Blog traffic in general, and business blog traffic in particular, is usually lower on the weekends.
You know the drill as you sneak yet another furtive peek at your blog visitor traffic reports. You fret and worry that Saturday’s readership is down and that Sunday might record even lower traffic numbers. You are not alone.
Business blogs in particular, see a huge drop in visitor numbers on weekends, as many regular blog readers access the blogs at work. Since business people check business blogs live or by way of RSS feeds on weekdays, the weekend becomes a dead air space. That translates into lower readership numbers for your carefully crafted business blogging post.
The problem for many business bloggers is to maintain reasonable traffic flows on Saturday and Sunday, so as to not lose momentum in building visitor levels. The fear is the readers who drift away on weekends might not return on their work days. That is not good for the blogger or the growth of the blog. Business bloggers want and require a continous increase in readership.
Public relations bloggers need to disseminate the company information and build rapport with the public. If no one reads the message, no matter how personalized, the word remains hidden.
Marketing blogs attempt to build brands, and to create buzz and word of mouth about new products and services. In a similar manner to public relations bloggers, marketing bloggers want to enhance their business’s reputution among existing and potential customers and clients.
Technology bloggers, legal bloggers, writing bloggers, and political bloggers face similar weekend traffic challenges. Many of their readers access blogs at work as well, leaving the weekend visitor flows rather thin indeed.
Some form of traffic builder, or at least some form of weekend visitor retention concept, needs to be implemented if weekend visitors are important to you. The visitor traffic can be at east partially maintained in many creative and innovative ways.
A contest may require an answer on a Saturday or Sunday quiz, contest, or similar device. To win the contest, the reader might have to make a weekend visit. The post might contain a secret word that might be removed at midnight on Sunday. Perhaps the prize could only be claimed on a Saturday or a Sunday. The weekend blog perusal could be done either live, or via an RSS reader. The point is to maintain, and even add on additional regular readers for your blog.
Another possibility is to run a special weekend only article series. In order to get the regular installment in a timely fashion, a Saturday or Sunday vist would be necessary. Simply run the series as a Saturday only series; or as Sunday special editions like the major newspapers.
Those bloggers who sell products on their blogs could offer weekend only specials. Surprise Saturday or Sunday sales, offering additional free bonuses, or substantially reduced weekend prices, could also work for some bloggers. Perhaps a premium could be offered as a bonus for weekend purchases.
Another idea might be to simply write extra good posts, above and beyond your usual high quality, gentle reader. Perhaps a series of special links could be used. Many linking extravaganzas are timed for Friday appearances. Perhaps experimenting with special linkings on a Saturday might attract some otherwise absent visitors.
Of course, these are only a very few, and certainly very limited number of obvious ideas. The methods and techniques for preventing that usual weekend sag in visitor numbers are limited only by your imagination.
Think of how your blog could add more visitors on Saturday and Sunday. Those readers could become some of your most loyal blog visitor traffic. In fact, some readers might prefer weekend visits to you blog over the regular week day posts you provide. All you have to do is get the visitors to arrive at your blog on Saturday and Sunday.
Everybody’s working for the weekend, says the song.
Your blog can be working for you on the the weekend too.
Wayne Hurlbert provides insigtful information about marketing, promotions, search engine optimization and public relations for websites and business blogs on the popular Blog Business World.
Check out Blog Business World for yourself.
