Across the world, users flock online to view, share and talk about big things that matter to them. From Royal Weddings to World Cups, when big events come around, they make waves online. Spotting and predicting these spikes in web traffic can give you an opportunity to grow your web business, capitalizing on the increase of users online by drawing them to your content.
Recent events and the spikes they created:
- The 2012 Olympics website received 431 million online visits1
- The Royal Wedding was tweeted about 237 times per second2
- The Cricket World Cup 2015 was searched for 323 million times3
- Searches for the Tour De France in 2015 increased by a factor of 50 during the event4
- There were 1.55m tweets using #supportyourteam during London 20125
- 90 million people filled out an NBA ‘bracket’ online in 20146
Big events that generate global interest, particularly sports events, have historically created surges in web traffic. By examining these trends, you can know when the spikes are coming and create the right content to capture that crowd.
What does this mean for AdSense publishers?
Understanding the spikes and when they might happen is invaluable information for an online content creator of any kind. If web traffic has increased due to interest around a particular event, it stands to reason that if publishers incorporate related content into their sites, you’re more likely to draw the crowds.
For example; say an AdSense publisher runs a food blog and a large sports event is trending. This publisher may choose to harness that spike and write a piece about food inspired by the host city or nation, or even focus on restaurants in the host city for those attending. Linking the site’s content to this trending event could lead to more traffic to this publisher’s site and could result in increased revenue.
By predicting and reacting to web traffic spikes, AdSense publishers can create relevant content and stand the best chance of drawing the crowds in a crowded marketplace.
To start learning from past spikes and how they could influence your upcoming content, take a look at
Google Trends.
This tool allows you look at what users are searching for on a global scale. You can select topic areas and drill down into regions for those topics, enabling you to find data relevant to your audience. Once you’ve established the kinds of spikes certain events create, you can create relevant content and harness the insights you find to predict what spikes may happen in the future.
Whatever your site’s focus, web traffic spikes can have a huge impact of your growth. Start exploring the data now and think about how your content can adapt and take advantage of these moments.
Posted by Jay Castro, AdSense Content Marketing Specialist
