This Week’s Topic: Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is that pesky statistic that tells you how many people click through to other pages on your blog after reading whatever page they landed on in the first place. Earlier this month, I wrote a bit about why bounce rate is important. Today, I wanted to take a moment to link to tons of other bloggers talking about the same topic, including many with tips on how to improve your bounce rate.

Advice from Brilliant Bloggers:

How to Reduce Your Website’s Bounce Rate by Matt Quinn

If you’ve interested in keeping people on your site longer, this post by Matt at Inc.com is a great place to start. Matt gives quite a few tips in this post, from Caleb Whitmore, CEO of Analytics Pros, but the best part of this post is that each tip ends with a “dig deeper” link – another post on the site where you can find more about making the specific tip work for you, whether you’re changing your design or improving load times.

From the post:

A site’s bounce rate is easy to track with tools like Google Analytics. Such tools can show you the bounce rates on different pages of your website, how the user came to your site (organic search, paid search, banner ad, etc.), how the bounce rate has changed over time, and other data so you can really dig into where you might have a leak.

As a rule of thumb, a 50 percent bounce rate is average. If you surpass 60 percent, you should be concerned. If you’re in excess of 80 percent, you’ve got a major problem.

After checking out the entire post, you can find Matt on Twitter @mattquinn16, and he also is a contributor to Wall Street Journal’s corporate finance blog.

The Bounce Rate Myth by Rick Allen

Most bloggers I’ve linked to in this post agree that bounce rate is important, but I think that Rick makes from really good points in this post. When it comes to metrics, nothing is truly black and white, so it’s important to understand your bounce rate and why it might be high (or low). In this post, Rick talks about how you can examine your stats more closely to really understand what’s happening on your site. This is a must-read post – don’t just blindly start to make changes on your site because another blogger says it’s a good idea! Writes Rick,

Analysts typically use bounce rate as a measure of poor quality content — or as an expression of dissatisfaction with your site. But bounce rate has a lot more to say than simply “your website stinks.” In fact, it might even say something good!

As with all web metrics, we need context to provide meaningful insights. Maybe one bounce means a visitor left because she immediately found what she was looking for or bookmarked the page to view it later. Every web metric has more than one angle.

After checking out Rick’s entire post, you can find him on Twitter @epublishmedia.

Bounce Rate: Sexiest Web Metric Ever? by Avinash Kaushik

This post is great because it gives you a really in-depth explanation of how you can track and understand your bounce rate. More importantly, with each step you take to examine your bounce rate, Avinash gives you an “action” – basically, what you can do to make your bounce rate better after looking at your stats. You can examine your site’s numbers as much as you want, but until you actually take action, nothing will change! Writes Avinash,

Start by measuring the bounce rate for your entire website. Any decent web analytics tool will give you this as soon as you log into it. You’ll understand better why your conversion rate is so low, if you have made changes over the last x amount of time then watching a trend of bounce rate is a sure way to know if the changes you are making are for the better.

Now you are ready to dive deeper.

After reading Avinash’s entire post (and hopefully taking some of the steps he recommends to improve your bounce rate), you can find him on Twitter @avinash. He is also the author of Web Analytics: An Hour A Day and blogs at Occam’s Razor.

Even More Brilliant Advice:

• 3 Ways to Reduce Bounce Rates and Increase Conversions by Gregory Ciotti (@GregoryCiotti)
• 4 Tips to Help Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate by Craig Kilgore (@ckilgs)
• 5 Killer Ways to Lower Your Bounce Rate by Abhisek Das (@Abhisek_D)
• 7 Ways to Lower Your Website’s Bounce Rate by Kelli Shaver (@kellishaver)
• 8 Proven Tips to Reduce Bounce Rate of Your Website or Blog Successfully by Rosette Summer
• 9 Ways to Keep Visitors on your Website by Voda Host (@vodahost)
• Bounce Rate: 16 Ways to Make Your Blog Sticky by Ana Hoffman (@AnaTrafficCafe)
• Bounce Rate Demystified by KissMetrics
• Creative Ways To Reduce Your Bounce Rate by Melvin Dichoso (@melvinblog)
• Data Driven: Your Bounce Rate and Time On Site are Wrong by Sam Collins (@smcllns)
• Do You Have A Super-High Bounce Rate On Your Site? by David Risley (@davidrisley)
• A High Bounce Rate is a Bad Thing. Or is it? by Jessica Xu
• How 30 seconds dropped my bounce rate by 78% by Dave Ward (@Encosia)
• How Bounce Rate Optimization Can Improve Your Search Rankings by Linda Bustos (@getelastic)
• How I Keep My Bounce Rate Under 2% by Cameron Chapman (@cameron_chapman)
• How to Increase Pageviews and Reduce Bounce Rate in WordPress by Syed Balkhi (@syedbalkhi)
• Improving Your Blogs Bounce Rate With “Best Practices” by James Johnson
• Is a High Bounce Rate Bad? by Michael Gray (@graywolf)
• The Misleading Bounce Rate Of Small And New Websites by Daniel Scocco (@danielscocco)
• Optimization for a Lower Bounce Rate by Emarketed (@emarketed)
• SEO: What’s Your Bounce Rate and Does It Matter? by Pat Marcello (@PatMarcello)
• Time On Site & Bounce Rate: Get the real numbers in Google Analytics by Brian Cray (@briancray)
• Top 5 WordPress Plugins that can Help in Decreasing the Bounce Rate on Your Blog by Satish Gandham (@TechBU)
• Two Simple Rules For Fixing High Bounce Rate Pages by Carrie Hill (@carriehill)
• What does your bounce rate tell you? by Jenika (@jenika29)
• What is Bounce Rate? by Douglas Karr (@douglaskarr)
• What is Bounce Rate? Seven easy steps to decrease the Bounce Rate of your WordPress blog or website. by MK (@coolwebdev)

Did I miss your post or a post by someone you know about Bounce Rate? Unintentional! Help me out by leaving a comment below with the link

Next Week’s Topic: Managing Forums

I’d love to include a link to your post next week – and if you head to the Brilliant Bloggers Schedule, you can see even more upcoming posts. We all have something to learn from one another, so please don’t be shy! Head to the schedule today to learn how to submit your post so I won’t miss it.

We all love those sidebars. As bloggers, they are calling to us to fill them with good stuff.

But since most people are distracted by too many shiny objects, we must be careful with our choices. Sure, we want people to subscribe to our blog or newsletter. And yes, it’s great when they click on an ad and the affiliate bucks roll in, but in realty, we also want them to read our posts, don’t we?

Here are five things to think through when making choices about your sidebar content:

1. Treat your sidebar as high-stakes real estate.

If your blog was a Monopoly game, the sidebar would be your Boardwalk. You would screen your tenants before you rented out the Boardwalk to them, wouldn’t you? Same thing with your sidebar tenants. Why would you choose to place a quote you love at the very top of your right sidebar, the spot your readers notice immediately—your prime real estate?

Think about your blog’s purpose. If monetizing your blog is a top priority, then ads and affiliate sale graphics need a highly visible spot. Or maybe your goal is to build that email list by asking people to sign up for your newsletter, in which case your signup box should be prominent. Because lots of content is competing for this small, coveted space, the solution might be to use a theme that allows you to customize your sidebars. That means that you don’t have to put the same sidebar content on every page. Putting on your marketing hat, you can figure out the best content for each page.

For instance, that Twitter and Facebook feed might work better on the sidebar of your about page. If you have a speaking page, links to purchase your books might be a good fit there. You can even get as specific as promoting a certain service or product on the sidebar of one particular blog post if you are writing on a related topic. It’s your choice.

2. Make it easy to subscribe to your blog—and offer both delivery options.

While the experts disagree on whether RSS is dying, your subscribers are still your gold mine readers.  They are the people who like your stuff so much that they want to be notified each time you publish a new post. Make it easy for them to sign up. Make sure you ask on every page of your blog.

And don’t leave anyone out. That orange RSS icon may be recognizable to your tech-capable readers but there are still people who don’t understand what that graphic is. They are the ones who will want to sign up for email delivery. So make that sidebar graphic large and impossible to ignore. Something like “Get email delivery of Bob’s blog” works well. I stay away from the word “subscribe” because some people think they will have to pay. And if you say “free,” some readers may wonder if that is just for a short time and then it will become a paid subscription.

3. Don’t confuse your readers with blog and newsletter signups too close to each other.

Keep in mind which one is more important in terms of reader signups. And, of course, if you offer both, you will want to differentiate them. (“Get content that goes beyond my blog articles. Sign up here for the BobWP newsletter.”)

Also, consider not placing them next to each other in the sidebar because that just confuses your readers. (“Which one does he want me to sign up for?) If you offer a newsletter, consider giving people the option of downloading a sample issue. Most people will not sign up for something they’ve never seen. With your blog, they usually want to read a few posts first. Same thing with your newsletter. A new visitor usually doesn’t show up, thinking, “Wow. This person is incredible. I must sign up for their newsletter, get on their list and get emails from them forever and ever.” They want to get to know and trust you first.

4. Make your social media connection buttons prominent.

When you invite people to join you on other social platforms, you are encouraging them to get to know you on a deeper level. Whether on your sidebar or elsewhere on your site, make your social media connections buttons easy to spot.

But whatever the case, sidebar or not,  make sure you are active in those platforms. I cannot tell you how many times I have had someone ask me to put them on their site because “my friend Kate has them” or “I like those shiny buttons.” There is nothing more disappointing to your reader than wanting to connect with you on Twitter, and reading your last tweet, which was 9 weeks ago, and it said,  “I just burped.”

5. Clearly display your your blog’s search tools.

There has been a lot of discussion in the blogosphere about the value of functions like search, categories and tags. Are they helpful to readers? Do blog searches give random and non-specific results? Are tag clouds passé? There are no definitive answers and bloggers need to figure out what works for them.

I can just tell you that there are some reader benefits. Categories (the big picture things you blog about) and tags (the more specific topics) help your readers get an immediate, visual sense of the subjects you discuss on your blog. In the case of tag clouds—that list of words and phrases on your sidebar—your reader knows not only what you talk about, but what you blog about most (because the bigger the word or phrase, the more frequently you have blogged about it).  And if they are interested in those posts, a click will take them there.

There are no hard and fast rules for selecting your sidebar content. It all depends on what your blog is about, what its goal is, and what you most want your readers to do when they visit.

So who is occupying the Boardwalk spot on your blog?

Do you make time for your blog?

Twitter. Facebook. Google+. LinkedIn. Pinterest. Email. Sometimes it feels that by the time I’ve checked all my social networks, I don’t have any time left to actually visit my own blog. It’s only a matter of time before I’m caught with lipstick on my collar, so to speak. I love my blog, but sometimes I feel like I’m cheating on it.

There are only so many hours in a day, and most of us suffer from shiny ball syndrome. I should really write some new posts today. Ooo, look at all those new pins. Ooo, someone sent me a funny email. Ooo, I have new messages on Facebook. Ooo….

Our blog feels stale and boring with all the interesting things to do online. And we tell ourselves that our blog will always be there, waiting for us when we get home.

But we all know that isn’t the case, don’t we? If we don’t give our blogs enough attention, one day, we’ll come home to find that the house is empty and there’s a note on the kitchen table telling us it’s over.

Now really, a blog can’t just get up and leave like a scorned lover, but if you’re “cheating” on your blog by spending more time on social media outposts, email, etc., any success you find will be short-lived and packing a suitcase before you know it. Blogs need to be nurtured, or readers won’t remember you.

A see a lot of bloggers saying, “I only write when I have something to say.” That’s great. You don’t have to have a blogging schedule to have a great blog. But if your blog isn’t in the forefront of your mind, you haven’t given importance to it and you’re not going to suddenly think of ideas. If you haven’t had anything valuable to say on  your blog for two or three weeks, why are you maintaining your blog at all? Put your blog first and you’ll probably find that the ideas start flowing.

More importantly, all the social media outposts that you love don’t actually belong to you. What would you do if Facebook suddenly disappeared? You don’t have control over whether or not your content stays live on those sites, and you certainly don’t benefit from advertising on other monetization efforts on these networks. You blog needs to be your home base and the place most important to you online. It’s cool to connect with readers elsewhere, but you want to always encourage them to interact with you most on your blog itself.

They won’t if you aren’t there. Be aware of the different between not having time and not making time. Don’t lie to yourself. If you had time today to play Words With Friends, you had time to check your blog.

If you’re guilty of being a dirty cheater, the good news is that you can rebuild your relationship with your blog. Here are a few things you can do to recommit:

• Right now, do all that maintenance work you’ve been avoiding. Update to the new WordPress. Clean up your sidebar. Add that new plugins you’ve been hearing so much about. Redo your header. All those little tasks that have been piling up in the corner aren’t going to do themselves. If you’re really short on time – hire someone to do them for you.
• Write a post at least twice a week. I can appreciate the “only blog when I have something to say” mindset, but if you don’t have something to say about your niche at least twice a week, why are you even blogging about that topic in the first place? It’s about putting your blog to the front of your mind. When you do that, rather than just wait for ideas to strike like lightening, you’ll be amazed at just how much you actually do want to write about.
• Start your day on your blog. Before you check your email, social networks, etc., check your blog comments and stats, get some writing done, and promote a link or two. Again, it’s about putting your blog in the forefront of your mind.

And don’t be afraid to let it go if your blog really isn’t that important to you. You aren’t a quitter and you certainly aren’t a failure by admitting that you just aren’t that into your blog anymore. Move on to projects you do care about instead.

Today we are particularly excited because all of those things are well underway. You can see the first round of speakers for BlogWorld New York announced on the home page here. But we have a few new important change this year. First of all you will see our lowest prices ever for content creators. If you register by February 22nd it is only $147 for bloggers, podcasters and Web TV producers. Here comes the cheesy infomercial part BUT Wait There’s More!

WE ADDED AN EXTRA DAY FOR THE BLOGGER / PODCASTER PASS!.. That’s right, 3 full days of conference content, networking and learning from the smartest content creators in the world for $147. That is half off our lowest price ever and over $300 less than our full price 2-Day pass last year.

Why did we lower the price for content creators? Because those of you who have been to  BlogWorld & New Media Expo before know this event is a dream come true for me. I was a blogger who wanted to meet my friends, peers and heroes in the blogosphere. I wanted to learn how to podcast, create and embed YouTube videos and last but certainly not least I wanted to learn how to make money with my content that I put so much passion and time into. (Little did I know the pros called that “monetization”, and as many of you know, we now have a popular Monetization track in the conference.) When I realized no event existed that covered all of these things, we created BlogWorld.

BlogWorld NY Keynote Hall

You can ask anyone who has been to the show before, read all the blog posts and tweets, watch the videos. The kind things our community says about their experiences at BlogWorld are truly humbling.  This event was built for you, and we want to share this experience with more content creators than ever. So we removed one of the biggest hurdles content creators have: the cost.

On top of that we have a couple of technical items that we are excited about. If you have attended the show in the past, you should have received an email yesterday with a unique link to the registration site. This link has all of your info from last year already populated so you don’t have to enter it all over again every year. YAY!

Lastly we are really excited about this and at the same time really mad that it took this long to make it happen:

Anyone can now log in to register with their Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or Google + ID. You don’t have to create and remember a new user password and log in. Double YAY!

You have no idea how many registration companies we went through or talked to in order to make this happen. Something all of us take for granted and that seems so simple was so hard; but now we have it, and this will make getting your pass easier than ever.

On behalf of myself, Dave, Deb, Patti, Chris, Jen W, Jen H and the rest of the team I sincerely hope you decide to come join us in New York this June 5 – 7. Old friends and new will be waiting to see you.

Sincerely,

Rick

I’m trying to figure out if a podcast is the right thing for them.

In many circumstances, people are looking to explore the podcasting space, to find out how it all works, to see how they get on with it, and have a bit of fun. There’s nothing wrong with that – one of my popular podcasts started as a few shows on my personal blog and it eventually became too big for me to not notice the traffic and “spin it out” to its own site.

But for a long time that show was just a hobby, with it’s own little corner of my website. And while I have long running shows that are nothing more than a weekly podcast posted on a basic blog, that’s a great place to start and learn the ropes. But if anyone is looking to start up a podcast with a serious goal in mind to be noticed and get coverage, I always come back to the same piece of advice.

A podcast will rarely stand alone.

And if you think about it, you would never start a new site and not have an RSS feed. You wouldn’t ignore Facebook, or Google Plus. You’d make sure to have a Twitter account. I’d argue that providing a podcast, be it audio or video, is one of those tools. It’s rare that a podcast will be the only tool you use (just as it is rare a Twitter account would be the only tool you use), but it can be an important one.

It provides a voice to your site, and a regular spot to engage directly with your readers. It allows a different type of discussion to be taken, it provides continuity and regularity if done well, and keeps your readers interested in your content. The podcast is a surgical tool, but it’s one that is easy to wield. And in my opinion there are very few circumstances where a podcast would not help improve a site.

1. You email me every post you write.

I think having your RSS feed available via email is a really great idea. Lots of people prefer reading posts that way. Personally, though, I use Twitter as my feed reader (find out how here) because emails get buried too quickly for me. When I sign up for a mailing list, I do so because I want emails from the blogger that I wouldn’t get otherwise – newsletters, announcements, discounts, etc. It’s okay to have an email RSS option (I recommend it), but make sure subscribers know what they’re getting when they sign up and, if possible, have two options – one for people who want special emails and one for people who want to receive your feed via email as well.

2. I can’t quickly find your sign-up box.

For many bloggers this isn’t a problem – their subscription form is located proudly on their sidebar, near the top of the page. However, occasionally, I find myself searching for a subscription box that doesn’t seem to exist – so I give up and go along my merry way. Later, I often find out the blogger does have a mailing list, but I had to go to a certain page or whatever to find out how to subscribe. The more time a person has to spend clicking around your site, the less likely it is they’ll actually sign up.

3. Your pop up punched me in the face.

I don’t mind pop up ads if they are done correctly. Three seconds after I get to your site is not correctly. At that point, I don’t know if I want to sign up or not. Give me a little time to read or watch your content first. Then, if you must, send me that pop up asking me to subscribe.

4. You offer me stuff I don’t want.

Offering free stuff is a great way to get people to sign up for your mailing list – but done incorrectly, it can also send people packing. For example, let’s say that I’m on your cat blog reading about my cat‘s weird behaviors, and I’m enjoying the content. You sign up form says, “Enter your email address to get a free ebook about litter box training.” Am I going to sign up? Nope. My cat is already litter box trained, thank god. The way you’ve promoted the sign up form just promotes the free gift, which people may or may not want, not your actual email like. Change the wording a bit to say, “Stay connected with emails from us and get a free litter box training ebook” or “Sign up to get a free litter box training ebook and more surprises straight to your inbox” and I’m much more likely to enter my email address. That way, you’re still hooking people who want the freebie, but you’re also making it clear that there are other benefits as well.

5. Your content just isn’t that compelling.

Of course, the number one reason I won’t sign up for your mailing list is that your blog’s content isn’t that great in the first place. Remember, every post you write could be the first post someone reads on your blog. Don’t be afraid to go back and delete content that isn’t up to par. We all have bad days, and not everything you do is going to be amazing, but if you write a real stinker, consider getting rid of it so people who come to your blog for the first time get the best impression possible. And of course, always work to improve your content. Don’t get complacent and think that what you’re putting out is good enough. We can all learn to be better!

Your turn – why don’t you sign up for mailing lists? Or why do you sign up on other sites?

• When you “pin” something, unless you you the upload option to post your own picture, users can click on your pin to go to the original source. It’s a good system – it allows as much traffic as possible back to the site of interest, no matter who pins or repins.

• There’s this tool called SkimLinks that website owners can use that will basically look at an entire site and whenever a link could be an affiliate link, but isn’t, SkimLinks automatically makes it one.

• What Pinterest has done is installed SkimLinks so that anything pinned by any user that could be an affiliate link (but the user didn’t make one) will be made into one – using Pinterest’s ID.

It’s an upsetting thought for a lot of people, but I’ve never been one to go with the crowd. I’m more than happy to allow Pinterest to make money from my pins using SkimLinks. But I feel like a disappointed parent…because I wish they would have just told me.

Beyond FTC rules they are potentially breaking by not disclosing the presence of affiliate links, I don’t think it’s fair that Pinterest doesn’t make this process clear to new users. Even worse, the process for adding your own affiliate ID is difficult. In most cases, you have to add the pin, then go back in and edit the link, and while you’re making adjustments, your pin is live with their link…and people repin stuff pretty quickly sometimes.

The other problem is that sometimes bloggers and other content creators what to post their own products. You obviously aren’t an affiliate for yourself…but Pinterest could just take it upon themselves to add their own ID to your links, so you’re doing all the pinning work but you still have to pay out a commission to the company. Bogus.

Overall, though, I’m not inherently mad about Pinterest hijacking my links and making some money with affiliate sales. In fact, I hope they keep doing it.

The company has to make money somehow, right? Take a look at the site. Right now, how is it making money for the company? The answer is…it isn’t. To be sustainable long-term, the company would probably have to start having sponsored pins (yuck), blatant sidebar ads (yuck), or membership fees (yuck). I’d rather them make use of potential affiliate links that aren’t being used anyway. It makes sense because it doesn’t change my Pinterest experience in any way, yet the company still makes money.

It’s kind of like the chubby kid in the cafeteria coming up to you and asking, “Are you going to eat that?” If you’re not, give him the other half of your sandwich. Someone might as well enjoy it rather than it getting thrown away.

But they need to disclose this. Here are the changes I’d like to see:

1. Full disclosure about SkimLinks when you sign up for the site. Not buried somewhere in the TOS…clearly stated for everyone to see.
2. An option to add your own affiliate link when you pin a product (if you want to) as you’re pinning – not having to go back after the fact and re-link the pin.
3. A dedication to warn and potentially ban users who are using affiliates without disclosure on their profile or boards.

Pinterest, I’m happy for you to make some money from me. You have an awesome platform that I love to use, and I feel good that you’re able to make a little money in exchange for me being able to continue using your cool site. Just be honest about it and give me some options to make the experience less shady. Let’s keep Pinterest awesome. That way, we can all make a little cash and enjoy the pinning experience.

Bouncy balls? Lots of smiles! Bouncy readers? Not so much...

Right now, I’m compiling links about bounce rate for Brilliant Bloggers, and it stuck me that a lot of bloggers out there might not even know what bounce rate is and why they should want a lower number. So, I’ll get to all the links and tips for creating a stickier blog tomorrow…today, I thought it might be helpful if we all talk about why this matters in the first place!

What is Bounce Rate?

Bounce rate is a number hidden in your states, usually reflected as a percentage. This is the one case when a lower number is better! Basically, a bounce rate is the percentage of people who leave your site after reading only their entry page, the page that got them to your blog in the first place. They don’t click any internal links. They don’t go to the home page. They don’t click the “read more” button. They just leave.

So, you actually want a lower bounce rate. The lower the rate, the more people are sticking around and checking out other areas of your blog, maybe even subscribing to your RSS feed or mailing list.

They Like Me…They Really Like Me!

Traffic is a great way to measure your success as a blogger, but I think sometimes the numbers can be more complex than we’d like to admit. Traffic spikes from, for example, a popular post on StumbleUpon can make your monthly totals soar. However, when you look at the bounce rate from that traffic, it tends to be very high.

It’s not that you didn’t have great content, because if you didn’t, it wouldn’t have gotten popular on StumbleUpon, but it’s more important that a person likes you, not just your blog posts. When a person is interested in you, not just your content, they want to read more, and they even want to subscribe or bookmark so they can stay connected in the future.

Readers to Consumers

Your readers consume your content, but you want them to be a consumer in another sense as well – you want them to buy your stuff, whether that’s items through affiliate links or your own products or services. People who bounce away from your site quickly don’t become consumers. The next step after becoming a consumer is becoming a brand advocate, where they actually go out and tell other people to buy from you as well…and that definitely doesn’t happen when the bounce from your site quickly!

Tricky Stats

Bounce rate is just one part of understanding your stats. I think it’s important not to have blinders on when examining numbers. Even bounce rate doesn’t alone accurately reflect what is happening on your site. Stats are tricky! But don’t ignore bounce rate, especially when you see a traffic spike. Understanding whether or not people are sticking around to check out the rest of your blog can help you create better content.

How much importance do you put in bounce rate versus raw traffic numbers? Leave a comment to tell us!

Today is not a hot summer day. I’m not in the middle of a blizzard or anything, but it’s January in Northern Virginia. The nights are cold, snow is a constant threat, and we have a bag of rock salt waiting by the door just in case it’s needed.

Now, I probably wouldn’t say no to an ice cream cone right now. I love ice cream! But it’s not the same. During the winter, ice cream is still good, but it’s just not the same. As you stroll down the street with your favorite flavor, your fingers and lips get cold and it just doesn’t have the same refreshing effect.

Blogging can be similar. Your content might not change, but it doesn’t always taste the same.

The “if you build it, they will come” idea of blogging is a romantic one, but the quality of your content isn’t the only things that plays a part in your overall success. One of the factors that few seem to talk about is timing. You’re the ice cream maker. It’s up to you to serve your customers the best treats for the season. Some customers might still want ice cream during the winter, but you should at least offer some hot chocolate too.

Timing is about two things: research and your gut.

Timing Research

Ever wonder why so many products launch on Tuesdays or why Sunday night Facebook posts seem to get a lot more attention? It’s not a coincidence. There are certain days and times of the day that are statistically better than others.

When I was younger, I worked in a butcher shop and deli (sexy, I know). At the end of every month, we’d see a dip in sales – people didn’t buy as much because they were waiting for their social security checks or government assistance. So, my bosses would put the more expensive items on sale. The way, people could afford these items – and the tended to buy more. It was a well-timed sale.

Think about why people do things online. If your target audience is under 18, they probably aren’t going to be online at 10 AM on a Tuesday – they’re going to by online when they get home from school. If your target audience is older, they’re probably going to be online after the kids go to bed. If your target audience is technologically-minded, they probably are going to be online during the day at work (at least a little), and will be especially hungry for content on Fridays when they’re anxiously waiting for the day to end and the weekend to begin.

Do a little research with your content. Test out your theories by releasing posts at different times and on different days and recording what happens. You can even set up split tests with your email lists to see when you get a higher open rate. The numbers don’t lie – and this could help you drive higher traffic number with little extra work.

Going with Your Gut

Sometimes, you have to throw research out the window. As much as it might make sense to announce your new book on a certain day or send out an affiliate email during a certain window or time during the day, don’t let your research cloud your good sense.

My birthday is in February. And I want ice cream. Normally, ice cream isn’t as good during the winter, but there’s an exception to this rule and if my friends didn’t bring out the ice cream just because it was “too cold,” I’d be very disappointed.

Going with your gut makes sense. When something is timely, release it while emotions are high, before people have the chance to cool off and stop caring about a topic. When your blog needs a pick-me-up, post sooner rather than later. When you’ve built up some anticipation for content, give the people what they want because if they have to continue to wait, they’ll loss interest. If you have a really innovative idea, post it!

Do research and follow the rules regarding the timing of your blog posts – but don’t be afraid to break those rules.

Personally, I’m still studying the best times to release new posts and when to follow the rules versus when to go with my gut and post immediately. Do you have a certain time you like to post on your blog? Do you think it matters?

Yesterday, Twitter announced that it has refined the technology enough to censor tweets in specific areas of the world.

This doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing. We all have this knee-jerk reaction to instantly hate anything that even questions our freedom of speech concepts, but before you get mad at Twitter, think about what this could mean for us as content creators and social media users.

Misplaced Anger

I think it’s important to start by understanding that Twitter isn’t going to just start wiping out your tweets willy-nilly. What they’re talking about is being able to block tweets on a country-by-country basis in order to comply with that country’s laws. Currently, Twitter already does censor some tweets that break United States laws – in most cases, that boils down to removing tweets that contain links to child pornography sites.

Some countries have very strict laws about what you can and cannot say publicly. Freedom of speech is not a world-wide civil liberty, unfortunately. Twitter isn’t creating these laws; governments are. I think public anger is a bit misplaced. We should be angry that governments are censoring their people, not angry that Twitter is abiding by these laws.

Some Access is Better than No Access

I won’t argue that censorship is a good thing, but I will argue that Twitter’s new ability to censor on a country-by-country basis is a good thing. Let’s use China as an example, since this is a country where Twitter is currently blocked. If Twitter wants to provide access in China, the company has two options:

• Censor everything any user from any country says to meet China’s policies.
• Censor some tweets in China to adhere to policies while leaving these tweets untouched in other parts of the world.

The second option is much better! Could you imagine if everything we said on Twitter was censored by the Chinese government? The third choice, of course, is to simple continue denying access to China so that no one’s tweets were censored to any follower, but I think some access is better than none at all. Even if my followers in China only were able to reader one out of every hundred tweets, that’s better than the situation now. I’d love to connect to new people, even if it was in a very small way.

Now, Twitter is unlikely to actually pursue Chinese operations at the moment, given the country’s fiasco with Google a few years ago, but this is just an extreme example of how it could work in countries with different laws. And a launch in China is certainly not out of the question.

A Commitment to Human Rights

One could argue that Twitter should not censor tweets at all, that they should simply refuse to provide services in any country with strict laws that don’t provide for freedom of speech. I argue that this approach is cutting off the nose to spite the face.

First of all, I don’t think any company that provides non-essential services is going to change the mind of a government power that restricts Internet use. Government in North Korea, for example, has shown the world that it can and will isolate its people. They don’t really given a you-know-what if their people have access to Twitter or not. So by refusing to enter these countries, Twitter isn’t really doing any good in my opinion.

Second, I believe it is important to support the people of a country. They don’t always agree with government policies. Heck, I don’t always agree with my government policies (who does?), but that doesn’t mean moving to another country is a better choice – and some people don’t have this option.

Third, this isn’t always a matter of black and white. For example, I think we can all agree here that spreading links to child pornography should not be protected under “freedom of speech,” and I’m glad Twitter removes those tweets. But from there, you can slope down to lesser and lesser “evils.” Where is the line drawn? Just because something is allowed by law in the United States doesn’t mean that other governments and cultures should have to conform to our standards. For example, pornography is illegal in many countries. Should Twitter boycott these countries the same as they boycott a country that censors tweets with negative opinions about the government?

Censorship for Positive Change?

Many major online companies, including Google, already censor their content in other countries to abide by laws, so this is nothing new. Twitter is just being extremely transparent about things, which I think is commendable. They plan to release information about who and where tweet censorship is being requested.

That could actually be a really positive thing for change in the world. It brings freedom issues to the forefront in people’s minds, both in the country being censored and in countries where people have more liberty to say whatever they want. So, censorship is bad…but Twitter’s move into countries where this is an issue could be good for raising awareness.

Not Without Problems

The concept of semi-censoring tweets is not without its problems.

Will Twitter simply listen to what a government official says, or will it allow tweets that aren’t breaking the law, even if a take-down is ordered? For example, what if the U.S. government decided to censor all the SOPA tweets earlier this month? Those tweets should be protected under the constitution, but if a take-down was ordered, would Twitter simply comply? Given the fast-paced nature of Twitter, the amount of time it would take for a tweeter to challenge something like that would make it a moot point. If tweets about SOPA were reinstated after the bill became a law, for example, it wouldn’t really matter.

And I also worry about misinformation. When someone is only seeing part of the story, ideas and facts can get dangerously warped very quickly. If someone is only see some of my tweets, they might form a very wrong opinion of me. Worse, it allows a government to have a lot of control on the message. If 99% of tweets about your leader are positive, is it because 99% of people actually like this person or because almost all negative tweets were caught and removed by censorship filters.

Thinking About Our Content Differently

I think, as content creators, we should be excited about Twitter’s plans to expand into new countries, even if tweets will be censored. It means new followers, new connections, and new readers/viewers. However, it does mean that we have to think about our content a little differently.

With Twitter’s new ability to censor tweets in specific countries, our messages aren’t going to be seen in the same way by every follower. If you want to reach this new audience, it’s important to make sure that you’re tweeting in a way that allows your messages to be seen, and that might require a little research to learn about laws in other countries.

Let’s Keep Our Eyes on Things

This new power for Twitter does not come without responsibility. Whether we realize it or not, censorship on Twitter has already been happening, but now that it is easier to wipe out tweets in specific countries, I think all of us users need to band together and just…well…keep an eye on things. It’s now much easier for a government – even the United States government – for for Twitter itself to abuse these powers. It’s up to us to ask questions and keep those in charge accountable for the decisions they make.

Here are a few more posts with information and opinions on this topic, which I’ve quickly collected with the help of one of my favorite plugins of all time, Zemanta. Weigh in with your opinion or a link to your post about the topic by leaving comment below.

• Twitter Will Censor Your Tweets If a Country Tells It To (gizmodo.com)
• Thoughts on Twitter’s Latest Move (jilliancyork.com)
• Twitter Changes The “Contours” Of Censorship With Country-By-Country Blocking (techcrunch.com)
• Twitter caves on censorship overseas (piedtype.com)
• Twitter to Censor Content in Certain Countries (mashable.com)
• Twitter Censored and DOMA (theintrepids.wordpress.com)
• This Tweet Is Available In The Following Countries: (pandodaily.com)
• Twitter will censor tweets, but will try really hard not to (gigaom.com)