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Blog traffic: quality vs. quantity

Every blogger with a Sitemeter looks at how many hits they get every day and hopes for the number to be higher.

But not all hits are the same. Some are better than others.

The best type of hit is one with an unknown referrer. This usually happens if someone has bookmarked your blog, or is typing the domain name into his browser. This is a reader who actually wants to read what you have to say. This is the best type of traffic.

Check out Instapundit's Sitemeter referrals report. The vast majority of his hits come from people intentionally going to his blog. Not only does he have the highest traffic volume of any blog, but it's also the highest quality traffic.

The worst type of blog traffic is Google (and other search engine) traffic. People who find your blog through Google are probably looking for something else. They will glance at your page and think "oops, nothing I want here" and move on. They create a hit, but they are not a real reader.

For example the guy who recently found my blog using the search term Britney Spears getting fat is not going to become a regular reader. It's a wasted hit.

There really is a post on my blog about Britney Spears and whether or not she's fat. It was shameless of me. Britney Spears is one of the most heavily searched for people on the internet. Writing some posts about her is a surefire way of boosting your Google traffic. I imagine that if you started a Britney Spears Blog, you could rack up some huge Sitemeter stats. But I'm giving away the secret because I don't want to be the Britney Spears blogger.

In between Google referrals and unknown referrals there are referrals from other blogs. These are much better than Google referrals because the person coming from another blog is probably someone who reads blogs, possibly someone who has a blog himself. This type of traffic, unlike the guy searcing for world fattest booty (my Britney Spears post comes up #3 for that search, ugh!), has a chance of becoming a future reader or linking to you from his blog.

posted Tuesday, January 11, 2005