5 Things All Big-Traffic Bloggers Do

I wish I could tell you that there is a magical shortcut that will guarantee that you become a better blogger, but anyone who promises you that is scamming you for page views. But just because there is no shortcut doesn't mean that there isn't a direct path, in which doing one, simple thing can improve your writing skills, help you organize your thoughts and bring you more traffic.

Lean in close, I'm going to whisper the answer:

It's reading blogs.

That's it. Just reading blogs. If you comment, even better. But just passively reading the same blogs will help you understand what they are doing to have continual content and high traffic. Here are the things you will notice if you start filling up your feed reader.

Image: blog via Shutterstock

High-traffic bloggers tend to mix up their content, balancing evergreen topics with current events. Why do they do this? For lasting Google juice coupled with traffic surges.

Evergreen topics are ones that you put up and they keep getting hits long into the future. They aren't time-sensitive -- you could run them on any day of any month. They're the things people Google for all the time: How to Make Your Own Baby Food, 5 Reasons You Need to Stop Playing Candy Crush, 10 Things You Need to Know About Hulu.

Current events are whatever is on peoples' minds today. Look at what is trending on Twitter. That is what people want to know about today. Or talk about today. Those posts tend to temporarily spike your traffic and then fizzle out after the moment is over. And that's fine: They engaged people when you needed them to engage people.

And, of course, between the evergreen posts and current events are simple, straightforward posts about the blogger. Your world, your life. Those aren't the posts that are collecting traffic, but they are the ones that let the reader into your world.

They are super important because you are a human being. And human beings are interested in other human beings. Why do you think People magazine is still going strong after 2 billion years or however long they've been in circulation? Because we love reading about people.

So let your readers know who you are, warts and all. Really, I've been spilling my neuroses online for 10 years and no one has run away screaming that I know of yet.

I'm not saying they don't bend with the social media world as it changes, but they don't hop on every trend as it passes. If they're not vloggers and they're not comfortable in front of the camera, they don't start vlogging just because every article out there promises that if you don't have video on your site that your blog is d-e-a-d.

Because if you've been around long enough, you know that blogging keeps trucking along and blogs don't die because they don't conform to the trend of the moment. Readers appreciate bloggers who remain true to themselves.

Does the Washington Post ever say, "Hey, life is really stressful, y'all, so we're just not going to print the paper for a few days"? Fine, they have a staff of many, so its production doesn't hinge on one person. But the point is that people trust the newspaper and invest their energy in the newspaper because they know the newspaper will be there day after day.

And if you read enough blogs, you realize that the big-traffic bloggers rarely take time off. If they're going on vacation, they schedule a few evergreen posts to run or throw up a picture or two from the road. If they know life is going to be busy, they plan ahead. Taking time off means that life has thrown them a curve ball, and readers can roll with unexpected curve balls if you have their overall trust.

Consistent means different things for different blogs. I post five times per week. Sometimes I only post three or four times, and sometimes I post eight times, but my usual is five times per week. People can set their watch to it. I've been keeping that up for 10 years.

Maybe your "consistent" is twice a week. Or once a week. Or 20 times per week. It's really up to you. But it's better to be consistent than it is to be prolific.

So it's not a shortcut. Reading blogs takes time. Findings ones that resonate with you, that you want to read every day takes time. Sitting down to read those blogs and see what they're doing takes time. (Because even this list will change with time. You need to keep reading and seeing what other people are doing.)

Taking time to note how different people organize the contents of their posts is well worth the effort. Maybe you'll see that all the bloggers you love write brief posts or super long posts or break up their posts with headings (like this post). Maybe you'll notice that people seem to post a lot of how-to posts on Thursday and meal-planning posts on Saturdays.

But here's the thing: Without reading blogs you'll never see these things. So go do what other big-traffic bloggers do and read. Go fill your favourite RSS feed reader and start noticing what your favourite blogs have in common.

Melissa writes Stirrup Queens and Lost and Found. Her novel about blogging is Life from Scratch.

Source: 5 Things All Big-Traffic Bloggers Do