How to Get 1,000+ Website Hits Overnight

My last blog post talked about passing through the O'Hare Hilton on a visit to my brother-in-law last Friday, how it always reminds me of O.J. Simpson, and the irony of all of this happening on Halloween weekend – spooky!

After posting that blog entry, I did what I always do.  I put a Facebook status update out saying the latest blog was up, and then went to Twitter (JonSayAuthor) and tweeted that the blog was up.  In fact, here is my exact tweet:

I had a different kind of spooky start (re: O.J. Simpson!) to the Halloween weekend. Check it out in today's blog… http://jonsay.com

Prior to this post, the website was having a slow-ish week with 902 hits.  The site had been averaging closer to 1,400 per week recently, and as it was already Friday, I figured this week would fall a bit short of that.  What I didn't count on was this:  I included the magical words "O.J. Simpson" in my tweet.

I tweeted this late Friday afternoon.  On Saturday morning, I checked the website stats and the number of hits for the week had rocketed to 2,215.  That's right – 2,215!  That means that overnight, jonsay.com received 1,313 hits; an average week's worth of activity in about 12 hours!

OK, why do you suppose that happened?  My guess is the keyword "O.J. Simpson" triggered a bunch of people to check out the post.  I have no other explanation.  Further, I only have about 60 followers on Twitter, so all the hits didn't come from those folks!  Who knows?  Maybe there are search engines out there programmed to find "O.J. Simpson" references and the hits came from those people.

Let's not even talk about how eerie it is that the number of overnight hits was 1313.  (Key spooky music…)

So my advice to you, if you write a blog or have a website that you want people to visit, is to include "O.J. Simpson" somewhere on the site and see what happens.  If that is what drove the activity on my site, I remain astonished at the buzz O.J. is still creating among the masses.  Amazing.

Now that it's November, I'm back to creating the site dedicated to Flesh Wound.  I finished the Q&A with Faye that will be part of her page on the site, and I have to say it was a pleasure talking with her again.    Next up is Max' Q&A, and finding a suitable photo to use on his page.  But I've got some ideas.  Then, create an email address for both of them so their fans can communicate directly with them.  The site should be finished by the end of this week at the latest.

Have a great day!  Read something today that makes you wonder.  Thanks for reading! -Jon