How I Quadrupled my Website Traffic in 2011

My friend Ken Mueller ran a very popular blog post this year: How I Nearly Tripled My Blog Traffic. I like Ken. He has good ideas. So I’m stealing that one for this post about how my traffic increased over the past year. Thanks, Ken!

My website uses the WordPress platform and has existed since early 2010. I have owned the URL www.marijeanjaggers.com for several years, and the newer URL www.jaggerscommunications.com redirects there. I have been blogging on the site since early 2010, 10 months or so before opening my firm and making the site my official site for my business.

Here’s the year-over-year graphic displaying the traffic to the site in 2011 and 2010. 2011 is in blue.

Visits to the site actually quadrupled in 2011, as did unique visitors. Pageviews increased eight times. The site bounce rate went from an untended 68% to a very intentional 1. 96%

Why did my traffic increase so dramatically?

1. I blogged, posting at least three times a week.
2. I write about relevant topics to PR and communications and often shared insights gained as a new entrepreneur.
3. I shared my blog posts with my network on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and StumbleUpon.
4. I wrote guest posts for other sites, gaining new followers from my contribution to others’ content.
5. I paid attention to what my Analytics told me about what it is my community likes to see — and tried to offer that with some consistency.

I’m pleased with the overall results of my efforts to increase traffic in 2011 — for me, it’s not about getting massive amounts of traffic to the site — I want only to generate engagement, conversation, new relationships and to continue to provide value to existing relationships. I’m setting my goals for increased engagement in specific ways in 2012 and beginning to plan the content I will share throughout the year.

Have you taken a look at your Web traffic for the past year? What differences will you make in 2012?