Advice, Blogging

Has Your Blog Stopped Growing? Do This.

by Pooja G

Why Your Blog Has Stopped Growing

It’s totally normal for your blog to occasionally see a decrease in traffic and growth. It may last a couple of days, weeks or even months. Of course, it feels horrible to experience this and you may not even know why this is happening. Don’t worry, you’re not alone. Most bloggers if not all have experienced these periods where their blogs growth just seems to slow down for no reason.

There could be a number of reasons why there was a sudden decrease in your traffic and overall growth. Sometimes, we change the smallest things about our blog like our theme or even our font and the algorithm/search engines start freaking out and you begin losing traffic. Often times, it may not even have anything to do with you. WordPress, search engines and social media algorithms change and get updated over time to stay on top of their game and this may cause a decrease in traffic as your blog may be more compatible with older versions of the algorithm compared to the new ones.

Anyway, this post is not about why your blog has stopped growing but rather how to fix it. Here are three methods that will help you get your blog back on track:

Research

When you notice a drop in traffic or followers the first thing you want to do is some research. See if WP or any of the search engines your primary traffic comes from has made changes to their system. If they have you can edit your posts accordingly and make sure they are compatible with the new changes.

Sometimes, WP may have also made changes to their sites too. For example, some themes may not load as quickly as before, some themes may not be mobile friendly anymore, some fonts may not work properly and so much more. What you want to do is go through your site on your computer and mobile phone to make sure this is not the issue. Check the loading times, how clear everything is, if the functions all work as they are supposed to etc.

You may also want to do some research on keywords while you’re at it. Keywords help bring in traffic and are often changing over time. Using currently popular keywords does wonders for growing your blog.

Interact With The Community

Don’t just post and ghost. If a reader takes their time to leave a like or a comment make sure to interact with them. Reply to their comment and if you have the time stop by their blog too and try to read a post or two of their and leave a genuine comment. Interacting with other bloggers will give you an instant boost in your traffic and following. Plus, it will make the algorithm like you which is always a good thing.

I just want to clarify that by interacting with other blogs I mean leave genuine comments not spam ones asking people to visit your blog. Those don’t work and honestly if anything that will probably just piss people off and you’ll end up decreasing your traffic and following.

Another tip with interacting is that the first 24-48 hours are crucial. That’s when the post is still fresh in your readers mind and the information is still interesting/valuable. As humans we don’t have the best attention spans and we tend to forget or lose interest in a little while. Therefore, respond in the first few hours if possible and respond at least within 48 hours.

Encourage New Traffic

It’s totally okay to write posts for yourself alone but if you want to actively grow your audience and following you need to have posts they can interact with. Ask them to leave comments about their thoughts on the topic etc. Ask them to like the post if they enjoyed it. Try to have a conversation with them in the comments section.

All this will encourage new readers as well as keep the old ones coming back because they enjoy interacting with you.

Spam

Don’t spam. It’s honestly that simple.

Don’t try to spam people with comments asking them to visit your blog, don’t try to spam the system by commenting and posting a million times a day and don’t try to spam everyone by buying likes and followers.

I would say these techniques don’t work long term but honestly they don’t even work short term. They just never work pretty much. They just piss people off, piss the system off and will probably get you eventually banned and/or blocked.

If you put out quality content that you are passionate about, become a part of the WP community and do your best you will grow over time. It may not be instantly but it will happen eventually. be patient. Wonderful things that a while to create. It took me years to get to where I am and my blog isn’t even that big compared to some of the ones out there.

Your Thoughts

Have you noticed an increase or decease in your traffic lately? How do you deal with that? What are some ways you increase your traffic? Let me know in the comments below because I would love to hear your answers or simply stop by and say hi- I have had to stop biting people for legal reasons so don’t be scared to leave a comment I don’t bite (anymore).

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76 thoughts on “Has Your Blog Stopped Growing? Do This.”

  4. Thanks for posting this. I just passed the three year mark with WP and seriously want to be writing for a living. I figured blogging was a good start. I didn’t even know that stuff about themes, etc. could become a poor match with upgraded algorithms. 🌼🌼

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  10. Well this was timely. My numbers haven’t moved in what feels like forever. I believe it may be the personal touch that i need to spend more time on. Disappointed about the biting! 🤪 That you had to stop I mean 😂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

  11. Ahh THANKS FOR THIS! I looove how you called out spammers in your diplomatic, respectful fashion! They’re genuinely so annoying! This topic might come in handy for anyone at anytime, so kudos for writing this insightful post! 👏

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  16. Great post Pooja, I’ve noticed stagnation with the amount of followers and traffic overall in past few months. However, with every post I keep my head down so to speak and continue to post weekly, informative and engaging content. I know the results with come if I post consistently and engage with viewers.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  18. Thanks Pooja. I love your posts – you say it exactly how it is! I’m still very new to blogging but the people asking me to visit their site are bugging me already! I’ve not experienced any drop in traffic yet but it’s good to know some of the reasons for it and what to do when it does happen. Thank you!

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

    1. Thanks- I like to keep it simple since I know a lot of bloggers aren’t very familiar with tech stuff myself included! Lol yeah spammers get to everyone it’s crazy. The drop usually happens an year or two after blogging. Sometimes even years after you start so you should be good for a while. If it does ever happen now you know what to do!

      Like

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  21. I’ve grown my followers this past year but more importantly (I got this from one of your posts) my engagement. It’s all through reading other peoples blogs and commenting on those I like and find interesting.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

  25. a few months ago I was consistently getting over 600 views per day; now it in the 400s. Hard for me to figure out why, but I like to blame things on others, so I’ll blame WordPress.

    Maybe if I start using Pooja as a keyword in each of my blogs, my traffic will explode 🙂

    Liked by 2 people

    Reply

    1. Yeah apparently according to the tech world there’s been a decrease in views for everyone even much bigger sites. Lol that would definitely help there are millions of Pooja’s out there who are probably Googling their name as we speak 😂😂

      Liked by 1 person

      Reply

  29. i started with my page a week ago or so and i have a few idea’s for the future but i really dont know how i’m gonna get more followers. but thank you for the tips i will try it

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply
  31. Pingback: Monthly Wrap-Up | August 2021 – Whispering Stories

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