On being quiet – and being busy: impact on web analytics and content strategy

You may not have noticed, but I have - I’ve been quiet, and not been adding any new posts or updates to any of my plugins. I’ve also been busy and there are never enough hours in the day. I want to set out some thoughts on how a content strategy might help or detract.

Google Analytics

One interesting Google Analytics trend that pops up when I look at my stats over a long period (try 3 years) is that these busy peaks (at work) also correlate with the downward slumps in visitor numbers. This painful reality, is very personal to me – being quiet ‘online’, is when I’ve not the time in the week to write new content. And this affects me personally.

How a content strategy should help

A content strategy could be as simple as saying ‘I will publish 5 posts each week’. There is nothing wrong with this as a statement of intent. But it’s not a quality content strategy, because pretty much every article on SEO bangs on about writing good content, publishing regularly – so your content strategy has to be publishing good quality content.

Never enough time in the week

Here’s a little story about effective blogging and a content strategy for a one person website …

First, I started out by blocking Sunday as my time to write 5 posts, collect images, links and schedule stories to publish the content via web, Twitter, facebook, Google+ … Suddenly, I found that writing 5 posts was taking 5 – 8 hours each week and I was also trying to draft stories during the week.

Now that I was spending so much time blogging, I’d just switch back to writing daily posts because I wanted 8 hours back (on the weekend) to do other things. Like have a life!

Suddenly I, just like you Dear Reader, realise that even a simple content strategy turns into a monster with an insatiable demand for your time.

And so … here is to being quiet (and also blogging effectively).

Meet the author

Damien Saunders
An experienced management consultant and business leader interested in digital transformation, product centred design and scaled agile. If I'm not writing about living with UCTD (an autoimmune disease), I'm probably listening to music, reading a book or learning more about wine.
Find our more about me.