Where does your blog traffic come from these days?
Back in the day (circa 2004-2005), most of my blog traffic came from one of two sources: a) blogrolls and b) other blogger's posts. Nowadays, a lot of it comes from Twitter, Plurk, Friendfeed, Facebook and, yes, Google (thankfully).
What does that indicate?
- The conversation is much more distributed than it used to be. Mack Collier thinks so too.
- Blogrolls are less important that they used to be.
As to why I'm not seeing traffic from other's blog could mean that:
- The value of my content is less than it used to be.
- There are more of us talking now so less attention is paid to any one blogger. The competition for attention is higher to be sure.
- I'm not spending enough time commenting on or referencing other's blog posts myself.
Let me share with you a formula I'm starting to use:
- Read - My mother always said, "Son, God gave you two ears and one mouth." It's important that we listen more than we talk.
- Respond - Comment on other blog posts; be a participant in the conversation.
- Reference - Link to posts others have written when writing yours.
One practice I started early on was commenting on popular blogs. It was a way to: a) get the attention of the blogger, and b) drive traffic to my own site.
I've tended to do that less over the past couple of years and it's a habit I'm trying to regain. In my case, that mean reading the AdAge Power 150 blogs. In every niche there are popular blogs to which you can refer. Subscribe to their RSS feed and commit to reading them frequently.
I asked the question in the title of this post, where does your blog traffic come from. I'd like you to respond by leaving a comment.
Ning: Paul Chaney
StumbleUpon: pchaney
Most of my traffic comes from search engines - followed by other blogs - then Twitter/Facebook/Friendfeed and finally my website.
As I've gotten more active on Twitter & FriendFeed, I've definitely seen an increase in overall traffic to the blog
Posted by: Patty Hankins | July 15, 2008 at 07:28 AM
(Note: I authored a different blog than the one I linked to here...this one is new)
A lot of my traffic was coming from Twitter, Google searches and most importantly the conversations I was having off-line and via e-mail. I was adding a personal touch in my communication that ultimately led to greater traffic. Sure it seems inherent that we should be "personal" in our communications but it's a point that is forgotten all too often.
Posted by: Ricardo Bueno | July 15, 2008 at 08:38 AM
I should also mention that, from time to time, I get a lot of traffic from StumbleUpon. I should put more emphasis on encouraging the use of that application and certainly encourage other bloggers to do so as well.
One more thing, Chris Brogan created a list of 50 ways to use social media for marketing purposes, and I think it has relevance here.
Here's the link: http://www.chrisbrogan.com/50-ways-marketers-can-use-social-media-to-improve-their-marketing/
Posted by: Paul Chaney | July 15, 2008 at 09:53 AM
Now there's a site I should probably make use of. I've used Digg more than stumbleupon (I like it more).
Off to visit Chris Brogan's post...
Posted by: Ricardo Bueno | July 15, 2008 at 02:58 PM