Introduction
This is from my Google Analytics and one can clearly see the affects that one hit wonder postings can have on total views
I have coined different words for how different articles attract traffic. What do I mean by traffic? I mean the number of visits and page views that a post gets. One of the most important types for early bloggers is what I like to call the one hit wonder. Like a song that is a one hit wonder, these articles attract a lot of traffic in a short time period then kind of fizzle away. I have posted a few one hit wonders that received as many as 200 page views in under 2 days. After the initial 2 or 3 days, the article tends to peter away and will get the occasional organic search result but in general it doesn’t get much traffic again. For an example my post on The 5 Phases of the Online Shopping Cycle was this way, getting a lot of attention for a few days but not gets the occasional view.
How They Happen
One hit wonders don’t happen like magic. You have to give that post the equivalent of radio time. That means you have to promote the post in the right places. Forums are a great place to promote a post, just make sure that the right post is in the right forum. In general forums don’t like it when random people come in and promote their blogs. You need to be a member of that community and know the rules, such as in which areas it is ok to promote blog posts and how to do it.
Traffic alone should not be your gauge for the forums in which to promote your blog. In some heavy traffic forums your post might get buried so fast that no one will look at it, giving it a short half-life. Promoting in forums that have a lower traffic will mean your post will be at the top of the forums a longer time and have a higher chance of viewing. It is best to promote in both kinds of blogs and hope for the best.
Another way a one hit wonder can happen is if someone else promotes one of your blogs. I had huge traffic to my post on Folksy because the artist I featured in the post tweeted it and promoted it in a few forums. I honestly thought that post it would get OK traffic but nothing great. When I awoke the next morning and saw 8 comments awaiting approval my eyes bulged out of my head. However, don’t depend on other people to promote your own entries. If you know you have a one hit wonder on your hands be aggressive and put it out there.
The Good and Bad
JobofPenryn, the creator of this fine bowl, is just starting to use Google Analytics to help better understand his shop and blog
Besides the ego boost, one hit wonders have some other perks. You might gain some regular followers. Because someone checks out your blog they might RSS feed your blog or at least checkout a few other posts. They might even leave a comment or link their blog to yours. In addition I have noticed that the views from a one hit wonder tend to stay on the page longer, which helps with the statistics.
Another plus is that one hit wonders sometimes get the attention of people with power. As with the Folksy post, the people who own the site actually wrote comments on my blog. That means people in the business side of the world read my stuff and it grabbed their attention.
The problem is that in the long run the amount of traffic one hit wonders get you is minor. Yes eighty page views in a few days is awesome, but some of my more steady marathon posts get me over 100 page views each month on their own. The majority of those views are from organic search results, which means the posts do the work for me. I don’t have to run around promoting them in forums or tweeting them. People search the terms and they find the information.
Conclusion
I would say that for someone starting a blog one hit wonders are really important. Since this initial traffic attracts attention to it. At the same time more steady posts are essential in order to generate good steady traffic in the long run. Even once a blog gets plenty of traffic on its own, it’s a good idea to still have the occasional one hit wonder to remind people that you are out there and to get a nice little ego boost.
