How to Lose 40% of Your Traffic (In One Simple Step)

Let this be a cautionary tale. A tale about what happens when you don’t follow your own advice.

In the past six months, I have lost over 40% of my traffic. It was remarkably easy; much easier than increasing my traffic by 40%. I really didn’t have to do much. In fact, I did nothing at all.

And there it is.

That isn’t to say I’ve been sitting around staring at the wall for six months. On the contrary, I’ve never been busier; I just haven’t written a single blog post. Not surprisingly, that’s all it takes. I’ve preached to numerous clients over the past few years that they need to continuously produce fresh and relevant content “because that’s what search engines like and that’s how you build a following.”

Being busy is a lame excuse. What does it really mean to be too busy to stay on top of something important? Does it mean that my mind is too distracted to come up with ideas? Nope. Currently, I have 32 drafts of would-be blog posts waiting to be written. 32. I know that once I sit down and get two sentences written on just one of them, the rest will flow and I’ll have a post cranked out in no time. It’s pretty easy to make time for no time.

The fact of the matter is that once you break a routine once, it becomes incredibly easy to break it a second and third time. Before you know it, you’ve fallen far behind and you’re not sure how to pick it back up. And then that becomes your excuse. You watch your traffic steadily decline along the way, knowing fully well the reason why it’s happening, but other tasks and responsibilities continue to take priority. Stupid, really.

At some point in your life you had to burn yourself before you knew not to touch something hot. Not that I needed the proof, but I suppose this is a good case study on why you should stay on top of your blogging and content marketing. Don’t rest on your laurels and don’t make assumptions.

Staring at a blinking cursor can be daunting, but remember why it is necessary to put some words on the screen. More importantly, remember how it feels to write something you’re proud of. Lastly, try to think about how great it feels to hit that publish button, which I’m about to do for the first time in far too long.

 

David Veldt

David Veldt is a digital marketing consultant specializing in building online businesses and growing brands. He writes on a variety of topics within SEO, PPC and analytics, as well as the occasional ode to baseball.

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