Denial, Excuses, The Truth and a Lesson

After months of consistent and really quite dramatic growth in every key measure, this blog slowed down in September. Everything still went in the right direction, but when I did my monthly update I was disappointed that the rate of growth hadn’t continued at the level I’d been enjoying. I spent a few days mulling the reasons:

The Denial

I soon realized that it had in fact been a combination of things. It was the end of the well known summer traffic slump, combined with what Darren Rowse described so well in this post about the way blog traffic can reach a plateau.

I slept better for a night, then I started to think about it again:

The Excuses

It dawned on me that during September, there had been a number of distractions. We had a few sets of friends over, I’d been doing a lot of diving, and I’d been working quite hard on our book Beyond Blogging as the deadline is approaching on that. I reflected that I needed some kind of break – I’d been working hard for so long. I couldn’t ignore my friends, could I? And the book is so important, and I can’t let my co-author Nathan Hangen down.

I relaxed for a couple of days, then I turned my mind back to the issue:

The Truth

I took my foot off the gas! For the first time since starting our blogs, I slowed down a little. Not a lot. A little. I only posted 17 times – normally I post 20-25 times a month. I was a little less “around” on Twitter, a little less helpful. I commented on fewer posts and spent a little less time in forums. I reckon I eased off by about 10% in the month, and that had a significant impact. Did I need to do it? No. I could have kept going at the same pace even with all the excuses above. I just needed to work each day 10% harder, 10% smarter or for 10% longer. I didn’t. My fault.

The Lesson

1/ There’s nothing wrong with having a rest, taking a break or easing off for a little. But don’t kid yourself, don’t deny it and don’t make excuses.

2/ Just as your blog metrics can grow exponentially with hard work, even a small “relaxation” can have a much bigger effect than you’d expect on the numbers.

Images: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Have you experienced this?