Back in September of this year I wrote that Search Engines are NOT as Important As Many Believe They Are Because Search Engines are no one’s target audience: people are! My prediction for 2009 is that search engines will continue to decline in importance as more Internet users ask their Social Networks for recommendations and learn how to access online reviews and Local Search Directories.
I was just about to dig back into Google Analytics when I saw that Derek had posted his Top Ten Referring Blogs. While his blog is older and more established than this one, many will be surprised to see GrowMap coming in as the blog that sent the fourth highest amount of traffic to DerekSemmler.com.
His top referring blog is Blog Blazers: 40 Top Bloggers Share Their Secrets to Creating a High-Profile, High-Traffic and High-Profit Blog. Although this is another new blog it is dedicated to the book of the same name. I would love to see their analytics as I suspect they were able to drive so much traffic because so many bloggers and Social Media users shared it far and wide.
A bigger surprise to more will be that both FriendFeed and Twitter send more traffic to this blog than Google (showing up at third and fourth). Directly typing in the URL was first; the URL in emails I send was fifth followed by TwiTip.com, Louis Gray, StumbleUpon and TucsonSeoSolutions. The Yahoo search engine came in a distant eleventh.
Tip for all bloggers: comments left in blogs can be a significant source of traffic, especially when a particular post becomes popular at one or more Social Networking sites. The blog doesn’t have to already have major traffic or be well known as Social Networking sites can send hundreds to tens of thousands of visitors to any page that gets widely shared.
Gail Gardner
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I was promoting my website by means of traditional methods. Catalog registartion, then buying links from link exchanges in order to get higher ranking in SERP. It works. Then i tried registration in social bookmarking service BOBRDOBR. So i started to receive visitors from there. Will social media surpas search engines? The answer yes and no. In some areas yesin some areas no. Where exactly social media will be more powerful marketing tool – is topic in itself
.-= Mike´s last blog ..apartment description =-.
@Alanna Welcome. If you ever have specific questions do just ask. You don’t have to leave a link under your name because your name is already linked.
You may wish to check out CommentLuv if you aren’t already using it. That way you can display one of your last ten posts at the end of each comment.
InternetStrategist’s last blog post..Blog Traffic Up 54.87% in the Last 30 Days: Our Proven Traffic Improvement Strategy
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don’t know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Alanna
@Melbourne hotel If you don’t offer quality content it won’t matter how many search engine listings you have or how many visitors you get. Why would they stay? What would be the point?
Although without traffic it won’t matter how awesome a site it, traffic to a poor quality site will simply bounce (immediate leave without converting or even reading anything).
@Host Not if your site offers quality content that others are seeking. That is why blogging is going to be so critical to future business success.
Whoever offers the most credibility and the best answers will be widely shared and recommended. While that usually does increase their traffic from search engines too, search engines will continue to decline in importance.
Whose advice do you trust more? A listing or someone you know?
I personally think and I’m sure many would agree that search engine Traffic has undoubtedly the most amount of Potential to garner traffic to a particular website than any other way to gain traffic,but rest assured It’s the most difficult to setup seo,besides that I think Social networking websites also have Potential to bring traffic,but this will only work If the Product is really fantastic and has brought in a lot of Word of mouth promotion.
@summer Search engines are going to be less important as mainstream use of Social Networking sites increases. I highly recommend getting started on FriendFeed. It is growing quickly and as you can see by my results it can send more traffic than any other source.
@thegreatspace Great points on the other benefits of Social Networking. If you like to join active conversations check out FriendFeed.
I’ve linked this comment to my latest how to get started at FriendFeed and who to follow post.
I have found facebook, myspace, and twitter extremely helpful for traffic, but best of all, to me its like going to that bar in the snazzy neighborhood. You get to meet people, whose paths you ordinarily would never cross, and discover that you can share ideas and maybe even form some solid relationship.
Google is still my number one traffic source, with stumbleupon a close second. But I’ve been watching Twitter rise up the list a lot lately, conversations are great ways to get people moving.