How to Rev up the Success of Your WordPress Website. These were websites that started out with a unique monthly visitorship of 0 to 999 and rapidly grew traffic to somewhere between 99,000 and 500,000 Decliners -- meaning websites that saw traffic decrease significantly, by more than 50 percent during the year The data demonstrated that Rocketship sites were, and are, far and away more actively managed than Decliners -- with 164 percent more activity spanning across page-creation, post creation and content updates, as well as technical plugin and theme activation and updates. So how does your website become a Rocketship? Regularly publishing high-quality, relevant content that your readers will find engaging is a surefire key to success. When it comes to frequency, Rocketships create new posts an average of three times a week. This might have been due to Rocketships experimenting with different themes and A/B testing to see what best suited the look and feel of their sites. So, what is an acceptable loading time? Avoid alienating visitors to your WordPress website and potential customers with sluggish speeds. Rocketship sites create new pages regularly, as well as update their sites (this includes tweaks to page content, media, etc) a staggering average of 288 percent more than Decliners. Just as a good mechanic tweaks and tunes a car to improve its performance, so should WordPress users regularly maintain and update their websites to optimize for success.
WordPress is the most powerful website builder available, providing its users with a seemingly endless number of features and designs that enable you to make your site as simple or complicated as you’d like.
But, with all of these options, how do you know which combination will not only attract more visitors, but keep them coming back?
The top-performing WordPress sites, it turns out, have something in common — and it’s not their use of specific plugins. So, what is it that truly sets successful WordPress websites apart from the rest?
To find out, and shine a light on those revelations, we threw a spotlight on almost 350,000 GoDaddy-managed WordPress websites, to examine and identify what types of behavior correlated with the strongest results, as measured by traffic. In addition to page or post creation, we tracked sites, for a year, whenever their owners executed an update, including changes to content, themes, plugins and media.
Then, to hone in on what helped or hindered the success of these websites, we compared the two most distinct personalities we dubbed:
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Rocketships — meaning brand new websites that saw meteoric traffic growth during the year. These were websites that started out with a unique monthly visitorship of 0 to 999 and rapidly grew traffic to somewhere between 99,000 and 500,000
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Decliners — meaning websites that saw traffic decrease significantly, by more than 50 percent during the year
The data demonstrated that Rocketship sites were, and are, far and away more actively managed than Decliners — with 164 percent more activity spanning across page-creation, post creation and content updates, as well as technical plugin and theme activation and updates. Our research indicated that high-traffic WordPress websites were those that are cared for and nurtured by their owners on a regular basis.
So how does your website become a Rocketship? Looking at the specific factors that make for a successful Rocketship website, what should a business prioritize on the “to-do” list of website mechanics? Here are three findings and recommendations that stack the deck in your favor.
Content rules the road.
The saying goes that “Content is king,” and it’s true. Regularly publishing high-quality, relevant content that your readers will find engaging is a surefire key to success.
So, consider putting an editorial calendar in place to coordinate your efforts, and create strategic monthly themes inspired by popular keywords. Take a look at what’s topical in the news, and rising on Google Trends; see what’s timely and how you can align your products or…
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