Something going on here at the end of June. Throughout the month visitors have bobbled around a normal pattern. Until last week there is no indication of a growing number of readers finding RCB and more disturbing a drop in returning readers. It is easy to conclude what this means but harder to develop an action plan. Clearly I don’t have a growing group of dedicated readers who are driven to return and get the latest post. I don’t have a well defined target audience. I don’t build my content around a proven set of popular keywords. This month, the plan is to re-examine my niche market and develop those keywords. My judgment is that I didn’t do my homework when I started the blog and without that foundation, my efforts will continue to be ineffective. I have been doing marketing using Twitter which I think is the reason for the increased numbers at the end of June. Increasing numbers, however, won’t make me successful so long as I don’t gain returning readers. In fact in June I lost returning readers. So the mission for July is to start producing and revising targeted content for my niche around a set of new keywords. Hang on.
Then, of course, as I keep being reminded, I need to learn how to write.
You write fairly well, in my opinion, at least technically. Maybe you could book Kelly for a Red Shoe session?
It is on my list but I am engaging a VA to help me work over the keywords appropriate to my target market. I know that this is a serious problem and a barrier to attracting more readers. There is only so much time.
Have you tried finding heavily searched keywords for your potential topics with the Google AdWords keyword tool? That’s a fairly easy way to check how many global searches were done for certain words or phrases in the last month, and you might be able to adjust yours as necessary when you read what people were actually searching for.
Steve Scott Site’s last Blog Post ..The Secrets to Long-Term Blogging Success Part 11
I have been bad about doing this research. I just hired a VA to help me with the technical aspects and keep me moving about doing the work I don’t like to do. Thanks for the suggestion. It is definitely a good one.