There’s the old aphorism that nothing’s older than yesterday’s news, and one thing I’ve observed — both at this publication and a prior one I served on — is that daily web articles produce an “Eiffel Tower effect” with their traffic numbers. Once an article is published, it gets nearly all of its traffic within the first 24 hours of its release. Some residual traffic carries over to the next day, but within 100 hours, that article’s done.

There *are* exceptions to this, but it’s extremely rare. Off the top of my head the last article that pulled residual traffic numbers for a greater period of time was IrishSiren’s article on why she left Home. Granted, we also timed that article’s release for when we saw an increased level of public discourse on this topic, in order to maximize its visibility (which is something we do with our article lineup anyway — some articles, including my own, wait for weeks or even *months* before being released, just so we can send them out when the timing is right).

Two items I do want to mention: we’ve studied and proven that there’s absolutely no consistent correlation between reader comments and visitor traffic. Some of our most-read articles receive little to no commentary. And there’s absolutely no correlation between which article is in which slot during the daily release and the amount of traffic it receives.

The one direct correlation we’ve been able to prove is that there *is* a connection between the number of articles we release per day and how much overall traffic we see. When we upped the ante from one article per day to two articles per day, we saw a sustained gain in our daily visitor traffic — to the tune of a few extra thousand unique visitors per month.

This is one of the reasons why, even though it’s a stretch goal that requires growing HomeStation by several orders of magnitude, I’m so focused on one day being able to consistently turn the entire front page of the website with new content on a daily basis — because at that point we’d be pulling some truly insane numbers. And we know this because we actually *have* turned the entire front page a few times, with our April Fools Day specials, last year’s Halloween special, and our recent barrage with Issue #12 in which we released twenty articles in 36 hours. The traffic spike was farking *huge* — and according to the analytics, a lot of those new readers stuck around.

None of this, of course, is possible without the phenomenal talents of the HomeStation team; my responsibility is to provide as visible a platform for their work as I can, and absolutely everything at HSM — including these writing contests — is relentlessly geared towards that goal. One of the things that each team writer receives, at the end of the year, is a report of how many visitors read their articles, because it’s very important that each writer knows that by contributing to HSM, their work is being read by thousands — in some cases, tens of thousands — of people, including several major Home developers.

(I believe Burbie holds the 2011 record for most number of readers per team writer. Will be curious to see how 2012 shapes up…)

I know this is a long-winded answer (ha! what’s new), but it’s important to convey just how *much* process and meticulous study goes into this stuff. Something as seemingly innocuous as what time of day we choose to publish is carefully scrutinized and examined for maximum impact. And I do want to point out that Terra, ever since she took over as HSM’s Managing Editor, has actually *improved* on our metrics by modifying certain key elements of our business plan. In resort development, I’ve hired and fired managers with substantial salaries who don’t get scrutinized as much as she does — because HSM is a labor of love with a damn talented team, and we who serve them as editors *must* do right by them — and she’s more than proven herself capable of steering the ship (which is quite important to me, because HomeStation was never designed to be The Norse Show, and a properly structured publication with correctly-implemented production processes should run like clockwork).

It’s all this stuff that happens behind the scenes, which the reader and even the team doesn’t see, that makes a difference. I’m a huge devotee of Bill Walsh’s “West Coast Offense” concept, which places emphasis on finesse and coordinated teamwork over raw individual power, because everyone can take confidence and strength from the measurable results of the *process,* making superstars out of those involved. It does require a high level of trust from the team, because the editors and I are entrusted with making their work shine (and there are times when I can be a royal pain in the ass when pushing for quality improvements), but in every case I don’t ask the team to do anything I wouldn’t do myself, and they are always rewarded with results that can be measured and duplicated.

So now then: with all of that preamble in place for context, let’s talk contest views per article. One thing we’ve been able to see — repeatedly — is that it doesn’t make any difference whether an article runs early in the contest or late in the contest; the numbers are remarkably homogenized. In more than one prior instance, some prize winners have literally been determined by a single unique visitor, between articles that are published days (or even weeks) apart. It’s that close.

This is one of the reasons we keep emphasizing that it’s best, when someone’s article appears in HSM, to immediately spread the word to your friends. Sure, the magazine benefits from picking up new readers, but it’s also an important step when the margins for victory (and thus a prize like a $20 PSN card) are so narrow.

The one concession we do make, in terms of timetable, is that we don’t announce the winners until a few days have passed after the contest period has ended. That way, we know that the last articles in were given exactly the same opportunity. We’ve even gone back, months later, to double-check the results of prior contests, to see if a longer window would’ve made a difference in prize winners — and, so far, we’re happy to report it would’ve made no difference at all. Had it, we would have been forced to change our contest processes.

The only other tidbit I can offer which seems to boost visitor numbers: writing about hot new game releases tends to pull more search engine traffic, whereas writing about “evergreen” social issues in Home tends to extend the shelf life of an article and its residual traffic numbers. Regardless of tactics to maximize traffic, though, the overwhelming truth of HSM’s golden rule of writing remains: the articles that perform best are the ones in which the author writes more about how the subject of the article made them *feel,* rather than the subject itself.

It’s sort of like the difference between reading a car review on Edmunds and then reading the same car review by Jeremy Clarkson. The former is a quick and straightforward info dump, whereas the latter is an entertaining and highly re-readable romp full of emotions.

Anyway, sorry for the length of the reply, but it was a golden opportunity to shed some light on the meticulous planning and processes that go into every aspect of HomeStation — it’s not a shoot-from-the-hip fan blog — and hopefully it demonstrates that we really do lay things out as carefully as possible to make sure that everyone who chooses to write something for HSM is given every opportunity to shine.

We’ll also strike it from contest consideration, per your request. It’s still a good read, though. Thanks for submitting it!

(By the way, if you need any guidance with navigating the site tools that contributor accounts have, there’s a “Help” tab up at the top of the website which provides very thorough assistance. We can also answer questions as needed to provide further help.)

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