Traffic Troubleshooting

My observation over the last 4 years of blogging is in general traffic across all 6 of my blogs show monthly increases.  I'm stressing monthly because I think it is normal to see daily fluctuations in traffic.  One of the consistent patterns I've noticed is Thursdays are always my slow traffic days.  At any rate if comparing monthly traffic and I notice a medium to large dip in traffic it's time to do a bit of troubleshooting.  Here's a few things I look for that may explain a dip in traffic that are easily correctable:

• regular content - Did I post daily or at minimum weekly?  If yes, great.  If no, increase posting.
• pinging - Did I ping daily after each posts?  If yes, great.  If no, what the heck was I thinking - get pinging!
• comments - Were comments left on my blogs that I didn't respond to?  If no, great.  If yes, get my but in gear and respond.  Did I leave comments on other blogs?  If yes, great.  If no, get leaving comments.
• forums - Did I participate in at least one forum daily?  If yes, great.  If no, start participating more.
• sig file - Did I include a sig file to at least one of my blogs each time I sent an email?  If yes, great.  If no, set up an auto sig file to be modified as required.
• advertising networks - Did I reduce advertising or change the way I do advertising?  In click based advertising networks it is common to see traffic drop of if you quit clicking.  The only three choices here are buck it up and work on other forms of generating traffic or go back to clicking or pay more for advertising

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