Aim for Moderate Traffic - Too High Can be Counterproductive

Introduction

As you begin to learn basic web site development, the joy of learning might lead you in the direction of aiming for a high amount of visitor traffic. This direction is good only in the short-term, because it can introduce your Catholic blog and site to the mainstream of the Web. However, if you intend to stay more secure on the internet for the long-term, it is good to aim for a moderate amount of visitor traffic. Too high a visitor traffic for a small blog and site can lead to problems that will be counterproductive to web site development. To avoid problems that can accumulate over time, focus more on producing an amount of traffic that can assure you of a beneficial visitor traffic which you can increase moderately over time.

Create a controllable number of blog posts and web pages

High visitor traffic is obtained if we produce a lot of content-rich pages and blog posts highly optimized for the search engines. You will know that the number of your web pages are much too high, if you cannot return to all of them for editing, optimizing, or updating. If you create a number of pages and blog posts that you can easily manage and control, then you can improve the presentation of these blog posts and articles and make them more beneficial to your network. Eventually, others will see how they benefit and give a good word to their network about your site.

Some problems that may be encountered with too high an amount of visitor traffic

For a small Catholic web site, some problems that you may encounter with too high an amount of visitor traffic are:

• a lot of spam in your email inbox or email forms (if you use Gmail, Gmail is very good at controlling spam mail)
• the hacking of a section of your site, then its redirection to another web site without your knowledge and control
• passwords from uploaded blog softwares can be tampered with, especially when you cannot manage to change the passwords regularly anymore
• (for those who use AdSense in their content) some pages with AdSense can be tampered by others so that the ads do not reflect the content of the page anymore - making the Ads irrelevant to the content of the page
• the spelling of some text in your content may be played upon through hacking and prank-related activities

Solutions

The age-old wisdom of "prevention is better than cure" is also applicable to Catholic blogging and web site development. Without spending anymore on spam-blocking software and other security software, you can make your Catholic web site development productive by aiming for a moderate amount of visitor traffic. You can use Google Analytics to gauge what this moderate amount is. With a visitor traffic surge of 80%-100%, you are most likely to attract hacking and other malicious acts on the Web. But if you keep your goal for visitor traffic to a maximum of 80%, then you will have less problems. Google Analytics helps well in this measurement.

You can also regulate the surge of visitor traffic to your site by having a system of controlling the number of pages that you have indexed or not indexed in the search engines. When you make changes to your pages in this area, you can then check how Google Analytics reports the statistics on change in visitor traffic. Indexing and not indexing some of your web pages is also one measure of controlling visitor traffic to your site.

In the case of AdSense management, if you suspect that someone may have tampered with a page on your site because the ads do not reflect anymore the content of the page, then it is better to just remove the ad, and find another page where it can be productive rather than making your page appear in a "bad light".

In the case of blogging, one solution is to host your Catholic blog in another hosting service, rather than to upload a blog software in your own site's server.

To prevent spamming and hacking, just check that your email addresses are not placed in too many pages. Don't let the pages of your email forms also be indexed in the search engines. You can just make your email forms available to the internet public through a link in your text navigation or through your private social networks. Doing this can lessen counterproductive activity from the Web entering your blog, site and private social networks.

Summary and conclusions

When planning a small Catholic web site, you can produce highly optimized web pages that will introduce your site to the mainstream of the Web. These web pages will harvest for you the moderate amount of traffic you need to produce the results you want to achieve for your site and network. For additional pages that have to be added to keep the site updated for readers, you can opt for a "noindex" in the meta tag of your web page so that it does not attract traffic that can be counterproductive to your web site. You can apply this principle also to all your social network and microblogging activities. The author of "The Tipping Point", Malcolm Gladwell, says we can relate more productively in a network of at most 150 people. If we create a network of friends, contacts, and followers that go beyond this statistically researched data, the quality of your social networking might erode. You can achieve quality blogging, site development and networking, when you are able to manage and control your web site, blog(s), and social networking on the Web as a whole. Though this may require an amount of discipline, it is nevertheless worth the time and the resources spent.

Visit, search, or subscribe to this Catholic network

Discover ideas on basic and small Catholic web site development, blogging, social networking, and web applications:

• Get content ideas from Catholic news and technology updates
• Network updates: Discover ideas on blogging, web site development, social networking, and web applications
• Search Catholic Internet Mission blog for summaries of all the articles and content in the network.
• Search the network for ideas in Catholic blogging and writing Catholic articles. There is a custom search application at the main part of the page.

Published articles directory

Page 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6