Dealing With Early Popularity (and Traffic)

One of the keys to being a successful blogger is flexibility. In March of 2008, Frugal Dad had an unexpected boost in traffic thanks to an article appearing on LifeHacker.org, and subsequently on the front page of del.icio.us, a popular social bookmarking site.

Prepare for a surge in traffic before the tsunami hits. Quite honestly, yesterday’s surge in traffic came as a complete surprise. The article I wrote about square foot gardening was picked up by a fellow blogger and referenced in one her posts on the same subject. At some point it was identified as being worthy to appear on LifeHacker.com as a featured article, and 14,000 visitors later I’m sitting here in new-blogger shock. Consider only one in six blogs draws more than 500 page views a day!

It was a fun ride, and I am thankful for the opportunities to meet several new people, and pickup many new subscribers. However, I would be remiss if I didn’t mention a few things I could have done better to capitalize on the traffic.

• Have a standard “introductory” post ready to go. I scrambled to put together an introduction post welcoming the waves of new visitors, but wasn’t able to publish it until my lunch break, several hours after the initial reference from Life Hacker was published. The purpose of this introductory post is to capture the interest of some of this new traffic and attempt to pull them deeper into your blog. A link to your archives, a “best-of” section, or a popular series post is a good way to attract interest beyond the article the visitor landed on.

• Create a new campaign on Crazy Egg or Google Analytics to see where users are clicking. 10,000-hit days are uncommon for relatively new bloggers, and they provide an excellent opportunity for you to analyze what’s popular on your blog. Keep in mind that if the majority of this traffic has been referred from a social bookmarking site they may be on a stop-and-go pattern, pausing just long enough to read a few paragraphs from your article and then move on. For this reason, average page views or number of clicks per visitors may be misleading. Still, those that do click on a link on your blog will help you determine which sections of your content are most popular. This could be important down the road in terms of advertising, article promotion, etc.

• Promote subscriber options within the post. Be sure visitors know how to subscribe to your blog. A highly visible subscriber area near the top of your blog is a good start. If a particular article has drawn some extra attention make it even easier for new visitors to subscribe by placing a line near the end of your article with links to your RSS feed and/or email delivery signup page.

• Fortunately, my host held up to the traffic and I am not aware of any significant downtime. If you use Wordpress to maintain your blog, consider the wp-cache plugin to reduce the database round trips your server has to make to serve new visitors. Basically, this plug-in saves your pages in a static file which is available for a short time for new visitors. This makes your site run much more efficiently versus the normal request, database pull, code compile and display routine.

Hopefully, if you experience a wave of traffic early in your blogging journey you will now be better prepared to handle it.

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Naming Your Blog

Registering your name is not an absolute requirement to start a blog, as many free services (such as Blogger.com) will allow you to tag on to their domain. However, if you are interested in customization, advertising, or are concerned with search engine optimization, you should consider registering your own domain name. Besides, it is fun owning your own piece of real estate along the information superhighway!

When selecting a domain name, remember the “K.I.S.S.” principle – Keep It Simple! Many shorter domain names based on common themes are taken, so you may have to get creative to come up with a unique domain name. Just don’t get too creative. Something that is easily memorable for you may not be for someone looking to return to your blog. In my case, I knew I wanted to write about frugality and money, but many related URLs were taken.

I brainstormed ten names and bounced them off friends and family to see which ones were catchy, which ones were thoroughly forgettable (about half my list), and which ones were brandable – meaning I could develop an entire theme around the name. “Frugal Dad” was the winner, in large part because it was short, easy to remember, and easy to create a theme around. From my site’s name visitors instantly know the type of content they will likely find – frugality, parenting, finances, etc.

There are many options when selecting a registrar to reserve your name. I decided to go with GoDaddy.com, mostly because I was familiar with their service, and because I had a few other domains registered there from past blogging attempts. I realize there are probably cheaper alternatives, but in some instances you get what you pay for. Be sure to check ICANN’s extensive list of accredited registrars before signing up.

Register your domain for two years, instead of just the first one. Many times registrars give a price break if you select a period of two years or longer. That was the case at GoDaddy.com, so I registered Frugal Dad for two years. Also, consider an automatic renewal option to be sure your domain doesn’t get dropped and snapped up before you can re-register. Most registrars offer this service, and will automatically renew your domain and charge the credit card (or debit card) on file.

Consider private registration. I could write an entire post on whether or not you should blog anonymously, but for now I’ll just recommend private registration if you have concerns about people identifying who you are, where you live, etc. ICANN requires a name and address to register a domain name, but many proxy services will allow you to register with them and have their name listed on the public lookups. Look for “private registration” or “domain by proxy” options when registering if you are interested in this service.

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