A couple of years ago we checked a random sampling of websites to see how their traffic had changed year over year. We looked at websites with blogs and websites without, and this is what we discovered:
- Websites without blogs saw an average change in traffic of -29.75%.
- Websites with blogs saw an average increase in traffic of 33.92%.
We decided to do another check. It’s been a couple of years, after all. Things change.
This time, we compared two quarters rather than two years. Here’s what we saw:
- Websites without blogs saw a quarter over quarter change in traffic of -6.55%.
- Websites with blogs saw an average increase of 22.18%.
In both cases, we kept things simple. We sorted sites out alphabetically and chose an equal number of sites with and without blogs, starting at A. There are so many different factors and so many different metrics that we wanted to go with the simplest choice, something that would be a useful metric for pretty much any website, so we checked their sessions in Google Analytics. The sites in question were from different industries and locations, and those with blogs had different bloggers.
Both in our tally in 2016, where we checked year over year growth, and in our tally for 2018, where we compared Q1 and Q2 data, we saw a significant difference between the two groups.
Quite simply: websites with blogs saw a noticeable increase in traffic. Websites without blogs saw a noticeable decrease in traffic. The difference is smaller in the quarter-over-quarter data, but that is what we would expect with a shorter time span.
Why do blogs bring traffic?
A blog allows you to answer more questions and provide more information people are looking for. You will show up more often in search, rank for more keywords, and provide more value for your visitors.
Fresh content brings search engine spiders to your website more frequently.
New content also encourages human visitors to come back more often to read your new posts. If people visit a few times and see nothing new, they are less likely to come back.
Your blog gives you — and your visitors — something to share in social media.
If writing a blog for your company or practice is not the best use of your time, let us help. Contact us and find out how easy it is to get regular blogging started at your website.
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