What Happens to Your Traffic When You Don’t Post for 6 Months

One of my favorite things to do is write. I love consolidating the jumble of thoughts in my head into something coherent that I can come back to whenever I want. Unfortunately, once the acquisition was announced I just stopped. I was busy, the acquisition was stressful, and I started doing a lot more writing internally on p2s (what Automattic uses to track projects).

From January through July I wrote 19 posts. And then from August through the end of the year just one. And this has had a significant impact on my traffic. I've always wanted to know how important it is to Google to consistently publish content and now I have some numbers to share. So if you're thinking about scaling back your content marketing reading on.

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The Secret to Great Writing Is to (Consistently) Write

Pingpong table

After attending LoopConf and learned all that I could about WordPress development I took the next day off and played a game of ping pong with some friends. There was the guy who's really good at hitting the ball fast so you have to play really far back, the guy who taps the ball over the net so you have to dive towards the table, the guy who's good with placement so you have to run from side to side to return the ball, and the guy who plays aggressively and smashes the ball with every opportunity. And then there was me the guy who has a very basic serve and very basic technique.

So who do you think won? Maybe the guy who was really good at placing the ball? Or the guy who hit it really fast?
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Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor

Writing Keyboard
  1. Blogging for Hippo
  2. Schedule Sales with WooCommerce
  3. The Problem with Focus
  4. Give Thanks
  5. Be Thankful for the People Who Inspire You
  6. Give Yourself Space
  7. Build Resources From Support
  8. How Hard Can Membership Be?
  9. Adding Social Media Icons to WooCommerce Product Pages
  10. How to Export WooCommerce Subscriptions
  11. Upgrade Your Contact Form With Ninja Forms
  12. Why I Write
  13. Blog Comments Policy
  14. Content Marketing Works – Even with Furnace Filters
  15. Making Email from Your Website More Reliable with Email Delivery Tools
  16. A Happiness Podcast?
  17. Podcast Compensation
  18. Wishlists Done Right
  19. Enable Free Shipping on a Per Product Basis
  20. Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor
  21. Tell Users What You're Doing
  22. 2014 Business Review
  23. Mind Your Own Business
  24. Think Different to 10x Your Business
  25. Let Projects Die
  26. Maximize Your Creative Energy
  27. Use Git Bisect to Find Bugs in Your Codebase
  28. My Personal Value of Remote Work
  29. Don't Spam Email Receipts
  30. Make Your Own Luck
  31. Cold Showers and the Power of Challenges

Today I'm doing something a bit different. I'm writing this post in actual WordPress editor. Why is that different? Because earlier this month I switched to the Hemingway editor to help me improve my writing. I write in Hemingway, Hemingway lists suggestions, I make a few changes and then copy it into WordPress. It's an extra step but the suggestions are so useful and I've already learned how I tend to write and the types of things I have to watch out for.

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Why I Write

New Girl Writing
  1. Blogging for Hippo
  2. Schedule Sales with WooCommerce
  3. The Problem with Focus
  4. Give Thanks
  5. Be Thankful for the People Who Inspire You
  6. Give Yourself Space
  7. Build Resources From Support
  8. How Hard Can Membership Be?
  9. Adding Social Media Icons to WooCommerce Product Pages
  10. How to Export WooCommerce Subscriptions
  11. Upgrade Your Contact Form With Ninja Forms
  12. Why I Write
  13. Blog Comments Policy
  14. Content Marketing Works – Even with Furnace Filters
  15. Making Email from Your Website More Reliable with Email Delivery Tools
  16. A Happiness Podcast?
  17. Podcast Compensation
  18. Wishlists Done Right
  19. Enable Free Shipping on a Per Product Basis
  20. Improve Your Writing with the Hemingway Editor
  21. Tell Users What You're Doing
  22. 2014 Business Review
  23. Mind Your Own Business
  24. Think Different to 10x Your Business
  25. Let Projects Die
  26. Maximize Your Creative Energy
  27. Use Git Bisect to Find Bugs in Your Codebase
  28. My Personal Value of Remote Work
  29. Don't Spam Email Receipts
  30. Make Your Own Luck
  31. Cold Showers and the Power of Challenges

Disclaimer: there are emotions in this post. Gasp!

I'm currently participating in a month long blogging challenge and to be honest it's a bit draining. I love challenges. They could be anything from running a marathon to writing a book but I have to feel like I'm growing or contributing to the world. I have written a few useful posts (1 & 2) that I've been meaning to write for a while but sometimes I feel like I'm posting just to post and that really bugs me.

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