- Sites that publish 15x times per month generate 5x more traffic. It is advisable to publish frequently to your site.
This, admittedly, is hard to do when you can't find the time for it. I estimate without ANY link building, every new post of around 500 words adds about 1 visitor per day.
Reach thresholds like 60 pages and it can be a bit more. Sometimes if you focus on a key low competition term (SEMRUSH.com is a great tool for finding under 10% competition keywords), you can hit a load of traffic. But there are other factors that come into play, if you aim to get to page 1, slot 1-4 of any search term with 500+ unique monthly searches; for example: Site speed, good code with few errors or none, mobile responsive theme, low bounce rate, inbound links from relevant content sites, interlinking between posts, the length of the domain name, and probably more elements.
Problogger.com has a book that suggests ways professional bloggers keep up on this type of frequent publishing schedule: pro bloggers set days when they schedule content for the month or week(s) ahead. That way they can prepare ideas for future posts, expand them into larger posts. When you start getting comments, you can use people's questions as starting points for new articles.
Content creation and frequency of publishing is a large topic but can be narrowed down to one key step: Starting. Writing is a skill that's developed with practice : )
- How many ads are placed on the blog and how many are too much?
One way to tell would be to put your site for a review on criticue.com - ask people what they think about it. If you feel you have too many ads, you may be right. One expert in sales copywriting(a blogger himself) said banner ads don't work for him and he repeats offers within the body of his blog posts, naturally as they are needed. For example, "This problem is common. XYZ is one way to fix it. You can learn more about XYZ here, whether you are familiar with the process or not....."
It has to be appropriate and natural to the topic discussed in your article.
Links to your offer or product are best within the articles.
- How many social share buttons should it have on a blog post?
Two I think most used is Twitter and Facebook. Reddit can be another good one, depending on audience of your blog. More than that and it can look a bit cluttered.
- What thing can you do to keep your readers back?
* To retain your readers, you can write clear, picture-filled how-to articles (even the simplest tutorials). You can draw from competitors' articles and add even more resources to your own, making your how to articles better. These are simple to write because you start with number headlines. The how to article is a resource. If I forgot how to do something related to XYZ, I'll remember a site that had clear guides to XYZ....and hopefully, remember how that domain name is spelled! : )
* Better Titles to your articles and more relevant: A blog about affiliate marketing should have the words 'affiliate' in most of the article titles. A blog about cooking should focus on cooking in each of the 5 most recent articles published.
* Pictures. It's more effort but it will cause people to stop and look.
* Quality writing. If your writing skill isn't good, consider your other strengths that can be applied - perhaps you are a better manager, or you have financial resources and can hire a professional writer from a content site? Poor writing - from headlines to the actual body of a blog post - is like lava, people run.
* Great WordPress theme - a great looking, optimized site with some good articles will be memorable.
- What general layout is appealing?
It varies from person to person as design can be considered a taste, however, good designs make it possible for the visitor to quickly comprehend where they're at, how to take an action and they do not cause pausing, confusion and are not slow.
Genesis WordPress themes have a good structure: lots of breathing room for the eyes, the use of white, black readable text, easy navigation menus. There are cheaper themes that have it too, but poor coding and lack of updates is the failing of free themes. If you come across sites you enjoy using today, bookmark them as an aim for your own design.
- Any your tips that make a hobby blog successful?
Blogs need writing, and if you have an interest, read about it frequently, you'll have a fertile mind for producing quality content. Cite those sources and edit your writing very carefully not allowing spelling or grammar errors to slip by on your blog.
