How Will You Prevent the Summer Slide?

Summer is here and already I have noticed a drop in my traffic. It took a dive last weekend for Memorial Day but in all honesty it started dropping when the weather got warmer.

This has been standard for me since I have been blogging so I don’t worry about it too much but I would really like to prevent or at the very least lessen the drop. I am much busier in the summer months because the kids are home. This leaves me less time to read all the blogs I would like and even less time to write posts others might like to read.

With a little planning and organization you can stop the summer slide or at least lessen the fall.

1. Give and you shall receive.

You get what you give, this fact doesn’t change just because the weather is warmer, in fact it makes it harder. You have to stand out with your comments, make them count. The more blogs you comment on the more people will comment back. Try to devote an hour each day to commenting on other blogs. Of course, bloggers write less during the summer months so you can spread yourself to more blogs a little easier.

2. Write killer posts

You aren’t only competing with other blogs and websites but you are also competing with the outdoors and children home from school. Think about your readers and write articles they will find useful and entertaining. Keep them short since there isn’t much time to capture their attention. Speaking of which, make sure your titles are attention grabbers. Keep the titles short too so they don’t have to be shortened for Twitter.

3. Keep up with Facebook

Facebook is a great way to draw attention to your blog posts. If you put a ‘like’ button at the end of your post and someone ‘likes’ it then it will be displayed on their wall. This should go without saying but make sure your blog URL is displayed prominently on your Facebook page. If you are active on Facebook others will want to learn more about you and will visit your blog.

4. Stumble, Digg and Tweet

Stumble, Digg and Twitter are great ways to get instant traffic to your site. If you are Stumbled by a power Stumbler you can expect to have a nice spike in traffic in the hundreds if not thousands of hits in a very short period of time. People aren’t going to Stumble, Digg or Tweet your posts if you don’t Stumble, Digg and Tweet their posts. If you don’t have accounts for these social networks now is a great time to set them up. Most bloggers have added buttons on their posts so you can easily Stumble, Digg or Tweet their posts.

5. Join Tribal Blogs

Yeah, it’s a little self serving but the truth is the networking that is going on there is generating lots of traffic and lots of support. Having your blog in the toolbar gets you traffic in the same way Entrecard would but the people visiting are engaging and comment fiends. You can also ask for Stumbles, Tweets and Diggs and the Tribal Blog members will do you up.

These are just a few ways you can prevent the summer slide, if you have any you would like to share please leave them in the comments.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Digg loses a third of its visitors in a month: is it deadd? (guardian.co.uk)
• Does Summer=Social Media Burnout Time? (mizzinformation.com)