I'm doing something wrong. This is a great post!

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