Increase Traffic by writing about current events

This tip started out as an experiment. I was thinking that what if I write topics on the current news and events happening nowadays? What will be the effect of it to my blog? Will it scare away my regular readers or will it help me gain more readers instead?

Instead of pondering on these questions, I tried to answer my own question by doing an experiment. I read on the newspaper and watched television to know what the current events are. I picked one event which is UAAP Season 70 Basketball and blogged about it. I only wrote two posts about it which are DLSU’s win against ADMU and DLSU’s becomes a champion by sweeping UE.

So what are the results of this experiment?

Visitors from search engines

I gained a lot of visitors from search engines that are looking for news about “Uaap season 70“, “De La Salle University“, “Uaap champion“, “DLSU 392 vs ADMU 488 banner“, “Pocholo Villanueva” and other keywords that are related to UAAP. Visitors can be considered traffic and if you gain a lot of visitors, then you’ve gained traffic. I think it’s clear right?

However, there’s a catch to this sudden increase of visits…

Temporary Visitors

Since the topic that the visitors are looking for are just current events, there is a big chance that they won’t return to your blog after visiting it or reading the entry. This is because they just want to read the current news of today which will become history tomorrow. Do you think people will still be interested in the results of the UAAP Basketball Championship in November or even perhaps late October?

However, there is a work around for this. Since I’m lazy to tell you about it, I’ll just direct you to Karlo who has written what you should do to take advantage of the sudden surge of traffic.

Don’t rely on current events too much

Even if you think that blogging about current events can increase your traffic, do not abuse it by writing about current events all the time. Doing this will shift your blog topic from whatever it was to current events and you will drive away your regular readers. If you want to make blog posts on current events, then you should consider making a different blog for news and current events. It’s acceptable to post off topic stuffs such as current events once in a while but do not overdo it.

Conclusion: Current events will bring you temporary traffic

Indeed my traffic increased after my posts on UAAP but days after the event, my traffic went back to its usual number. I have learned that blogging on current events (provided that it is not your blog niche/topic) will give you a spike in traffic but don’t expect that it would last. It will just be a temporary solution. If you really want to increase your traffic or number of visits to your blog, learn how to turn your first time visitors to regular readers.

On my next post will be examples of current events that can bring you lots of traffic.